jkuehlin
New member
Yeah. For a full cinematic dub stage, but will also be able service the game developer clients, regional broadcast corporations, and advertising firms.
Even though DrTechno answered the question in the original post, I'll respond anyway, since it seems there are some that are quite curious about the workflow.
In the film, TV, and gaming industry, you need to be able to turn projects VERY fast. Massive console i/o is needed to manage a network of DAWs that can have track counts into thousands. Now the tracks do fold (this means stems, busses, and channels ultimately get dumped on one or two faders per sound effect, foley effect, or ADR dub. However, even folded into stems, they still have to be dispersed between multiple pro tools machines because usually, the folds are managed from the DAW stations, not from the central console. So for example, I'll have 3 DAW operators at the final dub, and two console engineers (any one of which might be me) all working at the same time.
In a busy action cue (lets take an arial fight for example), there are foley effects of jet engines, explosions, machine gun fire, actor dialogue, sound effects from the airplane control panels (beeps, buzzes), a full orchestral score, and potentially ADR from another voice talent...lets say at a command base giving orders to the pilots. Then we have to feed everything to busses (sometimes before the fold, sometime after) for transistor radio FX (lets say for pilot radio communication) doppler imaging, and Atmos/7.1 surround management. This all requires enormous track count. In music you might dump all of your guitars into one stereo summing bus. You don't get to do that in film. Each time a jet passes while firing its machine gun, you have to designate a new channel for it. Because your 7.1 or Atmos panner will automate differently, depending on the camera shot and movement of the object on the screen. If one of the fighter jets veers off to the left, you need to do something to make it sound like its veering off to the left. If you have seven jets in formation, you can't just recycle the same jet sound. When one pilot gets hit and ejects, you'd better believe the sound of the parachute deploying is a foley effect. Here's the catch. A ~single~ gunshot (lets say a 9mm or a 40 cal) can eat up seven or eight tracks before the fold. So can a blood splat when someone falls over and dies. Count the amount of times someone died in a movie like 300, and start doing the math.
Yeah, a lot of projects are boring as hell. Do I need 1000 channels to broadcast a hunting and fishing show on local TV? Nope. Do I need 1000 channels to mix a church music broadcast? Nope. Regardless, when the bigger projects come along, you need to be pretty well aware of your multi machine capabilities and your limitations as well. If the project is too big, you just pass on it and send it over to a studio that can spread the project over 10 fully loaded pro tools rigs. (Again, Disney and Universal have no problem with this).
ps...I record full orchestras on a weekly basis.
Pss...my lowly state of South Carolina logged $168 million in direct spending from the film industry during 2015 alone. When I launch this facility I will be the only audio post house (with an atmos dubstage) in my state.
Even though DrTechno answered the question in the original post, I'll respond anyway, since it seems there are some that are quite curious about the workflow.
In the film, TV, and gaming industry, you need to be able to turn projects VERY fast. Massive console i/o is needed to manage a network of DAWs that can have track counts into thousands. Now the tracks do fold (this means stems, busses, and channels ultimately get dumped on one or two faders per sound effect, foley effect, or ADR dub. However, even folded into stems, they still have to be dispersed between multiple pro tools machines because usually, the folds are managed from the DAW stations, not from the central console. So for example, I'll have 3 DAW operators at the final dub, and two console engineers (any one of which might be me) all working at the same time.
In a busy action cue (lets take an arial fight for example), there are foley effects of jet engines, explosions, machine gun fire, actor dialogue, sound effects from the airplane control panels (beeps, buzzes), a full orchestral score, and potentially ADR from another voice talent...lets say at a command base giving orders to the pilots. Then we have to feed everything to busses (sometimes before the fold, sometime after) for transistor radio FX (lets say for pilot radio communication) doppler imaging, and Atmos/7.1 surround management. This all requires enormous track count. In music you might dump all of your guitars into one stereo summing bus. You don't get to do that in film. Each time a jet passes while firing its machine gun, you have to designate a new channel for it. Because your 7.1 or Atmos panner will automate differently, depending on the camera shot and movement of the object on the screen. If one of the fighter jets veers off to the left, you need to do something to make it sound like its veering off to the left. If you have seven jets in formation, you can't just recycle the same jet sound. When one pilot gets hit and ejects, you'd better believe the sound of the parachute deploying is a foley effect. Here's the catch. A ~single~ gunshot (lets say a 9mm or a 40 cal) can eat up seven or eight tracks before the fold. So can a blood splat when someone falls over and dies. Count the amount of times someone died in a movie like 300, and start doing the math.
Yeah, a lot of projects are boring as hell. Do I need 1000 channels to broadcast a hunting and fishing show on local TV? Nope. Do I need 1000 channels to mix a church music broadcast? Nope. Regardless, when the bigger projects come along, you need to be pretty well aware of your multi machine capabilities and your limitations as well. If the project is too big, you just pass on it and send it over to a studio that can spread the project over 10 fully loaded pro tools rigs. (Again, Disney and Universal have no problem with this).
ps...I record full orchestras on a weekly basis.
Pss...my lowly state of South Carolina logged $168 million in direct spending from the film industry during 2015 alone. When I launch this facility I will be the only audio post house (with an atmos dubstage) in my state.