Audio Post-Production

Ever wonder what it is I do when I’m not recording sound on set or playing or recording music?

Here’s an excerpt from a class I used to teach at the Pyramind Media & Music Production School in San Francisco.

Audio Post-Production refers to the massaging of the soundtrack once the picture editor has assembled the final cut (called “picture lock”). The term applies to feature films, documentaries, broadcast shows, music videos, or commercials/advertising spots,
& encompasses the editing, enhancing, processing, mixing, & mastering of the soundtrack.

In terms of its creative contributions to the project, Audio Post enhances the
• storyline
• illusion of reality
• illusion of unreality
• spatial depth & width
• continuity btw scenes
• production audio tracks by editing, processing, & ADR (Automatic Dialog Replacement, where  actors re-perform their lines in the studio, in sync with their original performance, because of unusable location sound).

Workflow
1. Spotting session (this is where the sound dept. in the presence of the director &/or the producer determines the sound quality of the production tracks; the amount of ADR &/or VO [voiceover, or narration] needed; the amount & placement of foley; & the style, amount, & placement of sound design)
2. tracklaying (separating the production tracks into dialog, ambience, & effects tracks)
3. dialog editing (separating dialog tracks per main actors, fading across tracks, initial volume automation, editing out unwanted sounds, finding & placing lines from alternate takes)
4. processing (equalization, compression, noise reduction)
5. ADR (& aligning sync via VocAlign plug-in, or manually by sound & picture)
6. Foley (in-studio performance-to-picture of practical sound effects such as footsteps, fabric noise, etc)
7. sound design (helps create the illusion of reality–or unreality–& helps tell the story in terms of dramatic tension & release, along with the score)
8. music/score (see above)
9. mixing (putting all the elements together)
10. stems (DME, i.e. Dialog, Music, Effects)
11. mastering (outputting to target format for final release)

Recommended Reading
Audio Post Production for Television and Film
by Hilary Wyatt & Tim Amyes
3rd Ed., Focal Press

Amazon.com: Audio Post Production for Television and Film, Third Edition: An introduction to technology and techniques (9780240519470): Hilary Wyatt, Tim Amyes: Books

Websites

http://us.imdb.com/Glossary/

http://www.filmsound.org/

http://www.sound-ideas.com/

http://www.marblehead.net/foley/specifics.html

http://www.epicsound.com/sfx/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Film_and_video_technology

http://www.locationsound.com/proaudio/ls/index.html