We know the drill.
Your screenplay is written brilliantly. Your cast is bounded by gifted strengths booming with characters full of life, and your cinematography is something out of a Wes Anderson coffee table book. But there’s just one thing not quite right — the dialogue is garbled, the wind and overall background noise audibly obstructs the vocals, and the levels are all over the place.
Your sound is terrible, my dude.
Many independent filmmakers think that audio is the last component of filmmaking to be bothered with, but here’s the honest trust: bad audio will make or break your film. In fact, some might argue that good sound is more important than how your film looks. Horrible picture can easily be passed off as a “stylistic choice” when accompanied by perfect audio, but the crappily recorded wind noise will make a great picture look amateurish and poorly-executed.
Forget what you think, let’s dive into what we know. Read onward for more tips on how to 1.) record audio that will turn your next indie movie into a masterpiece, and 2.) polish sound with a micro budget on Premiere Pro. Lucky for us, we brought in sound-master, Oliver Hughes, for a quick dive into his knowledge of high-grade professional sound engineering.
Here are his tips.