It was our first week of predubs last week & we finished Ambience predub in 2.5 days & then did 5 reels of Foley predubs by the end of the week…. Foley predub finished by Monday lunchtime, now we’re into FX Predubs & it seems I am out to set some kind of personal record for the number of FX stems required; we’re out to ten 5.1 stems already & suspect by the time we finish we’ll need another two or three… Each FX source session is a 32 output PT session per stem, so we dont have to keep repatching the outputs to the Euphonix desk. So this week we’re predubbing:
- FX A,B,C (misc FX) will be predubbed down to 3 x 5.1 stems
- FX D,E,F (movement, swords, violence) to 3 x 5.1 stems
Then I have a week off from mixing while the Dialogue/Crowds/Music predubs happen (on two mix stages) which gives me a chance to do my final pass on sound design elements plus VFX updates….
Then we’ll do another week of FX predubs:
- FX G,H, I (guns, background guns, impacts)
- FX J, K, L (fires, misc x 2 for VFX updates)
- Sound Design – virtual predub via automation (so material that might conflict with music is easy to manipulate/pitch/move)
Then the final mix!!!!!
Some statistics so far:
- Ambience PT Session = 12.89 GB (19,362 fades)
- Foley PT Session = 5,38 GB (8,601fades)
- FX ABC PT Session = 6.04 GB (4236 fades)
- FX DEF PT Session = 6.53 GB (4798 fades)
Obviously each of these sessions has come from far bigger libraries of material, since the sessions we take to the mix contain ONLY what was used. I noted the number of fades as it really helps illustrate how much work is done over the many weeks (this is my week 19) of development & editing, prior to the final predubs.
And god bless Conformalizer! Without it we would still be trying to update to the last picture cut!!! But the one aspect of conforming that people like to forget is that while the conforming might be quick & painless, there is still a lot of careful work involved patching & updating the sessions after the conform! My worst reel was reel 5, where there is a lot of action both on adn offscreen & it took my a day and a half to get it patched after the last conform. Patching onscreen action is not so bad since it is tied to the picture cut but offscreen can be very time consuming, as its relationship to the onscreen image (& conform) can be far more abstract, and there are times when I still resort to a manual conform of moments and/or whole scenes…
Onwards!
