Sound production

The sound post-production comprises several focal points, which are mostly filled by different sound specialists or working groups. In the credits of typical Hollywood blockbusters you can see them listed individually towards the end. In Germany, cinema productions are not so well staffed. Therefore, several of the following tasks are often performed by one person. This also applies to television fiction films, which are generally much smaller.

Until the early 1990s, the sound was mechanically synchronized with the film via perforated tapes

Film and audio tape were then clamped to a cutting table (film scanner above, tape head below) and processed together.

Nowadays almost all activities on the computer are carried out with the help of a digital audio workstation .

Dialogue cut / original sound cut

The original sound recorded on location from the mixer ( O-tones ) are already in the image section in synchronization set to the image. The original sound editor (Dialog Editor) then receives the sounds used in the finished cut version as individual tracks from the editing room, as well as all other sound material belonging to the film.

When shooting, a distinction is made between:

Scenes: defined by a location
Settings: Part of a scene / defined by the camera perspective
Takes: filming a take

The task of the dialog editor is now to clean up and sort the material. If sentences, words or syllables are incomprehensible or covered by background noise, he first tries to replace them with material from other takes. Here he orients himself on the sound report of the sound engineer. Each take is listed there, sorted by day of shooting, scene, shot and consecutive take number.

If the dialogue of an entire take or even a scene turns out to be unusable, it is included in the preparation of the synchronized recordings. The text is written down and, if necessary, divided into several sections to make the recording process easier.

Another task of the dialog editor is the processing of so-called “only tones” (wild tracks). Very special or even dramaturgically important noises are recorded cleanly and separately during the shoot - i.e. not while the camera is running. This way they can be put to good use later in post production.

Synchronized recording (ADR from Automated Dialog Replacement) & editing

Synchronization of original works

In original works, synchronization is used to replace the dialogue in problematic scenes (incomprehensibility of the language, background noise). In addition, the actors concerned come to a dubbing studio, where they are shown the scene, running in a loop.

First they listen to the original sound version for orientation. In another round they repeat their dialogue - as close to the original as possible. A sound engineer records the dialogues. Usually the recording is accompanied by a dialogue editor and the director so that the result can be assessed immediately.

In the subsequent cut, the dialogue editor finally tries to compensate for the actors' impurities in terms of time and to place the material absolutely "lip-synchronized". This is of enormous importance for the credibility of a dubbing scene.

Dubbing of foreign films

While in other countries (including Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands) it is not necessarily customary to edit foreign films in a language version of the national language, a. in Germany, France and Italy for everyday filming.

The requirements for complete synchronization are of course immensely higher. First of all, the entire dialogue has to be translated by a specialist. In addition, the casting and booking of voice actors creates an enormous organizational effort.

In the final mix, the dialogues, produced entirely in the studio, have to be spatially and sonically adapted to the film using room simulators and various sound processing tools. The other components such as noises, atmospheres and music are supplied by the lender of the original in the form of a so-called M&E mix (Music & Effects Mix).

The process is basically the same as for the synchronization of original works. However, the recordings are also accompanied by a so-called dubbing director, as the interpretation in the respective national language requires an independent artistic director.

Sound design (divided into atmospheres, FX, sounds, etc.)

The sound design , also called "sound design", initially deals with the acoustic design of what is shown in the picture.

Here the sound designer makes use of gigantic sound archives, but also makes his own recordings if necessary. In the further course the material is partly alienated beyond recognition by means of all available sound processing methods.

Atmospheres (Atmos) are sound recordings of certain environments (in a moving subway, on a children's playground, in a busy pedestrian zone) that are used to acoustically define the location of a scene. Sound designers often combine several “atmos” in order to convey a very specific, often rather artificial, impression of the situation.

Depending on the genre, everyday things also require elaborate editing. In the action, science fiction and fantasy genre in particular, cardboard props have to sound like boulders weighing tons or plastic swords like deadly weapons. A simple door slam should hurt the audience in the pit of the stomach, pistol shots should be perceived as real.

There are no limits to the imagination of the sound designer, the sound of a car door, which is banal in itself but dramaturgically significant, often consists of up to forty individual elements. Another large area are so-called special effects (Special FX) - explosions, monster voices, futuristic weapons, gigantic rear-end collisions or just eerie screams.

In addition to the components mentioned, there is a lot more involved in sound design.

In most films it is intended to introduce one or more additional narrative levels through the sound at certain points by telling circumstances on the acoustic level that cannot be seen in the picture. Often one wants to express the subjective feeling of a film character more intensely or simply draw the line between reality and fiction (the film character).

A well-known example:

The viewer can hear a dripping faucet and the ticking of a wall clock loud and clear, although he does not see either. This automatically creates the impression that the scene in question is extremely quiet at the moment.

So “sound design” tries to influence or manipulate the audience's feelings on an emotional level. This creates an ideally balanced interaction or interaction with the film music, whose top priority is to work on an emotional level.

Sound recordings (Foleys) & editing

See under Foley

mixture

Once all the technical and creative preparations have been carried out, all the threads come together in the final mix.

The sound mixing for a movie can only take place in a “mixed cinema” (re-recording or dubbing stage) in order to be able to assess the result. These are special studios that are almost like a cinema both in terms of the electroacoustic playback system and in terms of building acoustics measures. Mixtures for TV films do not require such specifications.

Depending on the size of the project, there may be well over a hundred individual audio tracks. In order to maintain an overview, the sound engineer carries out several premixes (stems), mixing the individual categories (dialogues, ADR, Foleys, Atmos, effects) one after the other to a compact number of tracks. In the final main mix, the music is added to the individual stems, which enables intuitive and ergonomic weighting of the individual components - both from a technical and creative point of view.

In the case of television films or even series, the effort involved is of course much less. Before the main mix, only the dialogues are premixed, refined in terms of speech intelligibility and limited in their dynamics. While an average cinema mix can take anywhere from 14 days to three months, a television mix can usually be completed in three days.

Chronologically, the mix is also at the end of the chain - with its completion the film can move into the distribution phase ( zero copy , mass copies, TV copies, etc.). That is why it is also a very critical part of a film production and requires a great deal of psychological sensitivity on the part of the executing staff, since usually all opinion leaders (director, film editor, producer, editor) want to have their say.

literature

Sunshine, David (2001); "Sound Design - The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema"; Michael Wiese Productions; ISBN 0-941-18826-4
Yewdall, David Lewis (1999); "The practical Art of Motion Picture Sound"; Focal press; ISBN 0-240-80288-8
Jörg Udo Lensing (2006): Sound Design - Sound Montage - Soundtrack Composition Media Books. 1st edition 2006