workflow for mixing films

CDM wrote on 9/23/2005, 6:40 PM

Hi -
I was interested in comparing how people use Vegas to mix films. I've just started work on a feature and here's how I've gone about it so far:

Client brought me OMFs of every track from Final Cut, each one an hour and 20 minutes. This totalled 12 OMF files.
Client also provided aif files of each track for volume and mix reference.
Client provided me with one quicktime movie of the whole film with a scratch mix.

I used EDL Convert to process the OMFs and then opened the .txt files one after the other into the same vegas project and put them all on separate tracks, restoring the 12 distinct tracks. I then added the quicktime, converted it to .avi and dumped the quicktime. All of this went flawlessly.

I have the project on an internal drive and I have my extensive SFX library on an external USB 2 drive with the Media Manager linked to it. All of my SFX is tagged for use with MM.

As I started to go through the whole project to spot check and do minor cleaning of transitions, I realized it was going to be too much to do all of this in one project so I figured I would separate the movie into scenes and then re-import them later as mixed scenes as nested veg files. So I went through the project to trim the scenes and save as individual scenes and worked on them that way. The only tricky part is going to be mixing the transitions from scene to scene where things overlap. But the ability to nest the audio in one master version to watch through and process is great.

This makes me think: maybe in a future version it would be nice to be able to separate nested audio into separate buses, if they exist in the project so one could retain "stems" of SFX, Dialog, etc for final mastering.

anyway, I'm wondering how differnt/similar this is to how others go aboutt his. I'd love to hear about other people's workflow ideas, especially with how complex a project like this can be with SFX, plugins, automations, envelopes, etc.

looking forward to hearing from you.

Charles.

Comments

farss wrote on 9/23/2005, 7:00 PM

Charles,
I've only once mixed a movie soundtrack and that was over 30 years ago, think 16mm sprocketed mag tape with all the 'decks' and projector mechanically linked by a big metal shaft, crude but it worked!
Back then we had no automation, just cue sheets and the movie was only 10 minutes long. Based on my hazy recollections of that experience I'd be thinking about getting a Mackie control surface.
As to workflow, clearly you do need to break things down into scenes but as you say certain elements need to cross scene breaks. Maybe the answer is to work on the tracks that don't cross the boundaries first, things such as dialogue and FX tracks do first and create nested projects for those then lay the music into the master project.
Bob.

CDM wrote on 9/23/2005, 7:34 PM

That's a really good idea, Bob. Thanks. I think I'll do just that! It's not always easy to see the most efficient approach until the end sometimes.

Spot|DSE wrote on 9/23/2005, 7:38 PM

If you have buses in the master veg, and have the same number of buses/assignments in the project/scene veg's, they'll maintain their structure.

vicmilt wrote on 9/23/2005, 10:32 PM

I like individual "on camera" tracks - so you can EQ each voice at the Track level.
Then I like at least two music tracks - more if necessary, but generally you are working with mixed music, so all you really need is to mix the two tracks together as you transition from one song to the next.
On commercials we always have at least one Voice over track.
Sound effect can be as few as one to as many as - well if you're doing a Schwarzenegger spectacular, maybe a hundred SFX tracks.

The work flow that I generally use is to first cut dialog. Picture follows track. Dialog sets the pace and meaning of the movie. With the new nested tracks (with automatic backward tracers built in) I would take the cut video into each "sound section" perhaps with a rough vocal mix, and then mix the music and sound effects separately.
When each sections sounds "right" I'd bring in the MIxed Veg files, assign each "master track" to a different buss and mix away.
At one of the VASST conferences that I attended (as a student) Spot demoed an amazing multi-track mixer that tied in with Vegas, as smooth as silk. If you're working on a feature, I'd definitely try to buy one (or rent). You can always sell it on Ebay when you're done with the video.
It might also help you to print a visible timecode on the video, so if you've got a number of people working on the show (director, music, sfx, foley, etc) everyone can reference where you are talking about.
"That cut at 1:12:22:07 is a LOT easier to find, than, "You know, where she sort of is crying but not really..."

CDM wrote on 9/24/2005, 4:28 AM

thanks fot the response.

All the video has been cut and I'm responsible for layering all new sound elements (ambiences, sfx), cleaning up all the dialog, cleaning up dialog "tone" throughout, making a mix, finalizing the music levels, and mastering. Normally a lot of this would be split among different people, but its an independent film, so, hey, Ive got to do it all. Can get very tricky fast. I like the idea of keeping all the music stems in the master assembly while working on the dialog, SFX and ambiences in individual scenes. It's hard to put all dialog on the same tracks because the FCP editor put all the little pieces of everything all over the place. But, I suppose it would help a iot if I did do that and bussed the voices to their own bus.

Spot - I'm not sure what you meant when you said the nested vegs would maintaint their structure. What I meant was it would be nice if you could add a nested veg to a project and have it be split into mutliple tracks, based on the bus assignments.

what's this mixer? I have an 02R