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Post-Production: Why "Fixing It In Post" Makes Your Film Look Cheap · Indie Film Podcast

• 0:00
  We had a guy who of course had his kidneys stolen so he was
• 0:03
  waking up in a bathtub full of ice.
• 0:05
  Just made this poor man sit in an actual bathtub full of ice
• 0:09
  water while we got the shot. We color graded it to be sort of
• 0:11
  this green. Gross gritty look in doing so.
• 0:15
  The greenish color on the water suddenly made all of the ice
• 0:20
  completely invisible. The most dangerous words out of
• 0:23
  any film makers mouth are We'll fix it in post.
• 0:26
  Those cursed words, when spoken in earnest, are likely to doom
• 0:29
  your independent film to a painfully embarrassing
• 0:32
  reception. Welcome to Indie Film Podcast.
• 0:35
  I'm Vic. And I am Chuck.
• 0:36
  Today we're finishing up our three-part series about what we
• 0:39
  think makes a cheap looking movie versus a well executed
• 0:44
  inexpensive film. And today we're going to be
• 0:46
  talking about the Post production mistakes that we've
• 0:48
  made, which did indeed result in very cheap looking films.
• 0:52
  I. Kind of want to start off with
• 0:53
  color grading. OK, there's a misconception I
• 0:55
  see often online. Victoria, maybe you can answer
• 0:57
  this question for me. What LUT do I put on any piece
• 1:01
  of footage to make it look instantly cinematic?
• 1:04
  Oh, that's perfect. You have two choices.
• 1:06
  You can either use the original Hudson filter from Instagram or
• 1:11
  I'm pretty sure there are several different online
• 1:14
  subscriptions that you can pay an exorbitant amount of money
• 1:16
  for and they will give you a collection of Luts that will
• 1:19
  instantly make your film look cinematic cool.
• 1:21
  And it works on any footage I shoot right with, whether it's
• 1:24
  my phone or my old flip phone. Obviously.
• 1:27
  OK, cool. Of course it does.
• 1:28
  They guarantee results with that $500 a month subscription.
• 1:32
  Oh, nice. OK, so obviously we're joking,
• 1:34
  yes. Please don't ever pay for that.
• 1:36
  We've done our best to learn gaffing, which that's where it
• 1:40
  starts, is the light process, and I want to point that out to
• 1:43
  everybody. That was one of the most
• 1:44
  important lessons I learned in trying to make a film look
• 1:48
  cinematic. You can't does that a lot.
• 1:52
  No, you can't. You can't do that.
• 1:54
  It should look good with you know what, depending on what
• 1:57
  you're using, if you're shooting in log or if you're shooting in
• 1:59
  RAW, the image should look good with whatever just basic rec
• 2:03
  seven O 9 LUT put on there. Or if you make your own LUT, you
• 2:07
  can usually upload those to most cameras at this juncture I
• 2:10
  think. I think so, but it should look
• 2:12
  nice in camera. It should and then even with
• 2:16
  like the default light that comes on your even if you don't
• 2:19
  upload your own custom one that kind of matches the themes and
• 2:22
  tones of your film fine, don't your footage as you're filming
• 2:27
  it should have some nice shadows on it.
• 2:28
  You should have some soft like cast roll off on like the face a
• 2:32
  little bit of light behind people to keep them separated
• 2:34
  from the background. Like obviously depends on the
• 2:36
  scene and the moment what you're looking for it, but it should
• 2:37
  look nice without a lot. Yeah, I think, I mean, that's
• 2:41
  just a common saying amongst cinematographers.
• 2:43
  Like their job is to add depth to A2 dimensional frame.
• 2:47
  Yeah, and it should be there. You can't just fix that with
• 2:51
  color grading, unfortunately. Any online subscription or stock
• 2:56
  site or videographer, whoever who is trying to sell you
• 3:01
  something that says this LUT is guaranteed.
• 3:04
  It's not. It's not.
• 3:06
  No, don't believe that. And I learned that myself trying
• 3:09
  to shoot, I've talked about this a little bit before, but trying
• 3:12
  to shoot live music videos, yeah, using multiple cameras.
• 3:16
  Eventually we got to the point where we were able to buy enough
• 3:20
  cameras that are close enough in color.
• 3:24
  You still got to worry about the the lenses and things like that.
• 3:26
  But between, you know, even you and I, we know a lot of people
• 3:29
  with black magic pocket 4 KS, pocket 6 KS.
• 3:32
  So if you're going to go into a live video shoot, whether it be,
• 3:36
  you know, a stage performance, a musical performance or just a
• 3:40
  multi Cam film or video shoot, you know, interview shoot,
• 3:45
  talking head type thing, A lot of times you'll have B roll
• 3:48
  multiple cameras there, but obviously it's easier to do it
• 3:52
  with the same camera to match color.
• 3:55
  Grading just to match Adobe's little match footage option in
• 3:59
  their color. Lumetri color I think is what
• 4:03
  they call it. Yeah, it's fine.
• 4:06
  It works sometimes. On occasion you'll get a good
• 4:09
  result. If you have the same camera both
• 4:12
  time, it usually works a lot better than and then if you have
• 4:15
  like a Canon and a Panasonic and an old Sony, which is what we
• 4:21
  were shooting with when we initially started our our live
• 4:23
  video series. And so the the where we started
• 4:26
  then was black and white. Yeah.
• 4:29
  And you know what I will say black and white is a fun way to
• 4:33
  dodge not necessarily lighting something as well as as you
• 4:38
  would now knowing more. And it's a nice way to cover up
• 4:43
  some other little subtle soft mistakes.
• 4:45
  Or if you're doing a lot of day for night shooting and stuff
• 4:47
  like that, it can be really practical.
• 4:49
  Yeah, I would say just. Shoot Night in black and white
• 4:52
  during the daytime. That's our number one pointer
• 4:55
  from this episode. Just.
• 4:57
  Substitute day for night. Shoot it black and white.
• 5:00
  And everyone's now like, Oh no, I see why, she said.
• 5:03
  She's not a gaffer. Jesus.
• 5:05
  Just invert everything. Just invert it all so that all
• 5:08
  the blown out areas are pitch black and that way the sky looks
• 5:11
  pitch black. This is I bet this will work.
• 5:13
  I'll make a LUT and then I'll put it in the comments and then
• 5:16
  you can download it. You can have some fun, OK, The
• 5:18
  goal was saying that was it's not just you don't just
• 5:22
  desaturate your footage. If you're going to make
• 5:24
  something black and white, you do still want to go through and
• 5:27
  kind of play with some of the Grays and the tones and hitting
• 5:29
  things right. And a sign your perfect black to
• 5:32
  a certain color that appears in certain places in your film.
• 5:35
  And for sure, like they're they're very great, cool,
• 5:38
  artistic, fun ways to play with black and white.
• 5:40
  And it can be used in an intentional artistic way other
• 5:43
  than just covering up mistakes. Yeah, it's not just for that.
• 5:47
  It's not just for that. But it does, you know, working
• 5:49
  within our limitations early on, it was kind of one of those
• 5:52
  things when we had a really, really cheap pawn shop Sony
• 5:55
  camera. And also we were borrowed
• 5:59
  somebody's Ursa black magic. And it's like I don't know how
• 6:04
  to get this 8 bit 1080P footage to look similar to the the 6K
• 6:10
  Ursa and. Which I think is actually,
• 6:13
  that's another really good point.
• 6:15
  You're always going to grade down to the lowest camera that
• 6:18
  you've got. Yeah, for sure.
• 6:19
  So there's no way to make that that lower quality footage look
• 6:25
  as good as the really nice high megapixel stuff.
• 6:29
  It's just it's not going to happen.
• 6:31
  AI can't do it. Yet, no, it tries.
• 6:34
  It does. It tries.
• 6:35
  There's that one Topaz program, I think.
• 6:37
  Oh yeah, I've used that before. It actually did help get rid of
• 6:40
  a lot of noise and grain on some footage that I had right on, so
• 6:42
  it was helpful. Sometimes I run into.
• 6:44
  If you try to turn that up too much though, then you get some
• 6:47
  weird artifacting. Oh yeah.
• 6:48
  No. And some banding in the image
• 6:50
  and so that it can only be used with like a light touch.
• 6:55
  And if you're going into a situation where you're shooting
• 6:57
  and you're like, this is really dark, but, but I'm going to
• 7:01
  crank the ISO up and I'll fix it with AI cleanup, noise cleanup.
• 7:04
  Know the limitations of your camera because and know how much
• 7:08
  light you're getting because it's and your light sources
• 7:11
  because it's not going to fix it perfectly.
• 7:13
  It's not exactly what you want. No.
• 7:15
  And it I guess it depends upon what you're doing and using it
• 7:17
  for too. If you're using it for
• 7:18
  promotional purposes, which I remember, we had a promotional
• 7:22
  video that we shot in a very dark area that that you got for
• 7:26
  us for Stockton's Table Rock premiere.
• 7:30
  Oh yeah. And we had no control over the
• 7:33
  lighting. Yeah, and it was It was outside
• 7:36
  in a patio at night, and all they had were Christmas lights.
• 7:39
  Yeah, like. Hanging from the ceiling.
• 7:40
  Super cute vibe for a patio, right?
• 7:42
  Everybody wants a little twinkle lights, but when you're trying
• 7:44
  to film with that, it's not. Ideal.
• 7:48
  It isn't ideal, but The thing is is it actually did work.
• 7:51
  It's. OK, the pocket 6K does get
• 7:53
  enough light in that low light area with your fast lens on on
• 7:57
  the frame. If only I hadn't forgotten to
• 7:59
  turn off the ND filter, maybe then I would have looked better.
• 8:01
  Oh, no, I'm kidding. But I would like to talk about
• 8:06
  one color grading mistake I definitely made.
• 8:08
  OK, what's that? So I, it was the first time I
• 8:10
  ever played with color grading and I was so excited to try it.
• 8:14
  OK. And we were doing this gritty,
• 8:16
  super chaotic action in film. And we had a guy who, of course,
• 8:20
  had his kidney stolen. So he was waking up in a bathtub
• 8:23
  full of ice. And we were, you know, in
• 8:26
  college and obviously just made this poor man sit in an actual
• 8:30
  bathtub full of ice water while we got the shot, which was
• 8:32
  beautiful, horribly cruel and so mean, but so much.
• 8:35
  Cheaper than prop ice. But it was so much cheaper than
• 8:37
  prop ice because man, prop ice is expensive.
• 8:39
  But that is another story for another day.
• 8:41
  But. Everybody learned lessons that
• 8:43
  day, including the actor, the. Actor never agreed to go on set
• 8:46
  with us ever again. No, he did come back nice, but
• 8:49
  we color graded it to be sort of this green, gross, gritty look
• 8:53
  because it was supposed to be, you know, like sort of divey
• 8:57
  type bathroom. And in doing so, the greenish
• 9:03
  color on the water suddenly made all of the ice completely
• 9:07
  invisible. So you based you?
• 9:09
  It just looked like he's in a tub of water.
• 9:11
  Color graded all the contrasts out of the footage and so you
• 9:13
  couldn't even tell what was supposed to be in the image.
• 9:16
  Nope. So, you know, Oops.
• 9:19
  But the green was cool looking. It looked gross, which was fun,
• 9:23
  but yeah, it totally made all of that ice moment completely not
• 9:26
  worthwhile. For sure Felt bad for.
• 9:28
  That that's a bummer. Yeah, but that's OK.
• 9:30
  Pluck Rise of the tweezers. Oh, really?
• 9:32
  Fun. Is that streaming online?
• 9:34
  Actually, I think that one is on YouTube, yeah.
• 9:36
  OK, you can find it. But you can find that one on
• 9:37
  YouTube. I don't know if I recommend
• 9:39
  watching it, but you can find it nice if you want to see what I
• 9:43
  did in college very early. Victoria Horne Films.
• 9:47
  For a 48 hour fest, first of all, where we were just having
• 9:50
  fun. It was just, we were just doing
• 9:52
  it to have fun anyway, OK. Maybe we can talk about audio a
• 9:56
  little bit too, because I do have some pointers for people
• 9:59
  that end up having to do ADR and their films because.
• 10:03
  It does come up and it doesn't make you a bad filmmaker if you
• 10:05
  have to get ADR. It's really common.
• 10:07
  Yeah, for sure. And, and I just kind of want to
• 10:10
  point out that like to me, that's one of the the corners
• 10:13
  that that big productions can cut and it can make a film feel
• 10:17
  cheap, right. And, and classic movie, the
• 10:21
  good, the bad and the Ugly with Clint Eastwood.
• 10:24
  Great film, but it drives me crazy.
• 10:26
  And I've mentioned this before, the ADR drives me crazy in that
• 10:30
  movie, unfortunately, because you could tell that it was
• 10:32
  recorded completely silently all MOS and then they added all the
• 10:36
  voices in post and sometimes people were clearly speaking
• 10:39
  Spanish and then they just overdubbed it in English.
• 10:42
  So you know, that over dubbing thing feels a little rough
• 10:45
  sometimes and, and get in the lip movements perfect.
• 10:48
  But I want to, I also want to point out another aspect of ADR
• 10:52
  and I don't know, hopefully a lot of our people in the
• 10:54
  audience remember this, but back when TV or excuse me, when
• 10:58
  movies used to be released on television, they'd have to edit
• 11:01
  the R rated movies. I assume they still are, and I
• 11:04
  hope they still do this. Yes, and it's it's wonderful.
• 11:07
  And my favorite example is from The Big Lebowski.
• 11:11
  And there's a scene in there where where one of the
• 11:15
  characters is destroying a Corvette and he's destroying the
• 11:19
  wrong one. And he's telling this person
• 11:23
  watching watching this person is destroying the Corvette and he's
• 11:27
  saying, I don't know how to say this.
• 11:29
  I'll say it like John Ritter did in Bad Santa.
• 11:33
  I want to F or This is what happens when you F a stranger in
• 11:39
  the A, but on TBS they used to play it as.
• 11:44
  See what happens, Larry, when you find a stranger in the Alps
• 11:47
  and I'll put a link in the description so you can watch
• 11:49
  like the. Little find a stranger in the
• 11:51
  Alps. Yeah, Nice.
• 11:54
  I will say that is not my favorite example.
• 11:56
  My favorite example of TVADR over dubbing to get rid of
• 12:02
  profanity is hands down Samuel L Jackson and Snakes on a Plane
• 12:07
  because there's no reason in the world that Snakes on a Plane
• 12:10
  needed ATV edit. It just didn't need it.
• 12:13
  That's not the genre, but they did it anyway.
• 12:16
  And you just have Samuel L Jackson super serious saying I
• 12:20
  want these monkey fighting snakes off this Monday to Friday
• 12:23
  plane and it's so good. And those are actually good ADR
• 12:27
  examples too. They're a good example.
• 12:29
  They layered in the ADR so it didn't match the lips obviously,
• 12:32
  but it sounded really solid. It does sound good, which I
• 12:35
  think is also a credit to the actors being able to do ADR
• 12:38
  acting so well because that is a lot more voiceover work, true,
• 12:41
  and necessarily on camera work. And those are two kind of
• 12:44
  different skill sets. Yeah, to match that it is tricky
• 12:46
  and I've worked with a actors trying to do that and it's not
• 12:49
  it's not a simple thing to do. But I do actually have a quick
• 12:52
  cheap trick for people for post production.
• 12:55
  And the cheap trick that I want to point out to people is
• 12:59
  getting a set of monitoring headphones is probably one of
• 13:04
  the least expensive ways that you can up your post audio game.
• 13:09
  And the the ones I'm wearing now, I think these are cost, but
• 13:13
  I have a set of audio Technicas that I bought years ago and I'll
• 13:18
  still use those every once in a while because I got used to them
• 13:20
  on set and they make them. I think you can look up Audio
• 13:23
  Technica headphones and they get as cheap as like 60 bucks.
• 13:27
  But the nice thing about a set of actual monitoring headphones
• 13:30
  is when you pop those on, it's a flat EQ response, right?
• 13:34
  Like I think I've said before, Skullcandies, they kick up the
• 13:37
  bass or they kick up the treble. These are monitoring so that
• 13:41
  you're listening to the accurate sound.
• 13:43
  And they're also very sensitive. And so when you're editing
• 13:46
  films, when you get those cuts, you know, between scenes or
• 13:51
  between just the two actors, if you're filming A2 shot, a lot of
• 13:55
  times the room tone will change and you have to correct that in
• 13:58
  post. And if you don't have a good set
• 14:01
  of speakers and you're not listening at a high enough
• 14:04
  volume, you're going to miss those, those subtle little
• 14:07
  switches between like maybe there's a fan on on one scene,
• 14:10
  or you have the the microphones closer to the camera fan or the
• 14:13
  light fan. And then you're going to pick
• 14:15
  that up more so for one person than the other.
• 14:17
  Yeah. And so you want to make sure
• 14:19
  that you're layering it so that either the IT has a really long
• 14:23
  crossfade, or you can just add noise into the scene, add more
• 14:28
  fan noise into the scene to just even it all out so that when
• 14:31
  you're cutting between the two to it's not as jarring.
• 14:34
  And almost it also helps you notice like if you have like a
• 14:38
  black frame in your image while you're if you don't quite move
• 14:42
  the timeline close enough together and you just end up
• 14:45
  with a drop frame and your timeline.
• 14:46
  Obviously you see that on your monitor, but you might not have
• 14:49
  your audio close, you might not have your audio cross faded, or
• 14:53
  you might have a small gap in audio as well.
• 14:55
  And if you don't have headphones on and you can't listen really
• 14:57
  closely, it's very apparent when you have headphones on.
• 15:00
  If you don't have headphones on and you're editing on laptop
• 15:03
  speakers or something, I. Feel a little attacked?
• 15:05
  OK. Yeah, you're, you might miss
• 15:07
  that completely. Yeah.
• 15:09
  But then as soon as you sit down in a theater and watch your
• 15:12
  film. You'll be very be.
• 15:14
  Extremely noticeable. So that's it.
• 15:16
  OK, so a little. Cheap trick.
• 15:18
  Cheap trick is to go for the headphones as opposed to the
• 15:22
  really nice audio monitoring systems.
• 15:25
  Which cost what? Oh well that varies.
• 15:30
  So you can get some decent monitor speakers for probably
• 15:34
  like basic entry level stuff for probably like 2-50, but then you
• 15:39
  no for for two of them. OK, so you can get 2 for 2:50 or
• 15:42
  you get one set of headphones for 60.
• 15:46
  Yeah. And if you're just starting off,
• 15:47
  that's if you can't hear the difference, I don't know how
• 15:49
  much it's going to help anyway, right?
• 15:51
  Because you got to, you got to listen to a lot of things.
• 15:53
  OK, no, I definitely feel attacked.
• 15:55
  Yeah, well, and I hope everybody out there does.
• 15:58
  No, I'm just kidding. But it's like, it's like if, if
• 16:01
  I'm learning how to and I'm just starting to learn how to do some
• 16:04
  more gaffing work, if I'm not cognizant of how the light
• 16:07
  bounces and the difference between a diffused light and
• 16:10
  just a harsh light, which I can kind of see.
• 16:13
  But the more repetitions you get into something, the more you're
• 16:16
  going to notice. And if you start with something
• 16:18
  that's like fairly accurate as far as audio monitoring and you
• 16:23
  get used to it, you're going to be able to hear the differences
• 16:26
  between the different speaker systems and the difference
• 16:28
  between if you have a cheap laptop and they're like sound
• 16:32
  card versus an external high quality sound card, which that's
• 16:36
  another thing you can do. If you get a good field recorder
• 16:39
  you can use that a lot of times as a USB audio interface to plug
• 16:43
  into nice studio monitors because the outputs will be
• 16:48
  clean enough to be able to do that.
• 16:50
  Which which that's the other thing too.
• 16:52
  Like if you just have it's might not be worth it to buy a set of
• 16:56
  studio monitor speakers and then have that running from your
• 16:58
  headphone out Jack on your laptop because depending on the
• 17:02
  laptop like I have this. Old may or may not actually be
• 17:04
  able to support the quality of sound that is being put out to
• 17:08
  them. Exactly, because like, like I
• 17:09
  have an old Dell laptop that I had to edit on in a pinch a
• 17:12
  couple times and I plugged it into the headphone Jack, like my
• 17:14
  headphones into the headphone Jack.
• 17:15
  And there was instantly more noise in just that output than I
• 17:20
  was used to hearing on my main mix, like for a film.
• 17:25
  So it was like, this is already noisier than where I leave my
• 17:28
  room tone. And so it just throws everything
• 17:30
  off. So you got to be really careful
• 17:32
  about cheap sound cards, cheap headphone jacks, all that stuff.
• 17:35
  That's fair. So, but I do really like your
• 17:37
  point about just noticing a little bit more.
• 17:39
  I think that's one of the best ways to really improve your
• 17:42
  skill set on something is to truly try paying attention.
• 17:45
  So obviously I'm also trying to get better at gaffing.
• 17:47
  Yeah, per my previous comments in this episode.
• 17:49
  Right on. And one thing that I'm starting
• 17:52
  to pay more attention to is the focus on the light.
• 17:56
  Yeah. So obviously you add diffusion
• 17:59
  on a light if you want it a little bit softer, but then
• 18:01
  those weird fun mesh grid things that you put on it.
• 18:05
  Oh, yeah, Putting those on sort of helps focus and direct the
• 18:08
  light to make it not sharper is kind of the word I'm looking for
• 18:13
  because I feel like it gives a crisp edge to some of the
• 18:15
  shadows. But also, this is yet more proof
• 18:19
  that I'm not a good gaffer. I don't know if those are the
• 18:22
  right ways to phrase that. Well, Yeah, exactly.
• 18:26
  Yeah. I'll pick up on the lingo
• 18:27
  eventually here for sure. But noticing that you have those
• 18:30
  kind of three phases of light. You've got your bald bare light,
• 18:34
  and then a diffused light, and then sort of a grid.
• 18:36
  Like, yeah, and all three of it is different.
• 18:38
  Like you said, it's more directional.
• 18:40
  Yeah, which is one of those things that I didn't know I
• 18:42
  needed initially when we were shooting some live music stuff
• 18:47
  in our friend Jesse studio. And his studio is all wooden.
• 18:51
  Which is gorgeous. Which it's beautiful, like all
• 18:53
  the walls are wooden and he has he has sound foam that's hanging
• 18:58
  around in there, but it's I think it's covered by like a
• 19:00
  yellowish fabric. And so the entire studio that
• 19:05
  he's in is essentially like skin tone, yeah.
• 19:10
  That's all kind of warm, yellowy tan.
• 19:13
  Yeah. And so when I was trying to
• 19:15
  color grid for skin tone on on the individual slay and I
• 19:18
  noticed that like I was doing all sorts of crazy crap with the
• 19:20
  wall. And so I, I realized that that's
• 19:23
  what I needed for the next shoot was I needed to get one of those
• 19:26
  grids so that when I'm focusing in on people's faces, yeah, I
• 19:30
  can still keep the walls, the the the luminance on those down
• 19:35
  a lot so that I can get the people actually pulled out from
• 19:38
  the background better. Yeah.
• 19:40
  And it was one of those things that, like, unless I had worked,
• 19:44
  if I hadn't worked with our friend Danny, a cinematographer
• 19:47
  that also knows gaffing, I wouldn't have figured out what
• 19:50
  the hell was wrong in that situation.
• 19:52
  I just would have been like, this doesn't look cinematic.
• 19:54
  I need to find a different. I need a different let from
• 19:57
  Reddit. Yeah, exactly.
• 19:58
  There you. Go.
• 19:59
  But just getting out there and messing with stuff and getting
• 20:01
  that experience is is super helpful.
• 20:03
  OK, well what else have you done to try to help other than just
• 20:05
  like noticing and being aware of improvements and things?
• 20:07
  What are some of the other things that you've done to
• 20:09
  improve your posts? Oh OK, well I did mention I'll I
• 20:12
  wanted to give some pointers for ADR for people.
• 20:14
  Oh, yeah, I just decided that we weren't going to do that.
• 20:17
  That's where I went. No, you should.
• 20:19
  ADR is so important. You should go there.
• 20:20
  I'm just all over the place. Absolutely.
• 20:23
  So if you're if you're trying to get a line that you didn't get
• 20:28
  during a live recording, which is a lot of ADR, and you're
• 20:32
  trying to insert that into the scene that's existing.
• 20:35
  The best way to do that is to use the exact same microphone
• 20:40
  that you used on set into the same recorder and try to get it
• 20:44
  from similar distance in a similar setting.
• 20:48
  OK, so like if you had a scene where you were using like a
• 20:52
  Sennheiser shotgun mic in an outdoor scene and the camera was
• 20:57
  like, yeah. Just do the boom hopping and get
• 21:02
  it in that in that area. Put headphones on the actor so
• 21:05
  they can hear what they used or hear how they said it.
• 21:08
  Give him give him a a phone with a headphone so that they can
• 21:11
  watch their scene. Say the line back, whatever it
• 21:15
  is that you didn't get clean. Or if they, if you add the line
• 21:17
  in, whatever the line is right and and use that same
• 21:22
  environment because it's really difficult to recreate the EQ
• 21:27
  with like one of these studio mics that we're speaking into
• 21:30
  now. It's difficult to recreate the
• 21:34
  EQ and then the reverb of the environment in post because
• 21:38
  that's essentially what you have to do.
• 21:39
  So that's my first piece of advice.
• 21:42
  So don't go to a sound booth and get just completely dead quiet.
• 21:49
  I wouldn't. Do professional recording.
• 21:50
  I would not do that on on an indie film set at all because I
• 21:53
  don't know that. I don't know enough I guess how
• 21:55
  to process all that which I've I've, I've dabbled in, right?
• 22:00
  But it's a lot more work to try to get that to then sound
• 22:03
  natural because it's not about getting clean perfect audio,
• 22:05
  it's about getting clean audio that matches the scene.
• 22:09
  Yes, exactly. And so if you can get, you know,
• 22:12
  in a similar situation, always do that first.
• 22:15
  If not, there's frequency analyzers that you can get and
• 22:20
  there's plug insurance for that. And that's like that goes
• 22:22
  probably plugs into Premiere. I know Isotope has them, I
• 22:27
  forget. OK, but what would a frequency
• 22:28
  analyzer do? Like in addition, they actually
• 22:32
  have a really strong one, the one that's connected to Adobe
• 22:35
  Premiere Pro. If you you can open up, I think
• 22:37
  it's like frequency analysis. There's a window or, or like a
• 22:41
  view that you can open almost like a workspace in Premiere,
• 22:45
  you can scan the WAV file and it tells you where the energy is in
• 22:50
  that person, like an average of where the energy is on that
• 22:53
  person's line. So if you've analyzed the
• 22:55
  frequency energy of the live take and then compare that to
• 23:00
  the studio take where they're speaking into like a studio
• 23:03
  microphone, you can see visually where that persons voices energy
• 23:08
  is. And that'll give you like the,
• 23:10
  the, the EQ ability to like, oh, I need to turn these frequencies
• 23:14
  up, I need to turn these frequencies down.
• 23:17
  And then the EQ will be a little bit closer.
• 23:20
  But that still doesn't give you the reverb that you need,
• 23:22
  unfortunately. But that's a really good way to
• 23:25
  get at least your your base match.
• 23:27
  Yeah, for. The actual vocal, the noises
• 23:30
  that are coming out of their face, Yeah, OK.
• 23:32
  Yeah. And, and then, and then at from
• 23:34
  that point forward, you need to, you know, figure out the reverb
• 23:37
  situation, which, if you are on set, you can get a reverb
• 23:40
  profile because there is like a reverb profile exists.
• 23:45
  And now I've, I'm speaking off the cuff here and I forgot what
• 23:48
  it's called, but they, they, they exist almost like a lot
• 23:51
  does. OK, so so you can download
• 23:56
  reverb profiles, you can create your own reverb profiles and I
• 24:00
  know you can. Download one from like an
• 24:01
  existing scene that you have like can will that let you
• 24:04
  create it? Well, you want to kind of like a
• 24:05
  clean click. So if you're on set and you're
• 24:08
  in a warehouse or something, you might be able to use like the
• 24:12
  slate slap if it's if it's if it's close enough, and then
• 24:16
  bring it into addition into into convolution reverb.
• 24:21
  And then create a reverb profile file for that.
• 24:24
  And then add that on top of the ADR.
• 24:26
  Oh sweet. But you will 9 times out of 10
• 24:30
  need that. And the only places that really
• 24:32
  don't need it as much like animation, obviously, they
• 24:35
  sounds like they're speaking into a studio.
• 24:39
  Or if you have a scene where somebody's just a radio DJ.
• 24:41
  That also works well. That's that's practical.
• 24:45
  But that's, that's my tip there for if you're doing ADR step
• 24:48
  one, get the audio as close to the audio that you recorded
• 24:53
  initially on set. If you can't do that and they're
• 24:56
  remote and they're doing what they need to do even in their
• 25:00
  phone or something like that, you know, you can just use that,
• 25:03
  that frequency analyzer and add some reverb and hopefully it
• 25:06
  comes a little bit closer to what what's going on in the
• 25:10
  scene. So it doesn't seem so jarring
• 25:12
  when that line just gets popped out of their mouths and you're
• 25:14
  like, what the hell happened to that one?
• 25:17
  Nothing pulls me out of a movie faster than like, especially if
• 25:21
  the audio is a little bit rough throughout.
• 25:24
  But I've accepted that it's just a little bit rough and here we
• 25:27
  are, this is it. And then suddenly there's a line
• 25:29
  that just doesn't line up with anything with, like, the tone on
• 25:33
  the actor's face with, like, it's super clear and crisp or
• 25:37
  super blown out and sounds like somebody was screaming into an
• 25:39
  iPhone. Yeah.
• 25:41
  And it's like just a voice memo, something like that.
• 25:43
  It just like if, if somebody's have, you have a scene in an
• 25:45
  airport and people are talking in this airport and it's echoey
• 25:49
  and then all of a sudden you can tell that they added a line from
• 25:52
  a studio mic and it's like, why is this person right next to my
• 25:55
  eardrum? Yeah, it just it pulls you out
• 25:57
  it. Throws you off OK.
• 25:59
  Do you have any pointers for people people as far as like how
• 26:02
  to make their their post production process a little bit
• 26:06
  less cheap looking or sounding? I know this is maybe not the
• 26:10
  best suggestion, but it's to keep everything organized.
• 26:15
  And I mean, stupid amounts of organized.
• 26:17
  And I, I swear by it, though, yeah, it's so important to keep
• 26:22
  every single scene just the alignment of all the audio and
• 26:27
  video tracks for each shot and take in the order that they went
• 26:31
  in, all in their own sequences. And then have building sequences
• 26:35
  of, you know, individual scenes and individual moments and then
• 26:38
  kind of tying it all together. And they're all numbered and
• 26:40
  they're all sequential. And I know exactly which one I'm
• 26:42
  on. And each one also has a little
• 26:44
  description about exactly what changed from the previous
• 26:46
  version of it. So that way I know exactly what
• 26:50
  this big change was. Why was this enough for me to
• 26:53
  create a new sequence of the file?
• 26:55
  Like did we get feedback, edits round 4 or whatever if I've got
• 26:59
  an e-mail with feedback? And also, if you're taking 4
• 27:01
  rounds of edits and feedback then you needed a tighter
• 27:04
  contract to prevent that from happening hopefully.
• 27:06
  You're getting paid on that 4th. Round Yeah, I hope you're being
• 27:08
  paid by the hour, not by the. Yeah, there we go.
• 27:12
  And you're padding that a little bit.
• 27:16
  But organization for me is just the number one way to keep
• 27:20
  things simple because it's been too often that I've had clients
• 27:23
  come back and say, actually, you know, I really liked the third
• 27:26
  version. Can we go back to the first half
• 27:28
  of the third version and then the second-half of the fifth
• 27:30
  version? And instead of having to go back
• 27:32
  and try to piece meal that together, I know exactly what
• 27:34
  sequence it was. I know exactly where to copy and
• 27:36
  paste and pull it into a new sequence that I will then label
• 27:39
  nice feedback edits round 5 or whatever.
• 27:42
  And then it's just so much better.
• 27:43
  And you never know when you're going to have an organ die
• 27:47
  inside your body and you're going to be incapacitated in the
• 27:50
  hospital and surgery when you're on deadline for a project and
• 27:53
  somebody else has to come pick up that drive from you and try
• 27:55
  to figure out what you were doing.
• 27:57
  Not that that's ever happened to me before.
• 28:00
  Oh, right on. Well, it's an odd like an oddly
• 28:02
  specific general example, but. But it's sort of my equivalent
• 28:07
  of like, you never know when you're going to be hit by a bus.
• 28:09
  True. And no, I did not get hit and
• 28:11
  hit. Hit and I didn't get hit and by
• 28:13
  a bus. I didn't get hit by a bus,
• 28:16
  thankfully. Yeah, I'm glad.
• 28:17
  I don't think I would have survived that.
• 28:19
  No, but you know, sometimes. We're also in Idaho, so there's
• 28:22
  not a lot of buses to be hit by. It would be we've.
• 28:24
  Been very rare anyway. Well, OK, but anyway
• 28:28
  organization is. That is, that is good.
• 28:30
  That is good. And I like how you have, you
• 28:32
  know, mentioning all the different sequences that you
• 28:34
  create. Yeah, because I feel like being
• 28:37
  attached to a specific sequence or a specific edit is not the
• 28:41
  best way to move forward. We both worked in corporate
• 28:45
  environments and I think that like organization with project
• 28:48
  files is mandatory in that setting.
• 28:51
  And so it was a nice lesson for me to learn because I came from
• 28:55
  just making films with my brother to then having to work
• 28:58
  at A at a tech firm and handing projects off and.
• 29:02
  It's very different. And you need to be organized
• 29:04
  when you do that stuff. And you want to be organized
• 29:07
  because if you have something come back from one of those
• 29:10
  projects two or three years later, you don't have, you don't
• 29:13
  want to have to remember what you did.
• 29:15
  Oh yeah, cuz you won't. That's the worst.
• 29:17
  You won't. If you're working regularly, you
• 29:19
  are not. Well, at least I don't remember.
• 29:22
  Yeah, for sure. One thing I do want to point out
• 29:25
  though, is getting aggressive with your edit to me is one of
• 29:30
  the the most important things that you can do as a filmmaker.
• 29:34
  Before you picture lock something and it doesn't hurt to
• 29:38
  make a duplicate of your sequence and hand it off to
• 29:43
  somebody else. And I personally love doing that
• 29:47
  you do to other people's cuts you.
• 29:49
  Really do I still remember Dives intro being what, like a minute
• 29:53
  or 75 seconds and you cut that sucker down to 20 seconds or 15?
• 29:59
  Yeah, it was really short. I think I cut.
• 30:00
  No, I cut. Yeah, a good minute off of your
• 30:02
  minute and a half intro and and it worked though.
• 30:07
  And it worked so much better. It worked so much better.
• 30:09
  It's so much cleaner and it's so much tighter.
• 30:11
  But it's that thing of killing your darlings and nobody wants
• 30:14
  to. And I get that it hurts.
• 30:16
  It sucks to Kill Your Darlings, but at the same time it does
• 30:20
  make it better in the long run. And if you have somebody that
• 30:23
  you trust that knows how to work inside of an editing suite, it
• 30:27
  might be good to just let them take a stab at it.
• 30:31
  Once you get all the hard work done of syncing up all the audio
• 30:34
  to the video, you have all your scenes and sequences or however
• 30:37
  you want to get your project going and it's all on the
• 30:40
  timeline at that juncture. Like it doesn't hurt to just
• 30:44
  hand it over to somebody and say, hey, like, what do you,
• 30:47
  what do you think? Or you know.
• 30:48
  OK, all right. It hurts.
• 30:49
  It hurts. It hurts emotionally.
• 30:51
  It's scarring deeply, but it won't hurt.
• 30:54
  The final project. No.
• 30:55
  And you don't always have to take anybody's everybody,
• 30:57
  everybody's input. But.
• 30:58
  But sometimes, like for me, it's if I know something is wrong or
• 31:04
  something doesn't flow correctly, it's just a matter of
• 31:08
  trying a whole bunch of different things.
• 31:09
  Yeah. And it's good to swing for the
• 31:12
  fences so that you know what doesn't work.
• 31:14
  Yeah. If you'll find out real quick.
• 31:16
  If you're like, I think I'm lingering on this shot too long,
• 31:19
  well, then extend it for another two or three seconds and then be
• 31:22
  like, oh, that's way too long. It's like, yeah, I know it does.
• 31:25
  This is bad. Have it flash up for, you know,
• 31:27
  like half a second and be like, that's too short.
• 31:29
  At least then you know where the outside lines are.
• 31:32
  Or if it's if it's not working, like my favorite thing to do if
• 31:35
  something feels off is just cut it.
• 31:37
  Just get rid of. It yeah, just because why not?
• 31:40
  You can always put it back in. Yeah, and it's hard to do when
• 31:43
  you spend all that time on set. Yeah, it sucks, you know,
• 31:47
  shooting that, but at the same. Time It's like you want to make
• 31:49
  sure that your your movie gets the reception that is worth the
• 31:54
  effort that you put into it. Actually, on the note of
• 31:56
  reception, that would be the other thing I would recommend is
• 31:59
  test audiences. Nice when your film is, you
• 32:02
  know, approaching picture lock, you're not there yet.
• 32:04
  Don't spend the money on color grade and audio and all that
• 32:07
  jazz just yet. But when you get to about where
• 32:10
  you think is picture lock, I like to show it to a group of
• 32:13
  film makers because I want the filmmaking input.
• 32:16
  Plus they're also usually like my friends and my colleagues.
• 32:19
  So they're very nice and very complimentary.
• 32:21
  And I need that sometimes. No, I'm kidding.
• 32:23
  But they're it's really good feedback from a filmmaker
• 32:26
  perspective where they're going to focus on the nuance of the
• 32:28
  story and the technical. And then I also like to show it
• 32:33
  to my target audience, OK, and see how they feel about it.
• 32:37
  And it doesn't matter if they are not film makers at all.
• 32:40
  I just want to hear from them what they thought about it.
• 32:42
  And obviously the feedback is going to be, well, it looks
• 32:44
  funny because it's raw footage and it's not color graded, or it
• 32:46
  sounds kind of rough and weird because it's all the raw audio
• 32:49
  and none of the post has been done.
• 32:50
  But once you get past that feedback, it's usually good
• 32:53
  stuff on whether or not this is actually going to land with your
• 32:56
  target demographic. And I understand for indie film
• 32:59
  it's not always about finding your target audience, but often
• 33:01
  times it really is. So try some test audiences and
• 33:06
  see if it lands. And I like that.
• 33:07
  That's great. And then, you know, hopefully
• 33:10
  you're releasing a film that gets a good reception and gets
• 33:13
  you what you want. Or at least not an embarrassing
• 33:15
  reception. Yes, like.
• 33:16
  A very cheap. But you know what?
• 33:19
  I recommend that people do that. You've got to release at least
• 33:22
  one embarrassing film in your lifetime.
• 33:24
  If you don't do it, what are you doing?
• 33:26
  It's humbling. Don't, don't, don't bury it like
• 33:30
  Quentin Tarantino did with his first film and then limited
• 33:33
  himself to whatever he said he's going to do like 7 or something
• 33:36
  like that. And he's he keeps that one in
• 33:38
  the background that he he shot and he was too embarrassed to
• 33:41
  release it's. Wasn't that Steven Spielberg's
• 33:43
  1943? Was that what it was called?
• 33:46
  Oh, yeah, He had one that he was just mortified about too.
• 33:50
  Yeah. Don't let that that stop you
• 33:52
  from making things because there's way more embarrassing
• 33:54
  things in this world than your film.
• 33:57
  And you know what? To make you feel better about
• 33:58
  it. Maybe we will link to pluck Rise
• 34:00
  of the Tweezers. All right, just so you all can
• 34:02
  feel better about yourselves as film makers.
• 34:04
  OK, well I'm gonna dig around and find it and.
• 34:06
  Oh, it's on. It's on YouTube for sure.
• 34:08
  Nice. Yeah.
• 34:09
  We'll dig it up. OK, I'm.
• 34:10
  Sure, we'll talk about our Filmmaker of the Week.
• 34:12
  This week I would love to talk about our filmmaker of the week
• 34:15
  this week because our filmmaker of the week is Andy Blythe of a
• 34:18
  turn Films. He is a actor, producer, dog's
• 34:23
  body, which I thought was delightful because I was not
• 34:27
  familiar with the term dog's body when I first read that.
• 34:29
  And I thought he had actually just played a dog's body on a
• 34:32
  set. And I was like, oh, I need to
• 34:34
  see that film. That sounds so cool.
• 34:36
  No, it turns out I think that is the UK equivalent of what we in
• 34:40
  the US call a Gopher or perhaps APA.
• 34:44
  Nice. Somebody who does all the menial
• 34:46
  random tasks on a set, which I think is very humble and
• 34:49
  delightful of Andy to own that sometimes you're a dog's body
• 34:52
  and I definitely am as well. And.
• 34:54
  I don't know if Gopher is a term in the UK or Australia or
• 34:57
  Canada. But I have no idea.
• 34:59
  Which we call them a Gopher, like the animal, but it's
• 35:02
  literally like, can you go for some coffee?
• 35:05
  Yeah. So you're a Gopher.
• 35:07
  Yeah, you just go for it. I don't know if dog's body plays
• 35:10
  Office I. Have no idea, you just load up
• 35:13
  the dog's body like a slut anyway.
• 35:16
  Comment. Comment.
• 35:17
  Let us know the origin of that. Anyway, so thanks for teaching
• 35:21
  me a new word, Andy. But Andy also created his
• 35:24
  entirely own film. And by entirely owned film, I
• 35:28
  mean he did everything for this feature length film.
• 35:32
  So acting, producing, cinematography, editing, you
• 35:35
  know, all of it, every single thing that was done to make this
• 35:38
  movie happen was done by Andy Blythe.
• 35:40
  And I think that's super cool 'cause I've seen some shorts
• 35:43
  where people do completely one off by themselves and it's
• 35:46
  really awesome. But a feature is intense.
• 35:49
  Yeah, it's a lot of work. That's a lot.
• 35:51
  So obviously if you've heard of other people doing that, please
• 35:53
  comment, let us know. But we'll also be linking to
• 35:57
  Andy's YouTube channel because that feature link film that he
• 36:01
  solely single handedly. That's the word I'm looking for.
• 36:03
  It made is streaming on a couple different platforms, including
• 36:07
  Amazon Prime, I believe. All right, so we'll be linking
• 36:09
  to his YouTube channel so that way you can check out.
• 36:11
  And he does travel vlogs too. He does travel vlogs.
• 36:13
  Too. That's probably where you get
• 36:15
  the, I'm guessing Andy, that's where you got all your reps in
• 36:18
  as far as making stuff by yourself.
• 36:20
  Probably because travel vlog is a lot of solo work too and it's
• 36:22
  not easy. No, and it's also interesting to
• 36:25
  imagine how the tax write offs work in the UK because I know
• 36:29
  that travel vlogging is great for those in the US as film
• 36:32
  makers. But I will not be dispensing
• 36:34
  international tax advice because I don't actually know how taxes
• 36:38
  work in other countries. Yeah, we're just all looking for
• 36:42
  ways to evade around the world right now.
• 36:45
  Any of us really are like, excited to pay.
• 36:49
  I don't. Think we can come right back up
• 36:51
  to the people that are taking it, but that's a different
• 36:54
  podcast. That's a much different podcast.
• 36:56
  OK. So anyway, thank you so much,
• 36:58
  Andy. And if you would like to be our
• 36:59
  Featured Filmmaker of the Week, then please head to
• 37:02
  indiefilmpodcast.com/submit. You'll see details about Become
• 37:06
  a Featured Filmmaker right there, and it's just a quick
• 37:10
  form you fill out. Yeah, we'd love if you record a
• 37:13
  voice memo and upload it to that form too.
• 37:15
  So that'd. Be great, highly encourage you,
• 37:17
  yes, to upload it so that it's not just Chuck and I doing
• 37:19
  either our best impression of you or talking about you in the
• 37:22
  ways that we find. We didn't need to go off on the
• 37:25
  tangent about dog's body and he didn't care about that, but we
• 37:27
  did it anyway. So if you'd like more control
• 37:29
  over how we talk about you as the Featured Filmmaker of the
• 37:32
  Week, make sure you upload some assets for.
• 37:33
  It. I might edit it.
• 37:34
  We'll see. All right.
• 37:35
  Shall we succinctly say fare well?
• 37:37
  I think that sounds wonderful too.
• 37:38
  Excellent. Bye bye.