Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Oh okay. Well the shoot is going a lot better now, I think, and hopefully the final edit will turn out well. I might have to do go back to the location to get some of the voice over to match, but I think shooting is done.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Is there a "finish point" in the production that has been nominated and agreed to?

Andrew

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Why would you need to return? Actually I'm just wondering? You did the voice over on location?

Assuming you did - which is a bit weird, then you probably don't need to go back if you have ten seconds or more of sound recorded on location with no speaking - you just produce a loop track, then go somewhere close and as silent as possible and record your voice over extras there, then blend the location sound loop with it. Assuming the looped clip doesn't;t have any regular sound like a bird chirping, which wrecks it, you can just use this to match the audio.

Personally - every time I have recorded dialogue on location it never works, because often you simply don't know what it should say until you see the edit. The only time it worked for me was a very late night shoot where the VO was a whispered commentary on what we could see in the night vision. I still thought it would have been better done back at base, but it did work.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Oh I would just go back to get the reverb of the sound bouncing off the hills to match, as oppose to trying to create the reverb using digital effects. I thought going back there to record it, could save me time, if it would work.

Why wouldn't the dialogue recorded on location work though?

As for a finish point, shooting is suppose to be done, so I think we are good and have enough, it's just I am waiting to hear back from me on a draft I edited.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Ryan, you're joking aren't you? Please say yes. Reverb bouncing off hills? As in echo reflecting off rocks? If you're serious, we better start a new topic on the problems of recording voice overs. The reason movies don't record dialogue on location and spend ages in time and money rerecording it is because locations sound is rarely good enough to use. This applies to voice overs too. Out in the real world, even in wilderness, it's seldom quiet, or controlled. You have a bit of googling to do. Reverb and echo. Both relocation based but they sound TOTALLY different, and their mechanism is different too. My mouth dropped when you said reverb from the hills.

There are two elements. If you clap your hands in your living room at home, your recording shows a clear peak when you clapped followed by the arrival of reflections. It also contains that pesky clock ticking in the room next door, the odd dog barking a road away and an airliner passing at 30000ft. In your studio you have the clap and minimal relations, no clock, plane or dogs. Back to your woodland area and you need to recreate the sound so your contaminated voice over matches. Those crickets might not be chirping, the dog might be a heard of cows and maybe the bunch of frogs have moved in. Surely if you MUST use the original, you can recreate from out takes, enough of this rubbish to sort it out. If you recorded down a cavern, then you'd need reverb and electronic effects, but you went somewhere with a real echo, not reverb????.

A classic Ryan u-turn with suddenly critical info being slipped in right at the end.

You really did record your audio in a canyon with a distinct echo? Your film school really did an awful job on your course. I wonder what on earth the course covered, because they seem to have missed out so many critical areas, and now they didn't even cover why voice overs are recorded in studios and not live, and I assume dialogue wasn't covered properly either. Sounds like a course designed by Mickey Mouse, all pizazz and no proper content.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

I think there was another thread all about that topic...recording Foley or hard Fx or whatever the proper terminology is on location vs studio to save time in post.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

I tried to mic him but the nature society person intervened. I think it was because of his religion he didn't want to be miced, and just started preying and dancing before letting me mic him.

It was too windy that day for the DSLR internal mic to record anything, and if you listen to the sound on it, all you can hear is distorted wind and you cannot hear what he is saying. The mic sound would have worked though, cause I miced another person for an interview before in the shoot, and it sounded well.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Crazy! What exactly did the nature society person think was going on?

I'm not clear what you'd be going back for? If you have decent footage, then record the voiceover anywhere that sounds good and is quiet and convenient for both. Do you have any voiceover material recorded? As in audio with no matching face in picture. If you don't have any - then record your entire VO in one place to maintain audio consistency. As for miking - it really needs planning before you do anything. You can slap mics on religious people with no problems at all if you do it with due reference for their status. I've done Catholic, Protestant and Muslim folk with no bother whatsoever, and I've even put mics on naked people at a naturist convention. It just needs you to be professional, explain what you need to happen and find a way to do it.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

I have a feeling hes going to try to go back and recreate the religious man’s audio.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

I don't know about 'recreate', but the idea was to have just the footage of him preying and dancing with a separate narrator, talking about what he is doing. If that sounds good?

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

But the narrator is supposed to sound like theyre outside next to you guys, which is why you want to record the vo out there?

No I do not think that sounds good. It sounds weird. If youre going to have vo justrecord it in a quiet place and get as clean a recording as you can.

If you just need ambient or nat sound from the location to lay underneath the vo, that makes a little more sense, but you could still probably do that with stock sound effects instead of going back there.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Well if they decide for the narrator to be the person who has been speaking into the camera the whole time while out there so far, than I will need to match his previous narration which has already been recorded while we were out there, wouldn't I?

But if they decide to go with a different narrator, than I won't.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

I don't understand... they have other videos where someone is out there talking? Do you mean on camera?

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

I shot a video before out their, with one of them talking, saying what is happening. They may get him again or they may get someone else to narrate the parts of the guy doing his prayer, not sure. If that makes sense?

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

That makes sense, but you mentioned voiceover. If guy is shown on camera that is not a voiceover. Even if you occasionally cut to other footage, if you cut back to guy occasionally, I wouldn't consider that voiceover. If you never show him on camera, there is no reason to record out there.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Oh okay I thought if he's not in the same scene with the preying guy, and just doing the voice, it then counts as voice over for that section. But if they get a new person, then no, I won't need to go back out there.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

In this particular video you are doing, if your narrator appears on camera, then you record them at the location (or wherever). If they never appear on camera IN THIS VIDEO, then record the narration somewhere quiet. If it’s a mix, like he appears at the beginning for a minute and a half and we never see him again or only see him at the end for another minute, but there’s five minutes in between where we see b-roll over his voice, it would probably make more sense to get everything that isnt on camera somewhere quiet. Yes itll be inconsistent but outdoor audio sounds a lot more distracting when youre not looking at the person speaking. When youre looking at footage of a bird but hearing someone talking, all that wind noise, traffic, birds chirping etc becomes much more annoying. Its acceptable when you see the guy talking in that environment, annoying when looking at something else.

Just find probably any nature doc and theyll cut between the nasty location audio and the pristine vo. People are used to it.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

You should watch the BBC wild life programs, where it's common for a presenter to talk to camera on location and then then do the voice overs in the "studio" during post.

The same convention also applies to all TV programmes and TV news, they don't go back to locations for the voice over, which can be recorded a couple of years later in another part of the world.

If the "narrator" is appearing in shot speaking, that's fine, they are now either a presenter or a reporter, they are no longer a pure "narrator" (who only does the VO). This may may or may not involve them talking to the camera, but also interacting with the subject(s). This is common practice in documentaries.

You always need to be ready for the unexpected and grab them with both hands, because those moments are what will make the difference between the average and the good or even excellent.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Oh okay. I just thought that if they have parts of the voice over from the location, and parts of it, from a studio, than it wouldn't match and you would hear it switch back and forth between the two, during the edit...

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

It's all in how you edit it.

You can get them to redo the voice over if it's not directly connected with their physical presence at the location. If it's them performing something you can use it with physically unconnected, but are emotionally connected visuals. You can use the location audio as long as the audience are aware that the person is speaking on location because you've established them there for this section of VO.

I would look at various TV documentaries for this.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Oh okay, well if the get the one guy to finish the rest of the narration he is already on camera, so I thought if he does more, than his voice would have to match the same area he is in, if I want to cut back and forth between new voice and over, and the footage already of him, since he will be on camera for some of it already.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Again, go and watch documentaries and write the narration so that it fits with someone who us also appearing in the video.

Re: How should I handle this problem with a client and friend?
 

Oh but they are writing the narration, and choosing the narrator, that is not my decision though.