Dialog replacement, often called ADR (automated dialog replacement), is a time consuming and exacting art. It forces the actor to recreate the mood of the moment, with similar inflection and voice, and to do so while matching the lip movements on screen. It forces the recordists to recreate the microphone placement and simulate the “room” that was used during the production, while creating a rhythm of the recording experience to keep the actor focused and have the “moment” get recaptured. It forces the Director to make choices about new line readings and possibly line changes or line additions to better tell the story.

Since so many productions seem to be more focused on the picture and leave the sound for “later”, dialog replacement is a standard matter of course for most productions. Many instances of bad production dialog can be solved simply on set. But with a focus on the picture Directors often don’t seem to realize that although they’ve zoomed into a close-up of their actor, the stuff behind and around them could still be making noise. All microphones are wide angle. You can’t “zoom in” the sound. I know this sounds logical but as a post mixer I’ve been in many situations where the Director was not fully aware of their sound issues until playback in one of my rooms – acoustically designed with top of the line monitoring gear. I’ve actually been asked “what did you do to my sound?” when merely playing back the material through a system in one of my rooms. After a few questions I discovered that they cut their film on a laptop in a spare bedroom with an open window situated near a freeway. They had no real sense of the quality of their production audio and the also amount of dialog that would need to be replaced.

I always suggest to editors and directors to take a good listen through headphones of their edit to determine the quality of the audio if they haven’t by the time they are going to audio post. Any good dialog editor will be doing just that. In consultation with your supervising sound editor and your dialog editor you will determine what, if any, lines are
to be replaced.

In the heat of production, with a large crew, it’s easy to “move on” even after the Director has been told about car noise, airplane noise or a host of other sound issues. Often sound recordists make their issues known and are told that “we will fix it in the mix.” Many things can be fixed with good sound editing and mixing but often Directors and actors will find themselves on an ADR stage replacing bad lines of dialog. A good dialog recordist will take note of the “quality” of the production audio recording to take into account how to best match that same quality in a recording booth. Some simple steps to take for better ADR are to determine what microphones were used in production as well as what mixer board or microphone preamps were used. Often simply using the same gear gets you very close to the production audio.

There are some other simple tips I can also offer to make your ADR sound better. Determine the mic placement, often actors will want to be close to the microphone although the boom was far away during production, so try to be aware of the actors’ proximity to the microphone. A great tip is to keep the sound playback level in the
performers’ headphones low. If it is too loud the tendency is for them to go soft and low on their performance which is generally not what they are doing on set. If the lines were recorded with a lavalier microphone – use it. If the actor was moving during the shot, get them on their feet. Sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned room can tone down their
performance and the trick of ADR is to not only match the recording quality but the performance level as well. Get into a good rhythm that the performer can feel. Beep, beep , beep, line, beep, beep, beep, line – get the whole process flowing. Keep your ears open to the pitch and tonality of the actor’s performance from the set and make sure that
they match the ADR performance. Watch the screen for the actors’ lip sync. Many “loose” performances can be “cut to sync”. A good ADR recordist/editor will have a good grasp of what will fly and what will not.

There is one last note regarding ADR and your production dialog. Be absolutely sure to capture room tone from each location because it is one of the key elements for proper editing of ADR. The dialog editor will create a bed of room tone under all the ADR so that when the time comes the mixer will be able to seamlessly blend all the production
dialog and ADR elements. Room tone – don’t leave sets without it!

Take a deep breath and enjoy it. If you are in an ADR stage that means only one thing – you are very close to having a finished movie.

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