Preparing Reels for Dialog Editing

Pro Tools Tip

Preparing Reels for Dialog Editing

Part 1 - Loading Master Audio

by Douglas Murray

Preparing to cut a reel of dialog can be a time-consuming and frustrating process for both sound editor and assistant. The auto-conforming process invariably results in sloppy sync, and too often requires extensive trouble-shooting of the EDL and sound rolls to sort out discrepancies in timecode and tape-labeling.

In this two-part article, I will discuss how best to prepare a reel for dialog editing. I will also explain how to facilitate the process using a valuable utility called Titan, which is made by the English company Synchro Arts.

The OMF Option (When We Can!)

A very positive trend is for picture departments to hand over an OMF composition and media files directly from the Avid. When conversion of the OMF into a Pro Tools Session works correctly, it results in a complete and sample-accurate clone of the Avid tracks. I always encourage picture departments to load sound digitally from the location DATs in any way they can. That way, they can

When we don’t receive an
OMF turn-over, the sound
assistant must make sure all
the takes are digitized,
conformed, and in precise sync.
Loading the cut sequence
with handles isn’t enough.

give me a master quality OMF turn-over, which can save the sound department a couple of person/weeks. When we are lucky enough to get an OMF turn-over, we don’t need to go through the steps described here.

But there are various reasons that picture departments can’t or don’t load the master audio D-to-D into the Avid. The most common is that the sound is already in sync on the same videotape that the picture is being digitized from. Whether the rushes are synced, screened on film and telecined, or synced on tape by the telecine house, once sound and picture are in sync it seems wasteful to sync again in the Avid. Most picture departments have enough to do during the shoot without this extra task.

PostConform

Digidesign makes a useful program called PostConform that can read an EDL, then auto-load and auto-conform the sound for the reel. It adds a user-defined handle to each clip specified in the EDL, then uses machine control to automatically load each clip, prompting the user to insert a new tape, as required. The problem with this auto-load approach is that the editor doesn’t get complete takes and can’t take advantage of useful material outside the auto-loaded area. Also, clips are named automatically by PostConform in a meaningless way that has nothing to do with the takes. The only way to get each take onto your drive from start to stop with a meaningful name is to digitize manually, as described below. Even though this takes longer, the results save time and a lot of head-scratching later on.

Back to the Grindstone

When we don’t receive an OMF turn-over, it becomes the sound assistant’s responsibility to make sure that all the material required for the reel is digitized, conformed, and in precise sync with the guide tracks. When I’m cutting dialog for a feature film in Pro Tools, I have my assistant prepare the reel with the following steps:

Load All Required Takes From Masters

Each scene and take used in the reel must be separately digitized in its entirety from the master recordings, stamped with timecode from the sound roll and named so that it can be found again. In order to do this, you need to make a list of all the takes used in the reel in sound roll order.

First, get an EDL from the picture department in CMX 3600 format with clip names as comments. If you want a head start on loading, the EDL doesn’t even need to be the final version. Jot down all the takes named in the EDL along with their sound roll numbers. Then after eliminating duplicates, rewrite the list of slates in the order in which they were shot (the most efficient load order) by referring to the sound reports. This will save time in the long run, because handling the sound rolls and finding takes is the most time consuming part of loading, and it’s most efficient to go through the tapes only once per reel if you can. It is also possible to get the picture department to give you an Avid Media Log, or a scene pull list, which might save time.

Now comes the fun part – digitizing all the takes on the list. Create a load Session and make sure that the sample rate matches that of the DATs. In the Session Setup Window, make sure you have LTC (Linear Time Code) selected for positional reference and digital input selected for tracks one and two. Cue each take up at the beginning of the recording and load the whole slate up to the point where the recordist stopped the recorder. The takes will end up in the Audio Files Folder within the Session folder, but they can be moved somewhere else when you finish loading, if you wish.

For mono masters, load only one side of the pair of tracks on the DAT. If material was recorded with two different tracks, digitize both. Examine the sound reports for guidance here, but sometimes the recordist forgets to note whether the recording is mono or split, so look at the meters on the DAT to double check. If in doubt, digitize both.

It is essential that you digitize the sound using "on-line" recording into Pro Tools, so that each digitized take gets time-stamped with the DAT timecode. After cueing the tape, put Pro Tools into "on-line record" mode (click the appropriate buttons on the Transport Window or use the Command-Option-Spacebar key combo). When you play the DAT, Pro Tools will start recording as soon as it sees a moment of timecode. Pro Tools will stop recording when there is a break in code, so stop the tape manually at the end of the take. Turn on the Preference for "Record at Time Code Lock," and make sure that you have a short timecode freewheel amount (maybe 10 frames) in the Session Setup Window. (Do not use jam sync mode, or your files may be time-stamped incorrectly.)

Finally, each take must be named consistently. Titan, which I’ll cover in detail next time, requires that digitized files are named beginning with the sound roll. The file name should also contain the scene and take so that the files will make sense in Pro Tools and on the hard disk. (Because of the way Pro Tools works with file names and sub-regions, it’s best to use a slash for scene/take punctuation.) In order for Titan to recognize a two-track recording, the name for track one (left) must end with ‘.L’ and for track two (right) ‘.R’. Here are a few examples: "001 1/1" (for mono), "027 43/6.L" (for channel 1) and "027 43/6.R" (for channel 2).

Load All Likely Alternate Takes, Too.

This may seem like a luxury, but a little extra digitizing can save hours of searching through the masters later on. One brute force method to accomplish this is to load all circled takes for all scenes in the reel. If time is critical, you can load all circled takes just for scenes with obvious problems.

The next step is to conform the digitized master takes to the picture editor’s guide tracks. In the second part of this article, I will explain how to do so using Titan.

Go to Part 2

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