Saturday, January 08, 2011

Comment

A picture of us recording the commentary track.
So today we did the commentary track. We had David Ian Lee, David Frey, the Queen of Mars, and Nat Cassidy on hand to talk about the movie. Although we were expecting her, Danielle Quisenberry didn't come, so the commentary track ended up being rather boy-heavy. Maduka was away shooting something else.
I don't actually remember doing the commentary track that much. We had spiced rum and mango juice, and David Lee brought Bourbon and vermouth for Manhattans. So right now I'm surprised to be sitting in front of a computer. Actually, I'm surprised to be coherent enough to write at all.
Here's a new rule I learned. If you don't show up to the commentary track we will talk smack about you. And that goes for you too, Mr. Steven Spielberg.
I used the Chance Shirley commentary recording methodology. That is using the same recorder we use on set -- a Sound Devices 702 in this case -- to record the commentary (which is then edited into Final Cut Pro). We divided ourselves into a gang of three (David and David and the QOM), and a gang of two (Nat and me). The 3-gang got an Oktava (which is the same mic we use on set) on a table stand while Nat and I shared a large-diaphragm Rode. At a fundamental level you might not care about that, but I care deeply because it was a good-sounding way to record the commentary which we'll have to use again.

4 comments:

Kangas said...

We just did our commentary for "Bounty", and I think 3 is really the limit for good stuff. We had 4 people this time around, and none of us think it went that well...

Andrew Bellware said...

I wouldn't really know if our commentary went well or not. I don't really remember it. We may end up with TWO commentaries -- just to get the rest of the cast in it.

Chance Shirley said...

Did I invent that commentary recording methodology? If so, I am very proud to have done so!

Andrew Bellware said...

Yup, Chance is responsible for the double-system recording while watching playback on a Mac. And recording to a Sound Devices recorder. All that stuff is Chance. And it's so much easier to do than to try to sync up to the danged computer using the "voiceover" tool or whatever. And you know it sounds better because of the Sound Devices.