Concluding by Adding Room Tone & Reverb:
As I mentioned earlier, our goal in doing ADR is a “clean” recording of the dialogue. Obviously, it will sound too clean and sterile until we introduce the last two pieces of the equation: room tone and reverb. Room tone is the ambient noise of the space in which a scene was originally filmed. Many filmmakers record a minute of nothing but room tone on the set, specifically for audio mixing purposes. If you haven’t done this, then you can usually locate some room tone in gaps in dialogue in your original tapes, which you can then loop into the background. If not, then you can go and record a minute or two of ambient sound in a similar size and ambience room. (Of course, if you resort to this last option, you may have to finesse the room tone to fit in the room tone from previous sections of dialogue, as it won’t be identical.)
After that, it’s time to add the reverb that we removed when we recorded the ADR in the first place. Almost all video and audio programs on the market can add reverb to your voice after the fact. For a couple of the more popular video options, Premiere Pro 2 will let you see a sort of 3D construct of the reverberation space you’re creating, while Sony Vegas 6 & 7 will give you a pull-down list of preset spaces, like halls, cathedrals, etc. that you can customize. (If you are going to do a lot of ADR, consider buying a dedicated convolution reverb software. These actually sample real room spaces so you get very authentic reverb. A few examples, ranging in expense, are the $140 Pristine Space VST Plug-in, The $300 Tascam Gigapulse, and the $1200 Waves IR package.)
When setting your Reverb for your ADR, you want to make sure that it matches as close as possible the dialogue that you haven’t redubbed. (If you are redubbing an entire scene, then choose a reverb amount that fits the scene.) Keep in mind that many films will change the reverb based on camera placement, to simulate you being farther away in a long shot or closer in a close-up. Play around with this until you get a good, believable sound.
Well, folks, those are the basics.
Obviously, if you can record clean audio the first time out, you’ll have less ADR to do. However, as some ADR is a fact of life on most films, it’s a good skill to pick up. Plus, in the right situations, you can improve the overall performance of your actors with it!
God bless,
Jeremy
