Another tip during the re-recording/ADR
process, is to be sure to take good notes. If you're the director,
be sure to note any of his/her comments. If you're the director,
listen carefully, and figure out a notation system such as one, two,
or three stars for qualifying takes. Don't go beyond three
indicators, as more take time, and may confuse you or the editor
later on when selecting the takes you want to use in the master
dialog track.
Freeze tracks, or render to new track, when
you've got each scene complete, and lock it/group it to the video
frames. This helps avoid potential dialog drift or loss of
sync.
There are downsides to ADR. For instance, the
circumstances of the environment could hurt rather than help dialog.
For example, if ADR is being performed on a scene in an automobile
driving down the road, how does the thrill of a fast-moving,
bumping, swaying car translate to a studio room? The answer is, it
doesn't. So, in critical environment scenes, consider setting up
well for production sound, or better still, find a way to bring at
least a few elements of the actual scene into the studio. Orson
Welles demanded that car seats be brought into an ADR studio and the
actors "bumped" around by studio personnel during the re-recording
of critical dialog so that not only were the elements in sync, but
that the actors words were being jolted around as though the car
were really on a bumpy road. The moral is, keep the elements as
natural as possible, and try to record well enough on set that you
can use production audio.
If you've never attempted ADR with your
talent, give it a try. It makes recording in windy, noisy, high
action, physically exerting, or other challenging scenes much
easier, and moreover, allows the actor to focus more on the physical
aspects of their performance rather than the diction and
articulation of their performance. Have fun, practice, and in
virtually no time at all, you'll be performing ADR just like the big
outfits in Hollywood, and your film projects will be vastly
improved!
Happy editing,
Douglas
Spotted Eagle is an instructor at VASST
, a division of the Sundance Media group that deals with training
in Sony Vegas, as well as other software programs. An expert on Vegas,
he has written hundreds of articles and tutorials for the software.
