Major Project: Rough Cut Update & Result

My last tasks of the Rough Cut and sound editing were to complete clearing up the audio, and to put this pack into the Premiere timeline, ready for colour grading. This process was complete within two days, as seen below...

Day 16 (Finishing Audition Sound Editing Scenes 20-23, & Review)

Day 16 Edit Log

• Continued to use my noise and hiss reduction process throughout scene 20 to 23.

• Finished clearing up all audio in Audition.

• Decided to get a different perspective of the audio by listening to it through headphones instead of speakers, allowing me to notice any further issues such as out of places sounds or rough transitions between clips.

• Made small adjustments with a focus on the above, but realised that I had slightly over-corrected scene 14 and 15's dialogue, making them sound vaguely watery/tinny.

• Conducted research on how to completely undo these past effects and use of tools, or to replace the clips, but found no solution online, and currently had no technical help available.

• Moved on to attempting to repair distorted/clipped audio clips, but found through testing, practising and further research that they were irreparable.

I found a lot of new issues on day 16 within sound editing, and it began to flag up a lot of complications that I didn't have the time in our schedule or sound editing knowledge to handle. Without technical help available I had to step away from the project as I felt there wasn't a way to fix any of the issues that I was finding.

Day 17 (Audition XML Export & Colour Grading Hand-Over)

Day 17 Edit Log

• Sought help from our technical adviser on ways to fix the issues that I'd found on day 16, however we were unable to fix these together.

• We decided to test putting the Audition project back into the original Premiere Pro timeline, but this caused further issues as usually sound editing isn't started until the final cut of the edit is complete - but this isn't possible within a student project, so I had to start the sound editing process much earlier. Usually, the Audition project is completely finalised and mixed before being put back into Premiere, however further work was needed on the sound, so I needed all audio to be placed back with it's original cuts and separated clips to be later cut down with the rest of the film, and later edited again in Audition. This isn't normal practice between the Audition software and Premiere Pro software at all, and we struggled for a very long time to find a way to export the project without all of the clips on each track turning into one long clip, such as below...

• This would make the audio and the film extremely difficult, maybe even impossible to edit into a fine cut and a final cut. So after a lot of testing, research and trial and error, our technical adviser found a way to export the Audition project back into a Premiere Pro project without losing the original cuts and format, as can be seen below...

• Upon reviewing this alone however, I found that all of volume and fade/blending alterations had been lost in the export. So the volume was unbalanced, and each clip was now cut together without any blending. But with our technical adviser no longer available for two weeks, and with the colour grading process already delayed by a day, I had to step away from the project, and find a solution once colour grading was complete and hands-on help was available again.

I found that this part of the Rough Cut and sound editing process contained the largest and most difficult issues of the project so far for me, as I felt like I was unable to fix the issues that kept arising, and no longer had the time left to attempt to fix the issues due to colour grading needing to begin.

Issues & Decision Making

Towards the end of sound editing in the Rough Cut process, the process started to become much more challenging. New issues within the film's audio began to flag up for me, and I realised that I was far too inexperienced to fix them alone. Alongside this, all research that I was conducting to learn how to fix these issues were proving to have no result, and our technical adviser was no longer available for two weeks. And in addition, our colourist was scheduled to begin his work on colour grading the film on my hard drive - as it holds all of my labelled and organised footage and projects, meaning that I wouldn't be able to work on the film at the same time as him.

With all of these issues lining up, I talked the problems over with the crew, and we decided that by the time the colour grading would be finished, and our technical adviser would be back, that it would be too late for me to be learning how to fix large sound issues when I need to be coming the end of the edit. So we agreed to add to our budget and hire a professional sound editor to come in and fine tune the sound before the Fine Cut of the film. This way, an experienced professional would be able to deal with the issues quickly and effectively in a short amount of time, leaving valuable time for finishing the film's overall edit.

It was disappointing to not be able to fine tune the audio myself, but as I'd never sound edited professionally on any software before, I feel that I did a very good job in clearing up all of the hiss and noise from the audio, along with putting a great deal of effort into this process, especially with such damaged audio. If I had a lot more time and help at hand I would have been eager to spend a long time learning how to improve my skills in sound editing, but unfortunately, this project has an extremely quick turn around, and it isn't viable for me to work on this alone and inexperienced.

Results

Although by the end of my time working on the Rough Cut of the film, a lot of issues started to come up within sound editing, I was able to hand over a completed visual Rough Cut of the film to our colourist for him to work smoothly on the project.

The end of this process proved to be the most challenging work that I have ever done, and I felt that in the end I was unable to fix the issues within the audio. But overall, I think that the Rough Cut looks extremely professional and well cut, with at least cleared up audio for the time being. I think that although the sound will need to be professionally worked on, when considering the visuals of the film, it's extremely close to a Fine Cut, and once music, the titles, and closing credits are incorporated in the Fine Cut, it will be an almost finished, and very well presented film.

Once the film's colour grading is completed, reviewed and handed back to me, I will add the finished music compositions to the edit, and begin fine cutting the film with the Director.