Delivering Video with Music and Dialogs for director. how to mix...

Frankly, I've never gone thru all the processing you describe, and it's never been an issue.

I mix and master the music cue as a standalone file in my DAW, then export and combine it with the video clip in a video editing app, where I render the merged clip that's delivered to the director.

One of the main reasons I do it this way is to have the video editing app hold the entire movie, providing me with a bird's eye view of the entire film. I drop in cues as they're done or revised, render subclips for the director, make notes on the cues, adjust cue positions, and sometimes drop in footage that's new or been re-edited at the last minute. It also enables me to render out longer sequences containing multiple cues/scenes, which helps the director evaluate the overall flow of music across several scenes.

I'll apply some volume automation in the video editor if there's a distracting clash with dialog, but generally, I just try to keep the music at a reasonable level that enables the director to evaluate how it works in the scene. In the final cut of the movie, the music is nearly always mixed at much quieter levels by the sound engineer.

That's been my workflow. I'm sure others have theirs.

It sounds as though you have a good approach, though a lot of labour.

If the director can visit your studio
, that’s preferable. Otherwise she/he could be listening through ear buds or even feeble laptop speakers.

Like @NekujaK I usually prepare a full movie to play back for the director so we can review it straight through, in stereo only. I put the dialogue on a separate track and squash it with a limiter. If it’s noisy, a high and low pass filter too.


When l play back I have take the director through it once with dialogue, and once with music only.

Sometimes I add a third sfx track unless it’s such a mess that it will only distract.

There’s no perfect way to do it but really make sure your carefully polished tracks are getting auditioned on decent speakers. It’s hard to control but you have to come up with a way to avoid having cues rejected because they’re hearing on a feeble, over hyped Bluetooth speaker.

Good luck,

John

I find that I only ever apply volume automation and sometimes a bit of EQ on dialogue and FX if it really really needs it, but never more than that. Many times I have also gotten dialogue and FX baked in together, so just have to work with that. No matter what I try to make sure the dialogue is clear and I mix my music around that.

Usually my approach has been to go through the dialogue and FX, and only do volume adjustments if there are moments the dialogue or FX suddenly jumps in volume too much.

Then, I do a rough mix with the music (with the bounced mix of the music), doing some minor volume ducks to make room for dialogue. I always try to make sure I never overpower the dialogue and that the dialogue is clear and understandable. I find that if you overpower the dialogue too much in your rough mix, you can get a rejection or revision simply because the rough mix you gave was interfering too much with dialogue.

I then try to be musical about my volume automation with the music. If there is a crescendo to a major moment, I will help that a bit with the volume automation. I also try to smooth out dynamics a bit so that you aren't going from super quiet to suddenly blowing the directors ears off.

Then I just export the video with music, dialogue, and FX, directly from Cubase.

I typically only touch a dialogue track if it comes to me all over the place in a distracting way and it could use some help – so for that I'll just throw on a compressor and some EQ/De-ess if it calls for it, just to make things feel more polished when they view it back. But I won't get fancy with individual dialogue editing since it's not necessary.

For music I rarely ever do any ducking with volume automation. I try to write around dialogue. To my ears the sound of a full track ducking up and down sounds too noticeable and artificial. However I'm not opposed to doing it in a pinch and under a deadline, but for me it's just a last resort. I sort of feel like if the music is a little loud in parts, they'll understand this can be adjusted later on.

I avoid putting anything on a master bus unless absolutely necessary (maybe an EQ to tidy up the low-end or help with clarity). Re-recording mixers don't really do master bus processing in the same way that is done with music. It would be rare for a movie or tv show to have a limiter on the whole thing. I also avoid making things too loud because often times people think loud = better and this can lead to disappointment and confusion when they go to have the movie finally mixed at around -27LUFS (give or take depending on the distrubution). Your mileage may vary but that's just been my experience working with people, it's better to show them something closer to what it will ultimately sound like down the pipeline.

Sorry for my late response, was in a bit in a rush, and thanks everyone for your advice.