I recognize that there’s a problem with the voice, mostly in the mixing because it has to blend with everything else, synch with the video, and sound realistic. The reason that I’m taking longer is largely to work on the voice. And it is discouraging- very, very hard to make it work. And it’s not working yet.
Regarding acting: I am not a professional actor, and listening critically to the nightclub scene, I see that the tone of voice I’ve used here is a little weird. Also, I wasn’t talking loudly enough at the time (I hadn’t come up with the idea of all of the background chatter/music yet), so I had to bump the volume of the recording up to be heard. Another strike against a “natural” sound. And finally, the nightclub was the first clip in which I was experimenting with analogue processing to make it sound like an older recording. I’m a lot more familiar with it now, and looking back, I certainly overdid it and distorted it too much.
There are a couple other scenes and lines scattered throughout the picture that I’ll redo. But for the most part, I honestly don’t believe my acting is lacking. I should probably post a couple other clips for you to check out.
But I understand what a couple people are saying- this is too good to be brought down by bad voice work, either acting-wise or mixing-wise. With the whole film in front of me, I can pretty confidently say that most of the problems pertain to the mixing and not the acting.
If the voice is not completely up to snuff by the time release date rolls around, there are a couple things I can do.
1. Include an alternate audio track and put Hayden back in (although the initial reason for this was to take him out and start over with Anakin’s character)
2. Send all of the audio to a professional who can use their knowledge to take my mix, go back to the source recordings, and make it better (and I have gotten a couple of offers)
3. Release an “updated” audio track later on as my response to any of the criticisms.
However, I really hope to be able to take the next month or two and solely work on integrating Anakin’s dialogue into the rest of the mix. This type of attention has not started yet, and it’s reasonable that people would have objections to hearing Anakin’s dialogue that way in the finished film.
I understand that this factor is critical, so I’ll be devoting a lot of time to ensure that it doesn’t fall flat or become laughable. That would kill me…
Have to go now- very busy. Sorry for all the great previous feedback I haven't gotten to- I just wanted to step in and point out that you are not hearing the final mix in the shots containing Anakin.