Should the pitch in the voice be changed with slow motion dialogue?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay it's just I've never heard the word 'frame' used in audio and it's always been a video term. People alawys call them 'samples' in audio, but I see what you mean.

However, if you cut out an audio frame though, you can still hear that a frame is missing though, so how do you make it so you cannot hear that?

[Brian Drysdale]

You delete the audio frame(s), so that the timing between the words changes. You insert frames (from elsewhere on the re-voice recording) if you want to lengthen the gap, but in this case it just involved shortening, You usually have atmosphere tracks in the final mix, which covers any variations, since the recording is done in a studio.

When in the NLE timeline, there are frames in the time ruler. similar to timecode. for all tracks so you can keep sync as you edit. However, I was referring to editing 16mm film, which has magnetic film which looks the same as the photographic 16mm, but it has a magnetic coating. The principle remains the same, just you're physically cutting out the audio frames and splicing it back together.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay I see. But whenever I cut out an audio frame, you can still hear that a frame has been cut though.

[Paul R Johnson]

Only if you do it badly, Ryan. It depends on how adept you are with software. Frames are only talked about in audio circles when you are editing audio for video, because audio editors work down to individual samples and video doesn't. If you can only cut your pictures in the video frame gaps, it make sense to work in frames in your audio. Most sync problems are OK to a video frame adjustment as the smallest one, but your audio editor could snip out half a frame if you were really picky.

Audio edits do t work with cuts between dissimilar waveforms. There's a jump or worse, a pop or click. But the secret are cross faces. Problem edits just get a short cross fade and that cures it. As I've said, I use cubase, but for simple edits I'll go from premiere to audition because of the linking, sort it then go back. I do t like audition but it's perfectly capable. Now, I tend to do complicate audio in cubase, other audio work in sound forge and just a few things in audition. I could probably do them all in audition really, but I'm quicker in cubase.

[Brian Drysdale]

You should check your NLE's audio cut settings, so that you have a softer cut, if it's really obvious. If the audio is the same on either side of the "cut out" section, you shouldn't hear anything. Note that this means not having a gap in your audio track. You can put in a bit of "silence" if there is a gap.

In the days of film editing, the splicer had an angle for cutting the magnetic film, so there was a very slight overlap at the splice. When using a razor blade to edit 1/4" audio tape, the cutting block had a 45 degree cut, to do the same thing. Basically softening the cut with a mechanical cross fade.

You can only do it if there's a gap in the speech and there's clean background sound on the recording.

Your atmosphere tracks etc, should cover things up in the final mix.

Using a NLE I would tend to use trimming with slide if i wanted to adjust by a one or two frames. Just use the razor/slice to cut the audio track, so the previous section isn't changed and slide the audio for the best lip match. Slide may get you a better overall match in the clip, without getting down to word by word lip matching.

[Paul R Johnson]

Off topic a bit - I did something very silly when I was shooting in a big church with 4 cameras. I used the audio from the camera doing the centre line closeups and the sync was very difficult to match, until I realised the centre camera was the furthest one away, but with the tightest lens - so it was recording sound with a delay so by using that one as the sync 'master' - perfect sync was actually wrong. The correct sync position was ahead of where the waveform from that camera was. I took ages to click why it didn't match!

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Yes I can do crossfades to get rid of the popping sounds, but even then, a lot of times you can tell that there is something wrong in the sound, but it's hard to descrive. A tonal shift in the voice sound sometimes.

Another thing I could do is cut to a reaction shot, if I have trouble matching up the dialogue. However, what if a reaction shot would be emotionally incorrect at that moment? What is worse, ADR that may not line up, or an emotionally incorrect cut to a reaction shot?

[Brian Drysdale]

You shouldn't be changing the voice, just matching the words to the lips.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh yes, it's just what I mean is let's say I cut out an audio frame. You may here a change as the frame is skipped over because the voice has changed, if that makes sense?

[Brian Drysdale]

You don't cut out frames where there is a change in the audio. You only take out frames that have no speech.

This is something that you should practice, since it's a skill.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, sure. Taking out frames where there is no dialogue is not a problem, and I can do that easily. But what if you need to make a sentence be shorter to match in ADR, but the actor did not pause at all while speaking?

[Brian Drysdale]

You'll have to use a different technique, Some NLE's will allow you to fit clips into a certain length within the timeline. However, you're probably best using a DAW for maximum options for this type of stuff.

[Paul R Johnson]

Well, in Cubase, you just stretch and shrink it to fit.

[Brian Drysdale]

There are YouTube videos that explain how to do ADR with Premiere Pro and Audition . It should align automatically if you're using the appropriate software. The clue is in the name Automated Dialogue Replacement, using other methods isn't ADR, but fit into the generic term of dubbing.

The method I'm describing is doing it manually, which is a slow business,

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, thanks, I suppose in the past, I wasn't doing it in an automated way, but it had to be done manually.