It starts right from screenplay. Screenplay is not only about visuals. Instead it is about audiovisuals. The sound has to be written clearly in the screenplay. Then comes the stage of scripting i.e. the audiovisual narration of the story. After that the shot division has to be done. Ideally one should draw each shot and write each sound on paper for the movie. With many other activities to prepare for shooting, this stage is called preproduction.
Production starts after the preproduction i.e the preparation for shooting. For sound there are two types of productions. One is sync sound production. Another non-sync sound production. Sync sound production means the final sound has to be recorded on location. For this choosing the location becomes most crucial. It has to be as silent as possible. At the same time directional microphones should be used to avoid external noises. High end wireless microphones are also used. But it is better to use both small hide-able wire less collar microphone and directional boom microphone together for safety as well as for quality as collar mic gives strength and boom mic gives perspective For various constraints hundred percent sync sound recording is hardly possible all the time. But 80-90% of sync sound recording is possible. For the rest of the sound, the sound engineer takes the help of a dubbing studio and dub the remaining part using the same microphone combination. If he/she does not use the same microphone combination, the sound quality will mismatch. So that is how sync sound is done.
For non-sync sound projects, the sound engineer records the sound with boom microphone and wireless lapel if necessary. In this case the recorded track is called ‘pilot’ track or reference track, since it will be used as a guide track for the dubbing. To record the pilot track location is not as important as it is in case of a sync sound recording. Only thing is that the dialogue should be properly audible. Otherwise dubbing will not be possible. It is important to note that before taking each shot the clap board inscribed with scene number, shot number and take number, must make a sound in front of the camera so that it becomes easier and methodical for editor to syncronise the sound with visual on the edit table.
After that the shot footage goes to the edit table. This process is known as post production. In the editing lab the editor syncronises the sound with visuals and makes a rough cut. After that he/she does fine tuning to the rough cut and prepare a final cut and locks the edit. Then it goes to the sound studio for dubbing and sound designing. As I said before for sync sound project, very less amount of dubbing is necessary. For non sync sound project, the sound engineer puts the visual with pilot track on a sound software. And the arrangement of sound studio allows the actor to hear the pilot track through headphone. At the same time the actor or dubbing artist can view the visual on a screen. So he/she watches the visual on screen and at the same time hears the pilot track through the headphones. Then he /she tries to utter the dialogues with emotion in sync with the visual standing or sitting in front of a studio microphone. If it is a sync sound project, sound engineers prefer to use the location microphone combination for matching the tonal quality. This way each actor or dubbing artist comes to the studio and records his/her dialogue in sync with the visual. After the dialogue recording is over, the sound engineer saves all the tracks in a project.
Thereafter comes the foley. Foley recording is a very speacilised job. The name Foley came from Jack Donovan Foley, who started creating sound effects for motion pictures. For foley recording a foley studio is required. Foley studio has sand, dry leaves, wooden floor, concrete floor, various shoes, cups, dishes, glasses, water, knife, clothes etc everyday materials. The main purpose of foley recording is to add sound to all the minor details of the movie. For example, the character on screen keeping a tea cup on the table. While shooting this sound might not be recorded for various reasons. Foley artist recreates the sound in the studio. Suppose there is a campfire, the sound of the fire can be recreated by the crackles of a plastic. This way sounds are added to the film. It is not possible to have all the materials, in the foley studio all the time. So often the required materials are collected from somewhere else depending on the final cut of the movie. A major example of foley is foot steps recording. It happens almost in every movie. The procedure of foley recording is quite similar to dubbing. The foley artist watches the visual on screen inside the studio and perform the action in front of microphone. Then it gets recorded in the software.
After that it is the turn of the ambience sound. The ambience is created in the studio. The recording engineer does ambience track laying in two ways. One from the stock sound and another by recording the real ambience. The recording engineer watches the final cut and makes a list of the ambience sound required. Then he/she takes the field recorder, microphone, head phone and travels from place to place to collect the required sound effects. After that he comes to the studio and lay the sounds on the software according to the visuals.
Music is recorded in a different studio with the help of the musicians and the tracks are sent to the mixing studio. Now the recording engineer lays the music tracks wherever it is necessary. Next step is balancing, cleaning, and adjusting the dialogue, foley and ambience tracks. This stage is known as premixing. For example dialogues are put into a group and balanced. Similarly ambience and foley tracks are grouped and premixed. Music comes with four separate tracks - vocal, rhythm, wind and strings. These tracks are also premixed.
After the premixing all the final four tracks - dialogue, foley, ambience and music - go to the rerecording studio. At rerecording studio the mixing engineer mixes the four tracks according to the Dolby, DTS or SDDS standard. Then the final tracks are sent to the lab for encoding with the visual.
