Typical Cleveland Show DVD commentary setup.
I recently got to record two very different DVD commentary sessions. One was four or five people for a full episode of The Cleveland Show. The other was a “side-by-side” segment for Family Guy, where the director of an episode was comparing the animatic (black-and-white sketch animation) to the final color version for a few short segments of the show.
I wanted to say a few things about recording DVD commentary, and generally speaking, a full-episode session with several people is significantly more challenging than a two-minute segment with one person, so I’ll focus on that Cleveland session. This setup, though, evolved out of my Family Guy experience and how my counterpart on that show, production mixer Patrick Clark, did it when I was his assistant.
I drew a little post-it sketch of my setup. Here are a few things I’ve found:
• It helps to have a little social time between participants before-hand, especially if there’s a guest involved—an actor, or someone else who isn’t quite as comfortable hanging with the crew and talking about the process of the show. A little alcohol doesn’t hurt either, in small amounts (and when appropriate and allowed, of course).
• People in commentaries aren’t usually thinking about the quality of their vocal delivery and whether they’re staying on-mic. And they shouldn’t have to be. So I try for a setup that gets the best possible sound without any help from them.
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• I generally angle chairs just the tiniest bit toward the middle of the arc, not just directly at the TV, to help encourage some social interaction. Even in a dark room staring at a TV screen with headphones on, people tend to thrive on shared laughs, storytelling and eye contact, and a commentary track almost always benefits from these things.
• I place mics to the inside of each person, maybe a foot from their mouths. Again, people are in these seats to get comfy and chat, not for pristine vocal delivery, so with the mic toward the inside they are turning their heads toward the center of the group. This also means the mics are angled away from each other a bit more than if they were placed to the outside shoulder, angled in. Every little bit of iso helps. And I can’t back off too much or I risk unintelligibility and phasing problems, but I also don’t want to smother them and take away from the comfortable, social vibe.
• The headphone mix should obviously include the voice of everyone in the room. It should also probably include the production sound from the video, but mixed very, very low. I usually have that stereo pair of faders pulled down to about -40 or -50dB. If no one’s talking, I want them to be able to hear the soundtrack to help trigger the next discussion. But when everyone’s talking, I don’t want it to be a distraction or make it hard for people to hear and understand each other.
• And a few other small but important things. Don’t forget comfortable, non-squeaky chairs. Water is good, if there aren’t other drinks. And you need places to put drinks, but kept to a minimum so people have room to get around. We have a few of those little folding wooden tray tables in our studio and they work great for this.
Finally, as someone who’s used to having a nearly ideal environment to record punchy, dry, clear, pristine, consistent dialogue, I always have to remind myself that in terms of audio, a DVD commentary is only about intelligibility. If they sound like they’re in a room… that’s fine. They are. A little of that can almost add to the magic for a listener, I think, as a sense of place makes it a little easier to picture these guys sitting around in chairs and telling fun stories about their experience with a show. And the more I obsess over technical perfection, the more I risk getting in the way of the interpersonal dynamic that allows those fun stories to come out.
If you find this little entry useful, or if you have anything to contribute to it, let me know!