Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Well I wanted sounds from different sources, and wasn't planning on relying on just one package, if that is what you mean, unless that package were to be so good, it would have them all in it.

[Dave Baker]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

Seems like there have to be alternatives? Surely sony isnt the only one who thought to fill that niche.

The alternative is Smartsound's Sonicfire Pro, they are still updating it and producing new music for it.

I have both, I often prefer Cinescore music but the repertoire is very limited, even though I have four of the five theme packs they produced. The one on ebay looks to be the original package with only the Cinescore Essentials theme pack, which also contains some sound FX. Unless some other theme packs can be found it would be very restricted. I have searched for the pack I am missing, but no luck, so haven't bothered for a few years.

[Paul R Johnson]

Dave’s comment is the problem, you need to constantly add and update. I think Ryan missed we were talking about the products that generate the music for you. He’s talking now about the sample/synthesis packages and few weeks pass without buying something from the email offers that come every day.

Sounds are personal. I collaborate with another musician and we have a core of common packages. If he needs X for a project I will work on later, I buy it too, and vice versa. However, though I just bought the latest spitfire, he found nothing in it useful to his music, which only deals with real instruments, not the pads, washes and effects. I have lots of violins, because he writes violin music!

EDIT
Ironically yesterday I got a Ryan style commission. I got a time, and a mid piece hit point for a change. Small chamber music, sadder at the start, brighter at the hit point, then, can it have a bass clarinet and a violin! I thought of Ryan straight away.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh why did you think of me, because of that?

[Paul R Johnson]

Make the link Ryan - you should not have to ask the question.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh because I asked for a specific instruments before.

[Josh Bass]

Ding ding ding

[Paul R Johnson]

Thud thud thud. That is my head hitting the wall. For many years I have followed the British Army maxim - the 6 P's. Proper planning prevents pi55 poor performance. It has always worked well for me. Maybe it should be Pi55 poor planning promotes poor performance, when carried out in Saskatoon.

There really seems so little point planning in micro depth, but getting the basics totally skewed. We know Ryan has terrible actors he wishes to use. We know he is having real trouble getting locations the right colour. The know the soundtrack has been planned before any pictures have been shot, and we know the sound is going to be terrible. The script at last discussion was in a terrible state too. We are now talking about capturing audio properly by limiting the camera departments ability too frame a shot - we're talking about extreme wide frame formats because that's the way to get closer audio perspective, and we still have that damn bass flute to cope with.

[Josh Bass]

And yet, some part of you, that grows larger each day, desperately wants to see the finished product, AMIRITE?

[Ryan Elder]

Well at the end of the day I'm just trying to do the best I can with what I have. Is that so bad? I still feel like I have to try my best, rather than not try at all.

It means thinking of outside the box solutions and asking if it'll work but I'm not sure what else to do since I don't have everything that a bigger budget project would have to solve problems.

[Josh Bass]

The lesson everyone here is trying to get you to learn is that you either need more money/resources or to scale back your ambition, and you won't do either.

You have the budget to make a movie where three people argue in a house for 90 minutes, not an action/police/horror blockbuster.

Not a Santa Claus movie.

Not a submarine movie.

Most filmmakers would look around and say "I have $50k and x x and x locations that I can use", what could I do with that? And write a script around it, make that as well as they could, and THEN (in a perfect ideal world) use that to attract money to make the blockbuster. You want to skip right to the blockbuster.

[Ryan Elder]

oh okay, it's not that I don't mean to scale back my ambitions it's just that if the average building has noise problems how am I supposed to scale back my ambitions more further back than the average building. It seems to me I need to move the ambitions further maybe and more money for better locations to shoot in perhaps or better actors since I was told I need better actors or better crews since I was told I need better crew? Scaling back seems to have cheaper results, unless I am wrong?

[Brian Drysdale]

Most locations have sound issues of some sort, it's a matter of if they can be solved or do you find another location. In the end, even the noisiest location can be used, if required, because there are solutions available today that weren't possible without a lot of work in the past.

You're not making a film with a noisy 16mm Bolex camera, with the kit you've currently got it's relatively easy to shoot reasonable quality dialogue scenes at a low cost.

[Paul R Johnson]

I do not know where you get these crazy statements from. The average building doesn't have noise problems. My office and studio is next to a railway line. I have a computer in the office that shows me rail traffic, and I have a continuous window between trains of maybe 40-50 minutes. I can find silence at those times. However, for some things I can record when a train goes by - it's distant enough to not intrude. I did a shoot at a stately home, because the production company loved the Hogwarts style wood panelling. The neighbour unfortunately had a Spitfire which took off and landed a few times during the day. We sorted that one too. If you are really a one man band production company - you can make super products, but they need managing properly.

You get forced to use poor actors, poor crew and poor locations? You choose them - if they are poor find better ones. If you cannot find better ones, write a movie that doesn't require things you can't get.

There's a great clip on YouTube of a James Bond movie where they needed James Bond in a shot, but he'd been released and wasn't there they used a still photograph of Roger Moore, and nobody noticed. If you have problems, cleverness and cunning can save them.

Your problem seems to be that you and your people are not good at problem solving.

If it was my money Ryan, there is no way I'd waste it on a poor production. Most people start small and do it really well, then get bigger and more complex as their skills grow. Looking at the movie we've used as examples - the wrath thing - clearly it was too much. Everything conspired against you.

Have you sorted out the camera operation - the wobblicam was in need of sorting.
The sound problem. Can you manage this for the next one.
Some of your actors were actually fine. Others were miscast and some very bad - do you have enough decent ones?
Locations - do you have what you need?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. As for starting out small I thought I was starting out the smallest, and getting a small group of actors for a real locations short film. I didn't think I could start out any smaller than that. I feel that a couple of the actors were decent and will try to find more, and try to find more locations for nex time. I was too impulsive and just wanted to get a project in the can perhaps, but I can try to have more patients and keeping looking for more first, if that's best.

As for the wobble cam, yes I could just find a better gimbal operator for next time, if that's best. The sound problem can hopefully be solved with better locations if that's best. Did the sound have any other noise problems, other than the one location?