How do you handle the movie audio when doing a cue?

[ironchef_marc]

OK, whatever floats your boat. DP was designed to use each chunk as a cue and that is the most efficient, IMO. I'm still not understanding your workflow, but that's OK. I have my own.

I don't like that way of working it's like putting all your eggs in the same basket. Something happens to that file and you're screwed. Even using chunks would not solve the movie audio problem.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Even using chunks would not solve the movie audio problem.

Can we agree to be specific. You are using chunks, just not as separate cues (which you place in individual projects). A chunk is just a sequence. If you don't use chunks, you are not doing anything but launching DP. No sequencing. No VI racks. No song mode.

I don't like the term chunk at all for this very reason. People think it is some mysterious, convoluted way of working. It's not, It is a convoluted way of talking about sequencing.

As far as loosing work if a file goes south, that's what Time Machine is for. You might loose an hour at most if used regularly.

There is no "movie audio problem" as much as there seems to be a "unique" method of creating and overcoming obstacles you seem to be putting in your own path - at least as far as I see it. I do a fair amount of composing, SFX and design work, dialog editing, and sweetening. Every reel in it's own project. Sometimes the entire soundtrack in a single project (with many backups, versions, and back ups of the versions) and never seem to have any problems as you describe. Again, to each his own... that's great! But don't necessarily look for a fix to which there is no actual problem.

[ironchef_marc]

Even using chunks would not solve the movie audio problem.

I meant using a different chunk/sequence for each cue (within a DP project) would not solve the movie audio problem (i.e duplicates of it)

As far as loosing work if a file goes south, that's what Time Machine is for. You might loose an hour at most if used regularly.

Of course I do daily backups but still. I've tried using a DP projects with multiple sequence in it and it gets too sluggish as I have a big template plus it's not conducive to add special patches for a given cue and ran out of memory. Although that could be resolved with DP8

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well again, perhaps we shall all be gruntled with DP 8. Or not!

[ironchef_marc]

Anybody else can share their approach?

[Tim]

If the start time is changed, setting the movie audio back to back to it's Original (or User) Time Stamp should line it back up.

Using the Trim Plugin to isolate the dialog works, but sometimes the attenuated side can bleed through.

Sometimes I'll use the soundbite editor to make separate mono tracks (New Soundbite From Selection) from the movie audio.

[Armageddon]

Sadly, I usually get my movies with the scratch track (dialogue/scratch soundtrack) all together on two stereo tracks, so I wind up having the QT audio turned way down through the composition process, then muted altogether when it comes time for mixing and playback.

[ironchef_marc]

Sadly, I usually get my movies with the scratch track (dialogue/scratch soundtrack) all together on two stereo tracks

Yes that's the common practice. Use the Trim plugin to isolate each side of the stereo track once you've copied it to DP.

[frankf]

Sadly, I usually get my movies with the scratch track (dialogue/scratch soundtrack) all together on two stereo tracks, so I wind up having the QT audio turned way down through the composition process, then muted altogether when it comes time for mixing and playback.

This is really a drag and usually happens because the editor doesn't want to take the time to split(pan) the dialogue from the temp music. Can you get the editor to give you 2 movies? One mixed as above for reference and one with dialogue only? This is sometimes easier for the editor, and you can copy the dialogue from the dialogue only version into your DP project, then go back to the mixed version for reference.
Frank

[ironchef_marc]

Once you setup your master template for the movie, i.e. sound palette and markers for the cues for the whole movie and you've copied the audio from the Quicktime (which will typically have the dialog /sfx on the left side and temp music on the right, FYI I duplicate that track and using the trim plugin I remove the left channel and pan it in the center on one of them (I do the opposite for the other remove the right channel)so I get the dialog and temp music separated.

So then when I change the start of the chunk / sequence to get to the cue I'm working on, the movie audio was out of sync. What I discovered is you select the movie audio, dialog and temp music and go in the audio menu 3/4 at the bottom select Time stamps then then "Move to Original Time Stamp". You'll get a warning saying "Some of the time stamps are before the sequence start time. If you continue, any audio before the sequence start time will be chopped off."

That's is actually what you want. Voilà don't need to re-copy the movie audio which takes a while and creates a duplicate and uses up necessary space. It'd be cool though to have a feature similar to "lock" that would lock a soundbite in reference to it's TC position (not just bar reference) thus changing the chunk start time it would keep in sync for automatically.