Sound Design for Low & No Budget Films

Patrick Winters has been working in sound design for 30 years and teaching sound design for 12 years. He has personal experience working on major motion pictures as well as creating his own short films, stretching minimal budgets to get the best sound tracks possible.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction



Purpose
Sound Definition
Sound's Abilities
Sound Supervisor
Contracts, Agreements and Licenses

2. Location Sound: How Was That for Sound?

Common Mistakes
Single System
Double System
Timecode
Smart Slate
Boom and Lavaliere
Wired and Wireless
Wide Shots and Close-Ups
Two-plus Camera Set-Up
Exercise
Sample Sound Report Form
3. Sound Design

Defined
Introduction
Movie Examples
Recording
Creating
Editing and Processing
Mixing
Exercises
4. Dialogue Editing: It's Work, Not Magic

Introduction
Picture Lock
Collecting Materials
File Management
The Process
Cleaning
Smoothing
Editing
Split Tracks
Room Tone
Fixing Issues
Processing
Exercise
5. ADR: What Did They Say?

Introduction
Spotting
Microphones
Working with Actors
Production ADR Recording
Post-Production ADR Recording
Editing
Exercise
ADR Cue Sheet Form
6. Walla/Group /Loop Group/Group ADR/Rhubarb: Why Can't I Hear Them?

Introduction
Group Leaders
Research and Scripting
Walla
Specifics
Callouts
Efforts
Screams
Performing
Recording
Editing
Resources
Exercise
7. Narration: It Isn’t Dialogue

Introduction
Purposes
Pre-Production
Recording
Editing
Processing
Exercise
8. Sound Effects: Creating Reality

Sound Effect Functions
Types of Sound Effects
The Grey Area (Foley and Sound Effects)
Production Sound Effects
Location Sound Effects
Custom-Recorded Sound Effects
Foley Sound Effects
Library Sound Effects
Spotting
Creating
Recording
Editing
Processing
Exercise
9. Foley: Who or What is Foley?

Foley History
Overview
Spotting and Cueing
Synchronized Recording
Microphones
Performance
Moves or Cloth
Specifics or Props
Pats and Grabs
Footsteps
Libraries
Editing
Sound Effect Resources
Exercise
10. Backgrounds: What's an Ambience, Atmosphere or Background?



Introduction
Spotting
Production Sound
Room Tone
Recording
Library
Editing
Layering
Processing
Exercise

11. Musical Score: In The Mood?

Introduction
Making Notes
Spotting Session
Cues
Hits or Hit Points
Tempo Map
Click Tracks and Guide Tracks
Temp Scores
Music Software
Scoring
Theme and Motif
Titles, Montage and Credits
Composing, Arranging, Orchestrating and Instrumentation
Recording Performance (Tracking)
Digital Music
GarageBand
Song Score, Pop Music and Source Music
Cue Packages
Bands
Musicals
Library Music: Hard Drives, CD's and Downloads
Editing
Stems
Mixing
Deliverables
Exercise
12. Mixing Myself Preparation

Introduction
Preparing Your Mixing Room
Reference Levels
Room Monitor Calibration
NLE or DAW
Mixing In-The-Box By Myself
Session Set-Up
Stereo, LCR or Surround?
13. Pre-Mixing or Predubbing and DSP

Introduction
Mixing Preparation
Track Layout
Virtual Mixing
Mix Tools
Levels
Gain Staging
Fades
Panning
Constant Gain or Constant Power
Equalization
Compression
Normalizing
Noise Gate
Expansion
Exciter
De-Esser
Noise Reduction
Reverberation and Delays
De-Verberation
Effects and Filters
Limiter
Premixing
Buses, Auxes, Sends and Returns
VCA Faders
Master Fader
Metering
Two Pops and Tail Pops
Dialogue and ADR PreMix
Foley Premix
Sound Effects Premix
Design Effects Premix
Backgrounds Premix
Music Premix
Temp Mix
14. Mixing Myself

Introduction
Set-Up
Getting Started
Dialogue First
ADR
Sound Effects
Ambiences
Foley
Music
DME Stems and M&E
Master Output
Quick and Dirty Mix
15. Studio Mix

Introduction
Mixer Interview
Mix Preparation
Premixes
Stems
Mixing
Run Through
Dialogue Mixing
Sound Effects Mixing
Foley Mixing
Ambience Mixing
Music Mixing
16. Deliverables

Introduction
Film
DCP
DVD/Blu-Ray
Streaming
Broadcast Television
Marketing
Archiving
17. Summary

Clean Production Sound
Creating Sound Design
Mixing
Conclusion
Internet Resources
Glossary

Bibliography

Index