Audio Postproduction for Digital Video
By Jay Rose
Review by Pi Ware
Don't listen to the title. It's bigger than the title. The "Digital Video" part of Audio Postproduction for Digital Video restricts the scope of this classic Jay Rose text. Rose's book goes far beyond DV, in fact, it starts with an explanation of what sound is on the molecular level and then takes you not just through audio postproduction for TV, but to techniques specific to movie production, techniques that are entirely independent of the format you originate on. Audio Postproduction for Digital Video is top-notch. It's an excellent, text-book quality manual, a soup-to-nuts guide on how to deal with sound in postproduction.
Jay Rose never gives you solutions that are applicable only to specific Digital Audio Workstations, he arms you with knowledge you can use in any platform or program. The book is an education in sound and, together with the numerous photos and diagrams (and Rose's good sense of humor), it's a liberation from the dry prose of most manuals on postproduction.
Rose teaches you from the ground up what sound is, what good sound is, and how to make bad sound better. He doesn't just stop at good writing, however, he illustrates important points with an audio CD included in the back of the book. Together with the CD, the text guides you through importing audio into the computer, editing dialogue, Do It Yourself Foley and ADR, working with filters, noise reduction techniques, pitch and time changes, the sound mix, and even, if you're so inclined, designing, constructing and wiring your own postproduction audio facility.
Though postproduction changes with every new advance in technology, Audio Postproduction for Digital Video stays current by focusing on strategy, not software. Rose avoids giving specific keystroke instructions in specific programs, but instead explains common solutions to common problems using common tools. As he says in his introduction, "You should be able to use these pages for a long time."
Anyone considering directing a short or feature, anyone who wants to be even nominally involved in the sound design of their film, and, of course, anyone interested in working in audio postproduction, would do extremely well to pick up a copy of this classic Jay Rose text.
