Another film-associated trip to Minnesota. Minneapolis this time.
Bad sound can bump a viewer out of a film much more easily than bad picture and why we just spent 3 days in Minneapolis working with an audio engineer. Another thing we’ve never before done!
In the last post I told you about sending off the whole film on that little tiny drive to the audio engineer. Having received it, he and his group of sound editors spent a month* doing their stuff. Stuff like, reducing or eliminating noise that shouldn’t be there, laying in ambience**, recording and/or placing foley***, smoothing out rough dialogue, blending in voice-over (VO) and the list goes on…
Then, it was our turn.
He buzzed us in from the landing at the top of the stairs and before we knew it, we were watching our film on a 13′ foot screen in a Dolby-certified dub stage and taking notes. Then coffee, followed by going through the film frame by frame, addressing the notes. After that, we watched the film again. More notes. Then we addressed those notes. Then, watched it again. Took a 4 hour break and watched it, again. 3 long days, seven screenings and amazingly enough, we still enjoy watching it.
*during that month, we worked on the score (60 music cues) with our composer, a music licensing company and some voice-over artists. Again…all things we’ve never done.
**also known as ‘atmosphere’. Unique and subtle sound found in the location’s environment. Sounds like,
wind, rain, running water, subtle radio and TV, thunder, rustling leaves, distant traffic, barking dogs, an air conditioner, a lawn mower…
***reproduction of everyday sound effects to create a sense of reality within the film. Generally unnoticed by the audience. Often recorded specifically for a scene in post-production. Swishing of clothing, footsteps, squeaky doors, creaky stairs, breaking glass….
Even though we have plenty of work left to do, the film was done enough after those 3 days for us to feel OK about submitting to our first festival.
FYI. With credits the film is just under 1:44.