Pro Tools On Location

[WhatASpotOfT@me.com]

Im a student and i am a month in to my program at SAE NY. My friend is shooting his first film and ask me if i could help him with the audio. He wanted record the sound right into he HV20 with a 50 dollar audio technica. I'm planing on buying a Rode NTG-2 and was planing to do on location sound with that and right into my MBox Mini and into my computer. My teacher told me that i should use Logic to record my audio, but im more comfortable with Pro Tool. He is doing his editing with CS4. And im not really sure about how the files will transfer over.

That is a little bit about my situation. Im just looking for some helpful advice. I know im going to have to do a lot of work matching the audio to the video, and im more then willing to do so. I just wanted to know the best program for me to use to capture the sounds. I also have been looking around for any information about using a laptop on location and really haven't found anything that helpful, is this idea totally out of line or is it just not the most effective.


Christopher J

[lifeinsound]

any daw would work. logic can be more stable but you should be good.

[yeahforbes]

When recording audio and video on separate machines, especially since they won't be synchronized with timecode, you'll save yourself a huge headache by slating the beginning of every take. A real clapboard slate is obviously the tool for the job, but in a pinch you can do anything that clearly creates a simultaneous aural+visual cue, such as clapping you hands in front of the camera. That way when you conform the audio to the video you can slide the waveform such that the noise spike is right under the frame where the clap occurred.

Additionally, you may run into the problem of drift, meaning that the 2 machines are running with slightly different ideas of how fast real time is. It may become noticeable in longer takes, so I would suggest not only slating the beginning of each take but also the end. Then you can conform to the opening clap, and then zoom in on the closing clap to where you can see the spike and the frame it's supposed to be with. In Pro Tools, set your ] tool to TCE and fix the region. Obviously very short takes won't need this at all.