Polished Work (page 2)

4. Sound Effects/ADR and Other Non-Natural Audio

You may have added some sound effects during the rough-cut process, but sound effects, ADR (Automated or Automatic Dialog Replacement, aka looping), Foley (recreating and syncing incidental sounds such as footsteps) and other non-nat sounds usually happen after "picture lock," when visual editing is complete. There is not much point spending time inserting sound elements into scenes that you might cut, so you usually start enriching the audio after you have a fairly solid rough cut, at the very least. Here, the old adage "less is more" still applies. It's not the "big" sounds such as explosions and gunshots that are going to make your work excellent; it's the subtle sounds. Viewers may not even notice background sounds like birds, wind, traffic and dogs barking in the distance, but they will notice if they are not there. These little sounds are naturally around us everywhere, every day. Stop for a moment and just listen to your audible environment. Now think about putting those sounds in your work. Do you have a scene in a dodgy, urban neighborhood? Well, make that police siren seem to come from way off in the distance, not up front, and you have the beginning of a rich soundscape.

5. Sound Sweetening

Sound sweetening is a time-consuming and maybe even painful process, but it's so important. The majority of unbearable films at film festivals can credit their demise to poor sound. Good sound, of course, starts on location, but it ends with sweetening. Are the levels for every single sound element perfect? Your VU (volume-unit) meter or audiometer is your friend here, but not the final authority. An editor's ear and common sense should determine the best decibel level for each element of audio. The main point is to examine each sound unit individually and then together with the other sounds in the scene, to make sure the levels are perfect.

6. Rhythm

This section does not appear towards the end of this article because it is enacted last; a good editor is thinking about rhythm even before she/he first sits down at the edit bay. An editor should always be conscious of rhythm. Producer/director Jim Jarmusch often listens to different types of music before and during an edit to put him in the "rhythmic mood" he wants for the edit. Good editors will often shave or add as little as a single frame, one-thirtieth (or one-twenty-forth) of a second to keep the rhythm. This is a frame-by-frame procedure. Perfect rhythm can make or break an audience's attention.

7. Color Correction

Color correction is purposefully last. This should be the final step for a couple of reasons. As with sound effects, there is not much point in fine-tuning the color of a clip if you will only edit it out later. Plus, new high-end color correctors or color grading applications, such as Apple's Color, are stand-alone apps, not plug-ins or effects that work within the editor. Grading is to the picture what sweetening is to the sound. It deserves vast amounts of time to be properly tweaked. It's not a one-click adjustment. Good grading can make the difference between having a good video and a great video.

Contributing editor Morgan Paar is a nomadic producer, shooter and editor, currently teaching high school video production.