Dolby mastering
Posted in Media Gallery, Production by Ton
We wouldn’t deserve the a score and soundtrack from Jan Morgenstern if we didn’t have at least the 35mm film provided with official Dolby Digital (5.1) sound! Although this isn’t really an “open standard”, it at least does have an obvious quality benefit… not to forget that the only (free) alternative would be simply analog stereo (or in Jan’s words: “it will sound like a crappy 70ies or 80ies movie then”).
The process is as follows;
– Locate a studio that has an official license to master or mix Dolby Digital.
– Contact Dolby Labs and get a contract to have that studio do the mix and mastering
– For a short film (10 minutes) the license fee is 300 GBP (600 usd or so)
– Only after payment has been received, and contract signed, the studio gets permission to let you in!
In Amsterdam there are four officially licensed studios. Those studios need to have a real theatre, complete with all seats, and a mixing table in the middle of the theatre. The concept is simple: mix the sound precisely as you want it to be heard in a cinema. The Dolby playback systems then can acoustically reproduce this experience in every Dolby Digital approved Cinema.
So! Yesterday we’ve spent two hours in the studio of Cinemeta Digital, listening with awe to the great soundtrack, and to what a good theatre setup (and editor!) is able to do with your perception of sound. It was also – again – so evident that sound is half the movie, and in our case also half the fun (at least!), the gags and jokes really work so much better. :)
Next deadline: tomorrow morning, 10am, all 14400 frames – converted to DPX files – on a portable disk at the Filmmore studio, for conversion (to DPX log) and then being shipped to the Nordisk lab in Norway, where the Cinevator real-time film printer is.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
WOW. surround sound?
I have wondered how to do surround sound for my music. and audio things. but that looks amazing I cant wait to hear it on my surround sound system. Pity I shall have to watch on an 800×600 monitor though :P
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Hey! excelent news, seems like everything is going to be perfect! i cant wait to my peach dvd arrive to me! (i´m sor far!) saludos a todos!
Venom is already there?!!
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Thanks for this post, interesting to read how this works :)
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
10 minutes !! :)
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Hi,
thanks for this interesting article. Nice!
And many thanks to Jan Morgenstern, he makes a very good job.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 pm
A cosine-waveform on the faders (last picture)? You obviously had some fun in there! :) I also once generated a MIDI-stream to make a moving cosine-wave with the faders on a quite big digital audio console -> yeah, its fun ;)
But I guess your console was in demo-mode since also all vu-meters show some audio-signal, which is a quite rare event.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Good luck in the final phases and for the grand opening!
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
@Klangfreund, the console was indeed in demo-mode. Flickering lights and colors and moving sliders seemed to be the only thing that got Nathan excited and jumping like a little kid on speed.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:55 pm
looks sweet, cant wait to get the DVD! :)
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 am
That’s awesome! I hope my DVD doesn’t melt in the mail.It can get awfully hot here.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 am
Oh nice! This is going to be so fun to watch and hear. So it shouldn’t only be eyecandy, it should also be earcandy! YAY!
^_^
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:43 am
All I can say is you guys must be absolutely pleased with what you have accomplished, and to enjoy watching it in a theater. Truly a rare privilege and one I am sure you wont forget.
Ton, Sacha, Andy, Nathan, Enrico, William, Brecht, Campbell and Margreet , I hope you can enjoy your success, and that which is to come from all your hard work.
A very joyous time for you all! Cheers!
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 am
AAAGH! I can’t wait for my DVD!!!
By the way, will the DVD include the high-def version of the animation short?
When is it supposed to be officially released?
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
Thank you Ton for all this interesting info. Dang, now I really wish to see this Movie in our fancy surround FX cinema!
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
We, Italian people, want a screening at the Future Film Festival next year, and a conference with the making of (Nathan included)! ahahah…there’s also Cartoon on the bay and Giffoni Film Festival that are quite huge.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
YEY! Send it to norway!
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
A good producer can do wonders for a short film. In this case, Ton Roosendaal.
Good Job!
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Indeed, sound is half the movie – one more good opportunity to lament the fact that there is still no half-decent audio production environment in the free software world (and that BBB’s music has been produced with evil closed source software ;)
Congrats on the great soundtrack anyway :)
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Why did you guys use the Cinevator instead of printing in a local lab?
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Cinevator and Filmmore sponsor the project with three free prints. :)
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
> one more good opportunity to lament the fact that there is still
> no half-decent audio production environment in the free
> software world (and that BBB’s music has been produced with
> evil closed source software ;)
Hey, you can’t lament both. Not fair! :)
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
ardour isn’t bad!
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Ah, this makes me think about a feature-req for blender 3.0:
Place mics and speakers for sourround-sound in the blender scene — cool
April 4th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I might not watch this on my lame PC when I get hold of it. I might get it on DVD and beg my friend to let me play it in on a decent home cinema set up he has!!
April 10th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
there is a opensource alternative.Vorbis 5.1. Why not use it?
¿Open movie with “closed” audio?
April 12th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Ton, this license fee you mentioned… Did you have to pay it, because the movie is printed on 35mm? Once I read, that on DVD productions there are no fees except for the encoder software. I don’t know how this complies to 35mm.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
@Sparkus
As I understand the whole official fee/license thing is for theater release only.
Its where they can force everyone onto contracts.
Shame they don’t just accept some 6 channel vorbis stream ;)
January 18th, 2010 at 9:06 am
I might not watch this on my lame PC when I get hold of it. I might get it on DVD and beg my friend to let me play it in on a decent home cinema set up he has!