Should I do a 5.1 mix for a feature film or no in this case?

[Ryan Elder]

I am co-directing a feature film, and one of the areas I wanted to cover, is whether or not it's worth it to have a 5.1 mix for sending it into festivals. I talked to the post sound mixer, and he said not to bother paying for a 5.1 mix, unless a distributor specifically asks for one. For festivals, just a 3.0 stereo mix is good.

But do you think that's true though? I just wanted other confirmation that this is the way to go when trying to make a good impression at festivals?

[Brian Drysdale]

Stereo will be fine for festivals, they won't be selecting films on the basis of the sound system being used nor are the people attending film festivals that interested.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, cause I read another article here:

https://www.cinemasound.com/5-reason...r-deliver-way/

And that person says to do a 5.1 mix cause it will save money to just get it over with in the first place, but also because it will blow your movie out of the water with people watching, if many of the others are only mixed in stereo, if that's true? Is it also true that stereo sounds terrible in a theater, compared to other, more home systems?

[Paul R Johnson]

Can you do a 5:1 mix Ryan? Or do you know anywhere local to you that can do it? What exactly is the point if the this movie doesn't lend itself to it?

Equipment wise, my studio can cope with 5:1 (on paper) but I've never needed to do a surround mix for anything I have ever done. Getting the extra speakers in and aligned is far too much in cost, space and time. It's hard enough in stereo, even adding a centre speaker is fraught with compatibility problems and just a step to far for me to even consider it.

For what it's worth - the person who wrote that article clearly hyped the whole thing up, and I seriously doubt most of the 'information' provided.

This paragraph made me laugh! [quote]5.1 makes you seem much more “professional” and thereby your studio and work is more “valuable.” And while it’s true that a 5.1 mix is at least another 25% more work than a stereo mix, the value is 100% more in the production value alone – not to mention the hirability of your work – which increases 4X. Everyone mixes in stereo. Few are willing to do it in surround. But you will, and everyone will notice. Especially at the screening, when the director’s buddy who is coat-tailing the director’s world premiere event by screening his own short right before will have his silly attempt at filmmaking crushed when your 5.1-ready mix shows up and reminds everyone why stereo-sucks in a theater…and you’re the real filmmaker/mixer/creative.[/.quote]

25% more?? Even his maths is shocking. Different planet. Everyone will notice? Really? My wife listens to music on our TV's tiny speakers. She could press one button and have it through a real sound system - but she doesn't.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, I also thought maybe the article was hyping some things up, since some variables were not mentioned or covered.

As for doing a 5.1 mix, I've been doing stereo mixes, and it seems to me that with 5.1, the main difference is, is that instead of directing sounds to left, right and center channels, instead, you just direct some of the sounds to the rear channels, and LFE channel instead.

So it doesn't seem like a lot more work, cause it takes just as much time to direct a sound to back channel, than it would to a the L, R, and C, if that makes sense? The more work seems to be the LFE channel area so far.

Now I can just do a 3.0 stereo mix if that is sufficient, but it seems to take the same amount of time to move a sound to a different channel than it would a channel in 3.0.

[Brian Drysdale]

What do you expect a cinema sound site to say?

I've made films in both stereo and Dolby surround sound and I've seen other films screened and the end result depended on the venue and how good the theatre's sound system was. Overall, the stereo sound was more consistent in different theatres.

It didn't make any difference to the audience reaction, it was the quality of the acting, story, etc which the festival audience was aware of, not the sound system.

For your dialogue heavy films, it's probably a waste of time doing a 5.1 mix. If you've got star ships flying over the audience or depth charges exploding all around and other action you can make use of it, not if you've got two or three people talking in a room.

[Paul R Johnson]

Anyone with software can mix in 5:1, but what happens in a normal stereo screening? Your centre voice channel vanishes leaving your dialogue missing compared to the sound effects and music - where did you get the idea doing surround mixes is easy. It is easy to get a totally unworkable product. Very hard to do where stereo, or even mono compatibility is needed. This is NOT beginner stuff Ryan - not in a million years.

[Brian Drysdale]

That's what happened in theatres not equipped for the surround sound. Festivals tend to screen in all kinds of places, so I wouldn't bet on getting a full cinema sound system.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. I could also do two mixes, one stereo, one surround as well, if that is an option as well.

When you say stereo sounds good for a lot of festivals, do you mean 2.0 or 3.0 stereo?

The movie is that one I am co-directing and it's that one I talked about before, that was similar to The Hunger Games. So it's more of a sci-fi thriller, if that would call for 5.1. Seems like it could for some of the action scenes and effects.

[Paul R Johnson]

Why? First case - assuming it's stereo with a centre channel, where will your dialogue be? What will then be in the L and R? In 5:1 it's same again for the rear channels, and of course what goes in the sub channel?

Sound effects? ambience? Considering the grief you have shooting pictures and mono sound with your motley bunch of actors and know-it-all helpers, how on earth will you make surround work. Even 2 vs 3 channels is going too really stretch you. Do you know how to balance centre vs left and rights if your dialogue creeps into those too? It's not remotely easy to do. My mixers have a dedicated centre channel and getting that to sit correctly is far from easy.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, well what I have been doing is, is that for surround so far, if I want dialogue say to go from left to right as an actor moves from left to right, in Premiere Pro, I will set a key frame, in which the dialogue would move from left to right along with the actor.

That's how I have been doing it so far, when it comes to sound going from one channel to the next.

[Paul R Johnson]

Where did you get this notion? That's a very strange thing to do in my experience. In a typical movie theatre the left and right speakers can be maybe 20m apart? Having voices that travel this far sounds bizarre, so the centre speaker does the work and the soundstage is shrunk - maybe 30% left to right, so that wherever you sit you can hear. Remember that each shot should sound similar, and if you start doing this panning thing you then get very strange location shifts. Imagine you breaking your 180 degree rule, would left suddenly flip to be right? If sound follows location then it should, but that will shake the audience. As a general rule, sound stays broadly mono from people's mouths. If you need to create a more realistic stereo field, then you cannot do this for each shot because the cuts really shock the listener. So you need audio that flows gently from shot to shot, meaning dialogue is rarely much more than mono. Footsteps and other Foley-esque sound can be panned wide, or plonked in the rear to match the shot, but it's just not normal to pan voices in this way. Even worse - if the camera pans left to re-centre the actor - would you then move it again? Hence my concern you're going to make the sound simply horrible to listen to. What have you decided - mono dialogue and sound effects, or realism and static cameras and moving people, or what?

You cannot attempt to place people in each shot, because the next shot comes along and ruins it!

[Brian Drysdale]

I wouldn't start doing a a 5.1 mix on a feature film unless I was mixing in an appropriately equipped sound environment. Given the thread on the wind noise on your microphone, why do you believe you've got the skills to do a 5.1 mix sound track of a feature film?

[Rick Reineke]

The simple the better for festivals. A stereo mix is usually fine, staying away from hard left / right panning
I have experienced, heard of and read about multichannel audio nightmares at festivals. If you really want a multichannel presentation, hire a pro to mix it.. and audition it on the theater's system prior. Even then, have a stereo and mono mix version as a backup.

[Paul R Johnson]

I do lots of show tracks - either backing tracks or click tracks for theatres, and until you get used to big spaces, your mixes usually have a huge hole in the middle, where things seem to vanish into - hence I expect, Cinema evolved with a centre channel which is the critical one. If you mix in 'stereo' - good old fashioned left/right, it's vital to leave things that are critical as mono, unless it's for effect. music and effects can explore greater width, but dialogue is centre.