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I'm working on an informational video which has some live action product shots, animation created in flash, a backgroud music track, and a voiceover track.

I've got total control over everything so I can edit the animation or re-record the voiceover (I do the voiceover myself). I just read http://www.directvoices.com/plaza/syncing-voice-over-to-video/ for example but it doesn't really go into specifics of how to do the planning or the fine tuning.

I'm trying to figure out what the best methodology is for planning and executing this. This is what I currently do but it feels very clunky to say the least:

  • Record Audio Track
  • Make animation in Flash with no Audio
  • Bring into compositing software (I use Premier CC2015) and do my best to trim and move tracks around. At times adding still frames to extend parts of the animation.
  • If I have to then I go back into Flash to make more animation to fill empty areas. I try not to have to redo the audio as much since its much more time consuming and would then have to start the entire syncing process over as well since talking isn't as easy as controlling a timeline.

There's got to be a better way to do this though, I'm just not sure what it is.

Should I just do the entire video and then play it while I record the voiceover? That would work for parts where the audio is short and the animation long. But is more difficult on parts where the audio is long and the animation is short.

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    I'm quite surprised to hear you say that recording audio takes more time than animation. I've always found it to be the reverse.
    – stib
    Sep 18, 2015 at 23:58
  • @stib I don't like the way my voice sounds, some words particularly just sound weird read aloud like "Reader" which comes up a lot in my scripts, then any time the phone rings, door chime, a/c kicks in, paper shredder, etc ruins the recording (since this is being done at my office). So first it takes me a bunch of tries to get a halfway decent recording then I have to remember all the post-production cleanup for it. The animations are extremely simple. Maybe once I get better at animations they'll take longer.
    – Ryan
    Sep 21, 2015 at 3:22

3 Answers 3

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+100

In addition to @Mulvya answer I will suggest to use not Flash, but After Effects for animation, if possible. Then you will be able to make Dynamic Link to your AE project. Than will be easier to jump between applications.

But when you work with animation, you deferentially need to have voiceover first. Like in cartoon development.

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If the audio is primary and the visuals convey or complement the narration, then record the audio first. Use the audio timings to guide the pacing of your animations - if some demo takes longer than its oral exposition, the music should fill in there. But you can't really avoid the step where some sentences need individual adjustment or some animations need to hold more, or less, at places. Post production is iterative, and I wouldn't expect to evade that.

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Try the "Time Remapping" in After Effects to sync your animation with the recorded voice over easily and efficiently. You just need to move around the key frames in the timeline to match the animation to the sound track.

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