Sound Replacement for Way of the Dragon Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris Scene Session 2 & 3

Sound Replacement for Way of the Dragon Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris Scene Session 2 & 3

After day 1 of recording Foley and ADR in the C24, we decided to take some more recordings for footsteps and re-record Lee’s and Chuck’s due to the previous recordings being out of time because of frame rate issues. For education purposes, we ripped the video off YouTube and put it into Pro Tools but pro Tools doesn’t go down to 20fps which is what our original video was at. So we ended up downloading a fair few programs to convert the fps to something Pro Tools was compatible with. Not really have an understand of frames per second but knowing the bare minimum of how Pro Tools’ grid mode works with videos and using feet and frames as the grid markings, we just converted the new clip to 24fps.

After listening to some of the reverb-heavy samples that were recorded in the fire escape, we decided to recorded louder and clearer samples in Simon’s garage as it was a what we felt a better space for recording footsteps and other movement sounds. We also needed some ambience so we decided to place the Zoom H4n inside the garage facing an open window to simulate the ambience of the location in the fight scene. We experimented with leaving the garage door open, closed, half-open etc. We decided to pick whatever sounded we thought was better later on in the mixing stage. For some of the movements, we had to get Simon to perform spin kicks and dragging his shoes across the floor to follow along with the movement of both Lee and Chuck. Sujahn streamed the fight scene off his phone and showed Simon who performed along with the video while I recorded his footsteps with the Zoom.

After the sounds were recorded and we were happy with how they sounded, we updated the project files and assets list on our shared Google Drive document as well as each of us taking a physical copy of the Pro Tools sessions to work on in our own time.

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SESSION 3 C24

With most of the impact sounds layered and placed in time with the video, I discussed with Simon if his task of placing the footsteps and ambience in the session together was complete and it was so we decided to move on to re-recording the ADR, this time, using loop recording and playlists to get the best take and having it in time with the original sounds.

Our productivity dropped in the session due to issues we had with getting the signal from the microphone into Pro Tools, we only had a short session which was cut to around an hour/ half an hour of actual recording time because of trying to solve the issue. We followed out signal flow from the computer to the Fireface, C24, then from the drop box in the live room to the microphone. To find out if Phantom power was actually getting sent into the microphone, we decided to change the XLR cable and microphone to an AKG C414 as those microphones light up when Phantom power is sent to them as the light indicates what polar pattern, pad or low-cut are enabled.

When we replaced the XLR and microphone from the Rode NT1, the lights on the C414 remained off even though Phantom power was soft patched in from the Fireface to that particular channel. Still confused we decided to get help from the tech department where our good friend, Stuart, eagerly came around and helped us troubleshoot. Stuart suggested that the drop box in the live room could be faulty, in particular, the XLR ports, as the headphone ports were working fine when we sent a mix to the person in the live room. So we ran the XLR cable from under the glass door in the live studio, straight into the back of the Fireface, then the C414 lit up and we were ready to record.

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After the issue was solved thanks to Stuart, we pushed hard to get all the recordings done before our session was over, what really helped speed up the process was a new TV installed in the live room for the recording artist to follow along with, was a great addition and really brought out the Hugh Jackman in Simon and Sujahn.

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Despite the setback at the start of the session, we managed to record everything before the end of our studio booking. Obviously, we had to make compromises and record the most important sounds as far as what can be seen on screen like the obvious Lee and Norris cries. Some sounds we didn’t get which I would have liked to have included would have been more sounds of Lee grunting from being hit, the original film didn’t have any of this so we didn’t think about it either but looking at it, it still gives off a cheesy old school fighting film vibe because of the lack of realistic sounds of Lee being winded when punched and kicked.

Overall, being our first ever sound replacement project, I was quite happy with the end result because of how well the impact sounds that I processed came out, I was also very happy with all the other elements that Simon and Sujahn put together, our work ethic and mentality is very similar and that is why we decided to work together in the beginning and will continue to do so in the future of our studies and careers.

Resources:

Studio images provided by Simon, Wordpresscom. (2017, 23 March 2017). Way of The Dragon – Sound Replacement. [Weblog]. Retrieved, from https://snguyen93blog.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/way-of-the-dragon-sound-replacement/

Proaudiostarcom. (2017). Proaudiostarcom. Retrieved1 April, 2017, from http://www.proaudiostar.com/akg-c414-xlii-matched-pair.html

Youtubecom. (2017). YouTube. Retrieved 1 April, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyS5agWSIrY