Making dialogue in a film louder in post production

Question

I am new to this forum so forgive me if this has already been answered!

I was wondering if there is any way to make dialogue in a film louder, separating it from background noise without using an external microphone. I am trying to do a Media Studies project film (so not too professional) with my iPhone and was trying to avoid having to buy an external microphone. I was wondering if I could use software like Logic Pro X to make the dialogue louder than the background noise.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Answer 1

There are only really two ways of reducing the amount of background spill into your dialog track.

1. Expensive directional mic on a boom

2. Even more expensive noise-reduction software, eg Izotope RX 7.

In the absence of either, then your next best option is 'any mic' as close to the speaker as possible, whilst keeping it out of shot. Tie mics (lavalier) could be good for that, but may depend on what you can connect them to - you may need a wireless kit, adding to the cost.

Answer 2

OK, so if this is one of those utterly random class assignments where you absolutely 'must' do it with 'just an iPhone', the only way to really do this is to record your dialogue 'wild'. This requires the actors to be able to re-deliver the dialogue in-synch and in-performance, but not to camera. You simply run the iPhone over to the actors after a take or a shot, and get them to re-deliver the dialogue with the iPhone in a more reasonable spot for sound recording purposes. i.e. somewhat closer to the sound-source. This position is likely to have been in-shot during the take. You then re-synch the dialogue in post.

Watch out for overlapping dialogue - make sure that the actors don't overlap. You can also get around this by shooting the scene in such a way that you can't see the actors mouths move. That will also help your cause.

It will require work in post to re-synch the dialogue though, but it's really the best way to achieve it with 'just an iPhone'.

Answer 3

In addition to Mark and Tetsujin's answers, have you thought of using more iPhones? Could each performer have one close to them to record audio? If so you could then synchronise the recordings later and boost whichever channels you prefer.