How not to handle sync-up

Most of the experiences discussed throughout this blog have been based on the work we have done for Remember. This is because I think it provides the best example of how a film can quite easily go wrong. Not that you can fault anybody for trying, but the end result is certainly not what was expected.

This particular film, as mentioned, has had a few difficulties. This time I’ll discuss sync-sound. When Remember went into its edit after shooting, the editor did none of the dialogue sync. Okay, no big deal, right? Well, it actually is. It is the editors job to sync the dialogue. See Film Underground – http://www.filmunderground.com/13/Article/NWFS/Dialogue.htm

This then meant that the dialogue sync fell to us, more specifically, me. Not something I wanted to spend an entire day doing, only made possible by begging the editor to create me a list of shots used, not that it was all that easy to follow. I was then able to sync up the dialogue as best as I could, without any marker board getting things absolutely in-sync is pretty much impossible.

The second sync-related issue with this particular film came when we were surprised with a new cut, on the same day that the film was due to go into its final mix. Picture lock was in early March, so this should not have happened. Changes can be dealt with, and they’re to be expected, but not the day before we expect to deliver them the audio. This meant we had to rush a mix that was of an acceptable quality and deliver it to them in stem form so that the editor could sync things back up himself. There would have been no way we could have re-synced everything ourselves and delivered a final mix on-time.

After explaining this to the film group, they realised just how much work a small change creates, however they were able to sync the sound themselves for their hand-in, however we will be handing in the previous cut of the film.

[LO3] [PO3]

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