Best Audio Design for Documentary Films

I’m very excited to begin my first group coaching call today for “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary”!  I still have three openings left, and several people who are currently “thinking about it”. If you are interested in this innovative online program, I suggest you register before the slots are snapped up.

Go to https://newdocediting.com/land/ultimate_documentary_guide/.

Last week I was working with our documentary students at UC Berkeley on their films’ sound design, and I realized that I had failed earlier in the semester to teach them an important rule of thumb that I want to share with you now.

When layering multiple audio tracks, limit yourself to no more than three audio sources at any one time in your timeline.  More than that, and the audience is likely to hear a cacophony rather than a melodic sound track.

Let’s say that you have spoken narration, background noise and music. That’s plenty; more will create dissonance.  The other part to this rule of thumb (which may be subject to being broken on occasion) states that you want only one of these three audio sources to be dominant in any given moment.

For example, don’t have a soundbite and music vying for the listener’s attention at the same time.  A common mistake green editors make is that they dip the music too gradually, so that the music is still pretty hot as the soundbite is coming in.  Dip your music, then bring in the human voice.

Note that music has a higher frequency than the human voice, so you don’t want the levels at the same decibel as, say, your narrator.  The music will sound gratingly loud to your viewers.

Here’s another tip:  set your dominant audio first (narration, soundbites, verite sound) by the audio meter.  Around -8 dB is a good level to shoot for on a digital meter. Then set your background (also called “ambient”) sound in relation to it.  How loud should it be?  Make the ambient noise as loud as it can be without interfering with our ability to hear the dominant sound.

You’ll find more of these micro editing techniques, along with a plethora of big-picture structural techniques, in my new program, “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary”. Go to https://newdocediting.com/land/ultimate_documentary_guide/.