BURBANK — Filmmaker Param Gill recently called on the team at AlphaDogs (www.alphadogs.tv) to provide audio post services for his new film, Last Supper. The project had a variety of audio challenges to contend with, including an insufficient number of microphones used on-set, noisy backgrounds in the production audio, and temporary visual effects.
Last Supper (www.lastsuppermovie.com) is a funny, touching fairy tale about two romantic and ambitious lunatics (played by Eddie Griffin and Josh Meyers) who escape a mental institution with a video camera and set out to make a movie about a romantic quest to rescue a princess, with the reward being a magical kiss. Audio engineer Curtis Fritsch was faced with a tight deadline, so an efficient workflow was put in place.
Fritsch devoted roughly 60 percent of his time to cleaning up location audio and dialogue. Corruption in the lavalier recordings and noisy rooms presented a big problem in scenes where only one mic was used. In order to make the dialogue as clear as possible, Fritsch used the Izotope Denoiser plug-in to reduce the offensive background noise while simultaneously boosting characters’ voices that were recorded low. He then used Soundminer Pro to search through AlphaDogs’ library to find sound effects that could enhance the story.
“One of the biggest mistakes of post audio is sound effects being over-designed for the project,” he notes. “Often, you get background ambience that is too loud or footsteps that are higher than the dialogue level. This can be caused by production audio restrictions, but it shouldn’t be an issue caused by the post process.”
AlphaDogs uses Facilis TerraBlock storage, allowing audio projects to integrate seamlessly with other post services, including online editing and color correction. Pro Tools 5.1 surround sound mix stages feature HD monitors and expansive sound effect libraries.
“The sound mix turned out very well and we were extremely happy,” says filmmaker Param Gill. “The team had total respect for our deadline and realistic goals. I will definitely use AlphaDogs again for my next film.”