Use of Audio
More so than film, audio is a very tricky little monster, particularly because there are more things to consider when working with sound: ambient noises, room size, contents of the room (some things absorb sound more than others), quality of equipment… the list goes on. It seems as though several of these little monsters plagued the audio of Dogstar, namely with the quality of the dialogue.
About a third of the way into the movie, Dogstar and his family are eating outside on the porch. I’m not sure if it’s due to the equipment and/or the environment, but the dialogue is terribly muffled while the volume keeps spiking and redlining. This occurs a few other times throughout the film, though nowhere near as much as in this particular scene.
Additionally, there are several smaller instances where the audio for one person doesn’t match the other; this tended to occur in two-shot scenes, where it would cut from one person to the other. For example, in a conversation between Dogstar and Astro in the kitchen, you could hear a lot more room tone with Astro’s voice when he spoke, indicating that his mic was a bit far away; but when it cut to Dogstar, his dialogue sounded like the mic was more closer and had no room tone. The result was an awkward, mismatched scene that took the viewer’s attention away from the important conversation taking place.
While some of these issues could be touched up with audio editing and mixing, there is really no way around ADR for these sequences. Yes, it’s time-consuming. Yes, it’s a pain. And yes, you probably won’t like it. (Trust me, I was part of a movie where we had to have the entire thing redubbed!) But what it really comes down to is the question: “Is what I want to say in this movie important enough to fix it so that people can hear and understand what I’m trying to say?” If the answer to that is yes, then it is well worth the time and trouble to redub it.
Use of Budget
$10,000 is a good price for shooting a feature-length movie on 16mm color film. But it felt like so much of the budget went into the cost of shooting on film alone, that almost nothing was left for touching things up in post. For future films, in a situation where you can shoot on film and cut it with no margin for error, or shoot digitally and have enough money left over to make corrections, the smart money is on the latter--no matter how much a filmmaker make love shooting with film.
Lasting Appeal
Personal preferences aside, I wouldn’t be interested in watching this film again or showing to a friend as it is right now, simply due to the audio issues mentioned above. It is very easy to underestimate the importance of good audio, but for the audience –who needs to hear what’s going on in order to understand it—it’s an absolute necessity.
Overall Comment
Dogstar is well-written and very well-acted. The story is good and is made even better by the strong performances of each actor. Color correcting with After Effects, Premiere Pro 2 or Final Cut Pro will help balance out and enhance the film’s visual look. As it stands now, the film is hindered by hard-to-understand dialogue and distractingly uneven audio. While some of it can be improved by using audio correction software such as Bias Sound Soap Pro or Diamond Cut 6 to remove unnwanted noise and audio mixing to match room tone sequences, some scenes will simply have to be redubbed. However, if these improvements are made, Dogstar will become a more powerful and expressive film.
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Content |
8.0 |
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Visual
Look |
7.5 |
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Use
of Audio |
5.0 |
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Use
of Budget |
6.0 |
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Lasting
Appeal |
4.0 |
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Overall
Score |
6.1
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