Sound Editorial Materials

General Notes and Recommendations

  • It is important to archive the work of the sound editorial team in the general archive for the title. This is separate from and in addition to the backup the sound editors would do to back up their servers.
  • The Sound Editorial sessions are the final output of the sound editorial team (Dialogue, Effects, Sound Design and any other output), cut to picture and delivered to the mix stage. These are the source material for creating the Printmaster stems and M&E. These will often be updated or augmented as the mix progresses.
  • “Wild” material created by the sound editorial team is archived separately with the Production Archive.
  • All volume, pan and other automation should be present in the sessions, including plug-in automation.
  • All plug ins and their versions used should be noted. The plug-ins themselves are not included in the sessions.
  • If the sound editorial sessions are completely subsumed into mix sessions, such as in many “in-the-box” workflows, the last output from the sound editorial team is archived and noted that it is not final.

Formatting Recommendations

  • Each sound type e.g. Dialogue, Effects, Sound Design should be in separate sessions, generally one session per sound editor or editing team.
  • The audio files (“media”) used for each session should be in the project folder for that session using “save session copy in”, which will include only the audio files actually used in the session. Note that the only audio files required are those used in the movie. Do not include a library of sounds.
  • No assumption should be made that the audio files will be backed up and available elsewhere later, they must be archived with the sessions.
  • If the media was not delivered, the session can still be archived, but it will have limited use.
  • It is recommended to consolidate the sessions into flat files, but it is not required.
  • The sessions can be in whatever audio configuration the sound supervisor has agreed to work.
  • The sessions may contain 7.1 or 5.1 session tracks, or may contain individual mono tracks. Each track must be named to reflect its audio configuration and channel assignment.
  • If the sessions are immersive audio, each editorial session should contain multiple bed tracks to match the agreed layout, with associated objects if created.