Opening for my Big Show

angevin1 · January 5, 2012

As a follow up to another thread over in Mind your own Business, I decided to follow up and post the small-ish clip from the opening Show of my opportunity this year to Exploit myself at the hands of the Big-wigs at my local University. The following is opened with a monologue, followed by a Street scene from Times Square, segueing as we end into the beginning of the Acting for Film work we accomplished.

What you see along the Square, on buildings, Marquee's, etc is video and stills of work we accomplished. Some are outtakes, some are actual, and of course plenty are just me or my own stuff, since this was my op. I also put names of folks involved wherever I could to offer thanks.

2 1/2 minutes total. New York comes in at 1:15. Please offer critque if desired. As I stated over iin the other forum, my Number two goal is to get a better handle on my audio this year. Number one always remains better imagery.

Cheers, and thanks for all~

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UYRiRUFOSZA?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>

Dan7312 · January 5, 2012

I like it. How did you get you studio's name onto the Times Square chyron?

I'm not sure I get the segue from monolog to Times Square, but each on there own are pretty good, I think.

I'm not a pro at all, but these are some of the things I hear in the recording.

There is noise underneath the monolog. It's just plain ol' noise but once your ear catches on to the noise in a quiet part of the track you can even hear it during the speech. I don't know if it would be considered an acceptable level, but to me I think it is too high.

Also the speech is sounds a bit echo-ey (I don't know the term for it), like it was recored in a not to big room with no noise dampening. It's an artifact I notice in my course video voice over recordings I make in my living room with no noise dampining. I've since added some dampinging and it help, at least to my ear.

I think I hear at

0:24 "all" distortion/clipping

0:28 speakers voice breaks, drops out... unless that's the effect you wanted.

0:32 "all" distortion/clipping

0:33 "eight" (may be speakers voice breaking) distortion/clipping

0:42 "then" distortion/clipping

0:45 "Wham" distortion/clipping

0:55-0:56 on the "th" in "this". distortion/clipping

Again I'm just telling what I hear, for whatever it is worth. I'm listening on headphones BTW.

I'm just begining to dink around with Audition and I have no sound experience at all, but it seems like the speech leveler with an aggressive noise gate would help the monolog. That's what I do for my voice over recordings and it really helps remove the noise you hear in the quiet parts. Now if I could just figure out to the eliminate the breath sounds, maybe I should just chastise the voice over talent<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Just curious how many tracks in the Times Square scene and how long did it take to render?

Dan

angevin1 wrote: »

As a follow up to another thread over in Mind your own Business, I decided to follow up and post the small-ish clip from the opening Show of my opportunity this year to Exploit myself at the hands of the Big-wigs at my local University. The following is opened with a monologue, followed by a Street scene from Times Square, segueing as we end into the beginning of the Acting for Film work we accomplished.

What you see along the Square, on buildings, Marquee's, etc is video and stills of work we accomplished. Some are outtakes, some are actual, and of course plenty are just me or my own stuff, since this was my op. I also put names of folks involved wherever I could to offer thanks.

2 1/2 minutes total. New York comes in at 1:15. Please offer critque if desired. As I stated over iin the other forum, my Number two goal is to get a better handle on my audio this year. Number one always remains better imagery.

Cheers, and thanks for all~

<IFRAME height=360 src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UYRiRUFOSZA?rel=0" frameBorder=0 width=640 allowfullscreen=""></IFRAME>

angevin1 · January 5, 2012

Dan7312 wrote: »

I like it. How did you get you studio's name onto the Times Square chyron?

I'm not sure I get the segue from monolog to Times Square, but each on there own are pretty good, I think.

I'm not a pro at all, but these are some of the things I hear in the recording.

There is noise underneath the monolog. It's just plain ol' noise but once your ear catches on to the noise in a quiet part of the track you can even hear it during the speech. I don't know if it would be considered an acceptable level, but to me I think it is too high.

Also the speech is sounds a bit echo-ey (I don't know the term for it), like it was recored in a not to big room with no noise dampening. It's an artifact I notice in my course video voice over recordings I make in my living room with no noise dampining. I've since added some dampinging and it help, at least to my ear.

I think I hear at

0:24 "all" distortion/clipping

0:28 speakers voice breaks, drops out... unless that's the effect you wanted.

0:32 "all" distortion/clipping

0:33 "eight" (may be speakers voice breaking) distortion/clipping

0:42 "then" distortion/clipping

0:45 "Wham" distortion/clipping

0:55-0:56 on the "th" in "this". distortion/clipping

Again I'm just telling what I hear, for whatever it is worth. I'm listening on headphones BTW.

I'm just begining to dink around with Audition and I have no sound experience at all, but it seems like the speech leveler with an aggressive noise gate would help the monolog. That's what I do for my voice over recordings and it really helps remove the noise you hear in the quiet parts. Now if I could just figure out to the eliminate the breath sounds, maybe I should just chastise the voice over talent

Just curious how many tracks in the Times Square scene and how long did it take to render?

Dan

Dan, I was hoping you'd chime in. I have Audition, and soundbooth before it, but cannot seem to get that darned noise underneath the Monologues and other things I record. It makes no sense to me to be using the Audio plug-in on the camera and get this noise. Funny thing about the clipping. I did notice it today, but only on the one I uploaded. I used handbrake after premiere to downsize it further. I listened to it on Headphones before Premiere and after Premiere, but I must've forgot to check it once again after handbrake. So that is prob where the clipping is coming into being. my luck!

On the Show itself. I felt that Gabrielle's Monologue was a nice one to use as an opener. Everyone in the audience was nice ready and sedate for their Monologues and then their other work, the Commercials. So I chose her's to introduce the Sequence with. Then, Bang, we go to a totally unexpected opener sequence involving Times Square with everyone's work up on Buildings and so forth. To say it went over well would be an understatement, they literally left their seats, jumped, hooped, whistled and hollered...a Wild reception...and as I ended this little clip that I shared here we began the commercials.

The Times Square piece by itself lasts, what say 1 to 1:15..I think it was 1:15. That piece took as I remember about 4 hours to render out of AE, but that was CS4 and 12 Gb of RAM. but it was heavy of course, especially with so many video's playing.

Dan7312 · January 6, 2012

The thing I've found with noise, just by experimenting... someone who actually understood audio I'm sure could do a better job... it that auto noise reduction stuff doesn't work all that well on tracks that have quiet pauses like monlogues do.

What I do in Premiere is get all my editing done, then select everything on the audio track (my stuff only has one, but it should work for multi track audio to), then do a right mouse button edit in Audition.

In Audition, and I haven't found a way to do this other than a clip at a time, is to select the audio clip, put a voice leveler in the rack for it. I use pretty much the default setting except that I turn the noise get up to 20db.

The noise gate really a special expander, anything below 20db has it's gain cranked all the way down with that setting. I'm pretty sure Soundbooth does not have a noise gate in it, at least I never found one.

If you want to send me that audio track I'll do a quick pass with the Audition settings I use and then you can see if it makes any difference.

angevin1 wrote: »

Dan, I was hoping you'd chime in. I have Audition, and soundbooth before it, but cannot seem to get that darned noise underneath the Monologues and other things I record. It makes no sense to me to be using the Audio plug-in on the camera and get this noise. Funny thing about the clipping. I did notice it today, but only on the one I uploaded. I used handbrake after premiere to downsize it further. I listened to it on Headphones before Premiere and after Premiere, but I must've forgot to check it once again after handbrake. So that is prob where the clipping is coming into being. my luck!

On the Show itself. I felt that Gabrielle's Monologue was a nice one to use as an opener. Everyone in the audience was nice ready and sedate for their Monologues and then their other work, the Commercials. So I chose her's to introduce the Sequence with. Then, Bang, we go to a totally unexpected opener sequence involving Times Square with everyone's work up on Buildings and so forth. To say it went over well would be an understatement, they literally left their seats, jumped, hooped, whistled and hollered...a Wild reception...and as I ended this little clip that I shared here we began the commercials.

The Times Square piece by itself lasts, what say 1 to 1:15..I think it was 1:15. That piece took as I remember about 4 hours to render out of AE, but that was CS4 and 12 Gb of RAM. but it was heavy of course, especially with so many video's playing.

angevin1 · January 6, 2012

PM sent, Dan~

angevin1 · January 7, 2012

More critique and comments are welcome!

DavidTO · January 7, 2012

I agree with the comments. You need to work on your audio recording, it's noisy and it has too much "room". The noise gate can help, and noise removal software (the kind that takes a "noise print" and then removes that noise) can help too, but the problem is really at the time of capture.

The transition is jarring and I don't understand why it's there. The music is too loud relative to what came before. The music is very exiting, but the cutting style and the imagery are not. The graphic segment looks cool, but the camera moves slowly, there's no cutting in it, all in all it just kind of sits there while the music is cookin'.

Music editing is another are to look at. The music just kind of peters out into the next segment, like you weren't sure what to do with it.

Overall, though, I think you're doing fantastic for where you are on your learning curve. I've been cutting professionally for 25 years now, so I can see the problems. I could fix the editorial issues, but you're already way ahead of me on the production and graphics side.

angevin1 · January 7, 2012

DavidTO wrote: »

but the problem is really at the time of capture.

Yep! In that I agree. Time of capture, just like capturing in the sensor of the Camera is key! ...unless I miss my guess, and unless someone can offer a simpl-er solution, that sounds like MONEY~Which of course I know I'm going to have to spend....just really want to ensure it is well spent. Though like I said, a part of the problem was me handbraking a file already rendered good in PP. My Internet is SOOOO slow here, I was just trying to save some time..My bust!

DavidTO wrote: »

I

The transition is jarring and I don't understand why it's there. The music is too loud relative to what came before. The music is very exiting, but the cutting style and the imagery are not. The graphic segment looks cool, but the camera moves slowly, there's no cutting in it, all in all it just kind of sits there while the music is cookin'.

The transition was created to be 'jarring', so I'm glad that's how you see it! I'll take that critique of the scene itself and camera moves and keep that in mind for the future. My justification for the way I did the scene is I wanted the camera to take time over everyones work. Remember, I had 13 supporting Cast and lots of crew in attendance at the Viewing, so I felt they'd want to be able to see there 'stuff' on the Marquee as long as possible without putting them to sleep...which of course is a major worry of mine each time I edit...how long to keep a scene, how quickly can I cut and get the idea across. In this case it was simply a matter of thinking of them. perhaps I did well here, perhaps I failed.

DavidTO wrote: »

Music editing is another are to look at. The music just kind of peters out into the next segment, like you weren't sure what to do with it.

Really? I let it (the Jarring stuff) end and went into the first commercials' music cue as we fly thru the curtains?

DavidTO wrote: »

Overall, though, I think you're doing fantastic for where you are on your learning curve. I've been cutting professionally for 25 years now, so I can see the problems. I could fix the editorial issues, but you're already way ahead of me on the production and graphics side.

Yes, I appreciate it , really. March upcoming will mark two years with the 5Dmk2, and June I think marks two years with Adobe products.

I am glad you chimed in DavidTO, I appreciate Pro's giving me the once over and the advice!

That said, I do welcome any and all commentary, from the Newbie to the old Pro! Criticism is great if only making me aware of the different ways to look at something.

Dan7312 · January 7, 2012

I think you said you were using the mic in the camera... it not too expensive to improve that. I use a simple Tascam X-Y linear PCM recorder ($125 I think). Use both the camera and recorder for the session. Start each take with clapper, I just use a couple of pices of word I had lying around.

Put both tracks in premere. I really easy to sync up the the recorder track with the camera one. Once you have sync'd them disable the camera track.

When I got the recorder I got the cheapest one that seem to have some level of quality. With 20-20 hindsight I would get one that had balanced XLR inputs and get a separate mic'. It wouldn't have to be super high quality but there are good mic's in the $100-$200 range.

I am using a separate mic' now but it is through the unbalanced which gives a higher noise level than the balanced input would. The reason I'm using the separate mic isn't quality, that little recored is amazingly good. It just that in order to set things up so I can both be the speaker and control the recorder you have to see the controls and screen on the recorder and you can't do that when the mic's are aimed at you.

angevin1 wrote: »

Yep! In that I agree. Time of capture, just like capturing in the sensor of the Camera is key! ...unless I miss my guess, and unless someone can offer a simpl-er solution, that sounds like MONEY~Which of course I know I'm going to have to spend....just really want to ensure it is well spent. Though like I said, a part of the problem was me handbraking a file already rendered good in PP. My Internet is SOOOO slow here, I was just trying to save some time..My bust!

angevin1 · January 7, 2012

Great info as usual Dan! I recently bought a dual lavalier mic set and have yet to use them. I do use the On-board microphone but for the life of me, I cannot figure out why it would give me line noise. It's a $200 Sennheiser, I love Sennheiser and of course they're known for their microphones too. But something in the Camera has to be creating this line noise. I have seen and even bought a nice Tascam this year to give as a gift to my Guitarist Child. In truth I see lots of solutions out there that I can afford, but my problem comes in where I have to locate gear and I REALLLLLLYYY need to be mobile as well. The Lavalier system will allow that, so maybe I'll take it with me tomorrow as I collect more footage for a Doc I'm working on.

I should also take time to thank you for taking as much time as you have to explain your thoughts regarding your sound. It is much appreciated!

Dan7312 · January 7, 2012

A lot of the mic's in cameras have automatic volume control. The idea is you don't have someone sitting at a control panel constantly adjusting the level. To the camera tries to automat that. Mostly though the automatic volume control just isn't that good as tends to the level when a quiet part hits and ends up upping the level of the noise in the mic and preamp.

I'll be interested to hear how you lavier mic's work out. When I looked at them for my course stuff they seemed a bit noise, but I didn't look at high end ones. How are you recording them?

DavidTO · January 7, 2012

Get a digital recorder, like the Zoom H4n or H2.

Dan7312 · January 7, 2012

Knowning what I know now the H4n is the recorder I would have gotten... it has the XLR input, I don't think the H2 does.

DavidTO wrote: »

Get a digital recorder, like the Zoom H4n or H2.

DavidTO · January 7, 2012

Dan7312 wrote: »

Knowning what I know now the H4n is the recorder I would have gotten... it has the XLR input, I don't think the H2 does.

Right. It's a matter of balancing money and utility.

Dan7312 · January 7, 2012

Any time, I'm just figuring this stuff out too...

angevin1 wrote: »

I should also take time to thank you for taking as much time as you have to explain your thoughts regarding your sound. It is much appreciated!

angevin1 · January 7, 2012

Dan7312 wrote: »

I'll be interested to hear how you lavier mic's work out. When I looked at them for my course stuff they seemed a bit noise, but I didn't look at high end ones. How are you recording them?

they're wireless with a stationary base, which of course means I have to station the camera. I bought them for Monologues and so forth, but I haven't used them yet...we'll see.

On the mic levels, I use manual, test, adjust to taste <red and go. Once again, the clipping was a downsizing issue...it's the Noise that is my enemy! And my lack of skill/equipt.

angevin1 · January 7, 2012

DavidTO wrote: »

Get a digital recorder, like the Zoom H4n or H2.

I'll look toward those as well as the H4N that Dan mentions, thank you both!

Opening for my Big Show

Comments