Using N-Track to score a short film...

Can’t sleep… Clowns will eat me.

Well, a good friend is finishing up shooting a short film, and they’re going to have a final edit in few weeks. He approached me the other day about scoring some incidental music for it, as well as throwing some already produced tracks in there.

I haven’t done this kind of thing before, but I’ve thought about it in the past, and here’s an opportunity! So I’m thrilled but kinda nervous, both musically and technically. I’m hoping there may be a few N-Track users out there who’ve used N for this kind of thing before, because I may need some occasional help.

But firstly, I need to make sure I’ve got what I need. They shot it in digital video, so let’s assume I’ve got something like an AVI I can use for playback in N, and let’s assume I’m not doing ANY video editing. Using the synch video feature I’m assuming I’ll be able to assemble tracks and record various parts that I need all in N.

But obviously in the end I’ll need a way to mix the new audio master to synch with the final product. Someone had posted a link to ZS4 for video editing, so I’m going to horse around with that too. But I’m new to this, so I’m sure there are things in between that I don’t understand yet. It looks like a lot of people use Premiere and other packages for these jobs…

If anyone with experience in this has any advice or pointers on how to pull this puppy off, I’d be forever grateful. If I had a year to sit around and play with it, I’d be content to just learn as I go, but it needs to be done mid to late July, so I’m a little… verklempt.

My daughter has done a couple of digital film projects for a film class, and I have helped her a bit with the music. Premier can synch the audio tracks up. I think you might be over conceiving your role a bit. They asked for incidental music. Surely the filmakers will synch it up and edit it. Probably they will give you the film in avi to respond to. You write and record what you feel is appropriate, give it to them as wav files, they load it into Premier and use what they want.

John

Quote (Stringer @ June 05 2005,00:26)
My daughter has done a couple of digital film projects for a film class, and I have helped her a bit with the music. Premier can synch the audio tracks up. I think you might be over conceiving your role a bit. They asked for incidental music. Surely the filmakers will synch it up and edit it. Probably they will give you the film in avi to respond to. You write and record what you feel is appropriate, give it to them as wav files, they load it into Premier and use what they want.

John

Thanks John. According to them, I'll be completing a full audio master of all incidental music and dialogue. But this is from the main writer/actor, and I haven't spoken to whoever paid attention to sound while filming. And this is very DIY, only a few people involved, not paid, and trying to avoid buying any new software right now.

I'll actually know more this week, so maybe it was premature to put my feelers out. But I was curious to see if some others had done something similar with n-Track.

I found this very interesting. A person I work with does a TV show one the local access channel and he has asked if I would be interested in creating sound design and music for it.

Can any of you direct me to a site that has info on this medium?

Lets also assume your avi file will have a countdown with a 2 and a blip. Sync a blip to that two on your tracks and they would want a 48k 16 bit wave files. Keep sub mixes seperate incase they will have 5.1 surround sound. Would be better to keep lip sync tracks in the video editing software.

Quote (squidly @ June 05 2005,19:24)
Lets also assume your avi file will have a countdown with a 2 and a blip. Sync a blip to that two on your tracks and they would want a 48k 16 bit wave files. Keep sub mixes seperate incase they will have 5.1 surround sound. Would be better to keep lip sync tracks in the video editing software.

Yeah, I'm going to have to find out what format they'll be able to deliver it in. Worst case is just that I can get it with timecode printed on it, and send them precision cut WAVs with the punch in times. They can get Premiere or Nuendo on their own.

I haven't done sub mixes before, and I don't think I'm handling the voiceovers. But maybe I am. I know too little too early. ;)