LO3: Apply professional Pro-Tools editing and mixing techniques in a Audio Post Production situation for a film project.
The second piece of key secondary research I looked at in regards to audio post production was a book entitled Audio PostProduction for film and video, which was written by Jay Rose. This book features a lot in regards to noise reduction within dialogue tracks, something that I wanted to look into as i’d often struggle within this realm in prior projects.
One of the key recommendations bought up within this section is in regards to removing unwanted noises from dialogue tracks. Rose discusses the power of EQ when it comes to this but also states that it won’t always entirely remove the noises that you want to get rid of. Jay Rose brings up the overall importance of using EQ in a setting in which there pre-recorded dialogue has an audible hum within it. A way in which he suggests to remove this is by simply focusing in on specific frequencies, bringing them up until they are most audible before reducing them drastically using equalisation(EQ-7 band within Pro Tools). In terms of specific noises such as knocks and plosives however, it is often a case of aiming to reduce as opposed to entirely removing. Jay Rose recommends dialogue be re-recorded when plosives are audible, however when this is not plausible he suggests it is possible to roll the vast majority of noise out using a low pass filter that removes some of the bass from the specific letter.
Another key takeaway from this book for me personally was in regards to broadcast levels, stating that generally a rule of thumb for a mix is the following; never exceeding -4, dialogue at -12 and music/sound effects at -20. Using a plug in such as Avid pro limiter will allow me to check through these at the end and set the DB within clips to the relevant levels.
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