What is the most common order of dialogue recording?

[peeder]

Sorry for the noob faq, but I've always wondered, what is the most common order for dialogue to be recorded for picture? I.e. on high-budget, medium-budget, and low-budget films, what is the percentage breakdown for the following options:

* Record dialogue first, shoot/act to a recording
* Record dialogue while shooting & acting
* Record dialogue after shooting and acting

I imagine it's something like 5/20/75 or so for high-budgets, but what do I know? I've only worked on a few scores, they go to the production guys and I never see how it's all put together. But it's clear that it's pretty rare to not have dialog overdubbed somehow as budget rises. I don't see how they could get the isolation on the voices without it...I even hear proximity effect on wide shots! I think cartoon features (e.g. Pixar) they record the dialogue first, and then animate to the recording...right?

[Tim Halligan]

The dialogue for film and television is recorded as the actors prat about in front of the cameras...

ADR - Automatic Dialogue Replacement is done as part of the post process, and is done for technical/noise issues-such as wind machines on set, performance issues-where the idiot...er, actor got the words right but the inflection wrong thereby affecting the progress of the story...or more usually because they got the words wrong, and for story reasons due to editing.

The isolation you refer to could be ADR, or it could be radio mics.

While ADR is useful for fixing problems, given a choice most direcors - and certainly most actors - would prefer to use the actual take recorded on the set.


Animation records the voices first.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tim

[imgoinmad]

I'm seeing more and more stuff that seems like it was comletely ADR'd. What percentage of movies and TV Shows are probably completely ADR'd? Can anyone comment on this? I know there's lots of you out there doing ADR for both film and television. Thanks!

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by imgoinmad

I'm seeing more and more stuff that seems like it was comletely ADR'd. What percentage of movies and TV Shows are probably completely ADR'd? Can anyone comment on this? I know there's lots of you out there doing ADR for both film and television. Thanks!

I'm seeing alot of misconceptions about ADR being used.
Just because the dialogue sound sreally good, doesn't mean it was ADR-ed.
It simply means that a good job was done on recoridng it and mixing it.

Pretty much every fetaure, big or small busget, the director will prefer the location sound, unless it is, as stated before, necessary to redo it for technical reasons, or perfromance.
Even in case of a technical, sometimes a director will live with the problem rather than use the ADR.
One big budget movie recently where this is the case, is the end of the DaVinci Code, where Tom Hanks is talking to the female lead outside on a wall. You can hear the wind in the trees pumping, and it's obvious that they worked really hard to keep those lines, instead of using ADR. As the dialogue editor most certainly would have called it for a technical reason.

Alot of the TV shows we've mixed, when the location soud guy get's praised for how it sounds, what iw oudl liek to say is "Yeah, the dialogue does sound pretty good IN SPITE of the location sound recorder."

[imgoinmad]

I guess my perception comes in that I see a lot (especially on tv) where it's obviouisly been ADR'd.

Can you comment on the mic's being used to capture the better on-location sound? We've had projects come to us with some horrendous location sound and we'd like to do less work on the ADR side of things.

[Stephen Muir]

Originally Posted by imgoinmad

Can you comment on the mic's being used to capture the better on-location sound? We've had projects come to us with some horrendous location sound and we'd like to do less work on the ADR side of things.

Typically, production dialogue is recorded using a variety of mics and techniques, often combining overhead booms with wired and wireless lav's and "plant" mic's hidden on-set. Exteriors are usually boomed using a short shotgun (eg. Sennheiser MKH416 or MKH60, Schoeps CMIT5U), or a long shotgun (eg. Sennheiser MKH816) for noiser locations or very wide shots. Short shotguns may also be used for interiors, although reverberant interiors often benefit from the use of a cardioid or super-cardioid mic (eg. Sennheiser MKH50, Schoeps MK4).

However, the technical skill of the boom operator and production mixer are far more important than the specific mic's they're using. Not only will good production sound teams provide you with cleanly recorded dialogue, but they'll also work hard to keep the noise floor consistent across shots. They'll also give you plenty of out-takes, wild-takes, alternates, production foley, and room tone, as well as detailed sound reports to keep everything organized. Incidentally, those sound reports will tell you what mic(s) were used during production, making it easier to keep the ADR consistent with the production sound.

[peeder]

Thanks for your very interesting and informative responses. I was fooled by how well they record sound on location, then (and how well they hide the mics).

How often is foley not used then? For instance, there's the clinking of cutlery on plates...that seems to often be foley to me, but it could be that the mics are hidden on the table and make the clinking louder...

[starcrash13]

Originally Posted by peeder

How often is foley not used then? For instance, there's the clinking of cutlery on plates...that seems to often be foley to me, but it could be that the mics are hidden on the table and make the clinking louder...

Any production sound effect that has dialogue over it has to be covered in foley or FX for the foreign dubbed version.

Funny you should mention cutlery. Dining scenes are like the foley equivalent of a battle scene for FX.

[Stephen Muir]

Aye, dining sequences are often more demanding than big fight scenes when it comes to foley.

Dialogue is the prime concern for production recordists, so production foley and effects necessarily take a back seat. That said, footsteps and other foley elements can sometimes be recorded during production without compromising the dialogue itself. Its not all plant mics and second booms, though; it can be as simple as cueing the mic so as to catch an actor's footsteps as they walk away after performing their lines.

[philper]

Originally Posted by starcrash13

Any production sound effect that has dialogue over it has to be covered in foley or FX for the foreign dubbed version.

Funny you should mention cutlery. Dining scenes are like the foley equivalent of a battle scene for FX.

Well said.

I just mixed a film in which the dialog that was bracketed by musical numbers was prerecorded and lip-synced along with the music playback. It made for a few compromises in our mix but it made things a lot simpler for them on location.

Philip Perkins

[ninjastar]

in my experience if the budget is higher than more of the production sound ends up being used. this is because things get done right, professionals are on set and they have the gear they need to do his or her job. ie get the generators far away, and the directors have dealt with crappy sound in the past and have learned to care about sound dept. on low budget shows people tend to care less and the environment is less controlled. if the environment is decent a compentent sound dept should be able to get great audio. lots of movies are done on stages too which are sound proofed.

[gsilbers]

Originally Posted by peeder

Thanks for your very interesting and informative responses. I was fooled by how well they record sound on location, then (and how well they hide the mics).

How often is foley not used then? For instance, there's the clinking of cutlery on plates...that seems to often be foley to me, but it could be that the mics are hidden on the table and make the clinking louder...

not the stuff we get.! boy, its audio restoration... no bdget for ADR!


but it sounds great when its aired.


in movies and TV shows there is somthing called "Mastering" which is after it airs on TV it goes through the internationalization process where you tranfer from diferent formats and export tapes to other countries with the english language (original) and then an M&E mix so the country can add its own dialog. so the M&E or music and efecs has to have everything that the production recording has and more.

so most post studios who does a movie or series will usually do the masterinng also. so when the movie its mix they have a compete foley and fx when sometimes it wont be used depending on the scene and taste of the engineer. so its not like the editors and foley artist talk to the mixer and agree what to foley or not or plan anything. they just replace everythng that its on screen and also pay atention to the production mix just in case the actor drops a cell phone (for example) . if foley doesnt get that itll be rejected in the M&E QC, stoopid but true.
with that same foley and fx and music the studio then mixed a version wihout dialog.
(mostly what i do) and/or also will mix the spanish or portugues version (also do)thats done in the US for most shows.
then its layback to high end tapes (also do) for machines like D5 or digibeta that cost more than most luxury cars.

as for animation, that diferent. it gets recorded 1st and then animated over the voice and then they go back to the studio to record extra voice overs then its mixed.

[GooberNumber9]

Speaking of recording good location sound, do location sound people usually have a chance to dress a location in terms of putting up gobos, curtains, whatever to reduce reverberations, or is that just not practical given other production realities?

I was working on my first location sound project and I looked around and thought "If I could put a blanket up in front of that stairwell (it wasn't in frame of course) it would make a BIG difference", but there just wasn't time.

Todd Wilcox

[minister]

yes, the best sound crews do. obviously when there is time and planning involved.

[Henchman]

As far as dressing up, they should also be aware of what THEY'RE wearing.

One of the episodes I recently mixed had a couple of scenes that had to be completely ADR'ed because the boom guy had the noisiest shoes on the set. They were squishing all over the place, on the hard surfaces.
Completely inexcusable, and IMO, unproffessional.
Not only on the Boom guys part, but on the location sound guys part as well, as, IMO, he obviously wasn't paying attention, or he would have told the boom guy to either change his shoes, or take them off.

[GooberNumber9]

Originally Posted by Henchman

As far as dressing up, they should also be aware of what THEY'RE wearing.

One of the episodes I recently mixed had a couple of scenes that had to be completely ADR'ed because the boom guy had the noisiest shoes on the set. They were squishing all over the place, on the hard surfaces.
Completely inexcusable, and IMO, unproffessional.
Not only on the Boom guys part, but on the location sound guys part as well, as, IMO, he obviously wasn't paying attention, or he would have told the boom guy to either change his shoes, or take them off.

Stories like this make me wonder how come I'm finding it hard to get into location sound. I have virtually no experience, but on my first shoot I knew better than that! We were getting actors to take their shoes off for some shots.

I did screw up and I didn't wear dark colors. We shot with a car a lot and the director had to move the shots around because me and the other sound guy kept showing up very brightly in the reflections on the car.

I worked with my business partner on dialog editing and mixing for a feature-length film with some recognizable TV actors in it. I couldn't believe how incompetent location sound guys can be and still not get fired from a project. These guys had airplanes over dialog, all kinds of random noises, and worst of all, virtually no room tone. Maybe most location sound guys are expecting a lot of ADR. Maybe all location people should have to do dialog mixing and editing for a short with really bad location sound. Then they'll see how important their work is.

Todd Wilcox

[James Roper-Kum]

Originally Posted by Stephen Muir

Typically, production dialogue is recorded using a variety of mics and techniques, often combining overhead booms with wired and wireless lav's and "plant" mic's hidden on-set. Exteriors are usually boomed using a short shotgun (eg. Sennheiser MKH416 or MKH60, Schoeps CMIT5U), or a long shotgun (eg. Sennheiser MKH816) for noiser locations or very wide shots. Short shotguns may also be used for interiors, although reverberant interiors often benefit from the use of a cardioid or super-cardioid mic (eg. Sennheiser MKH50, Schoeps MK4).

However, the technical skill of the boom operator and production mixer are far more important than the specific mic's they're using. Not only will good production sound teams provide you with cleanly recorded dialogue, but they'll also work hard to keep the noise floor consistent across shots. They'll also give you plenty of out-takes, wild-takes, alternates, production foley, and room tone, as well as detailed sound reports to keep everything organized. Incidentally, those sound reports will tell you what mic(s) were used during production, making it easier to keep the ADR consistent with the production sound.

This is some Stella Advice

[philper]

Originally Posted by GooberNumber9

Stories like this make me wonder how come I'm finding it hard to get into location sound. I have virtually no experience, but on my first shoot I knew better than that! We were getting actors to take their shoes off for some shots.

I did screw up and I didn't wear dark colors. We shot with a car a lot and the director had to move the shots around because me and the other sound guy kept showing up very brightly in the reflections on the car.

I worked with my business partner on dialog editing and mixing for a feature-length film with some recognizable TV actors in it. I couldn't believe how incompetent location sound guys can be and still not get fired from a project. These guys had airplanes over dialog, all kinds of random noises, and worst of all, virtually no room tone. Maybe most location sound guys are expecting a lot of ADR. Maybe all location people should have to do dialog mixing and editing for a short with really bad location sound. Then they'll see how important their work is.

Todd Wilcox

Sorry you had a bad time of it on that show. Ever done production sound on a dramatic film shot on location? Maybe a kind of low-budg show with people running things who are inexperienced, don't care a lot about sound or both? Before you judge the location sound guys you might want to consider who chose the locations, who went ahead and rolled scenes w/ aircraft overhead and construction or traffic etc going on and refused to allow time to grab room tone. The time and space to do these things is not made by the location sound people, it is made by the production people. It is very easy to make a good sound crew do bad work: just ignore their suggestions or use the all-purpose reply: "We don't have time for that." Very common, actually. Most professional location sound people are exactly aware of how important their work is. It is the other people involved in the project who might have been having trouble with that concept, which lead to the results you dealt with.

Philip Perkins CAS

[imgoinmad]

Originally Posted by Henchman

-snip- a couple of scenes that had to be completely ADR'ed because the boom guy had the noisiest shoes on the set. -snip-

Kind of funny you mention the shoes...we're working on a piece right now with a scene of this womany walking from her waterfront house down to the beach to dig up some clams (maybe oysters). The sound is beautifully recorded...there's a bunch of nice crunchy dried leaves on the ground, there's beautiful sound of the metal pot in her hand, the movement of her clothes, the water on the beach and the footsteps...only 1 problem...you hear more than one set of feet ;)

[Pluto]

While we are on the subject of audio in cinema, I'm curious how movie scoring works. For example, a musical movie such as "The Producers" let's say... What comes first and how do they shoot it? I know very little about film and I always wondered about this. Thanks.

[gsilbers]

the songs are pre recorded by the artist in a music studio and then they lip sync on camera. or they lip sync to the same song but recorded by someone else and then sometimes replace the vocals.

but i have noticed sometimes its all done in realtime.

[seanmccoy]

Originally Posted by ninjastar

in my experience if the budget is higher than more of the production sound ends up being used.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was 98% ADR. Bet that was fun! And when Lucas did The Phantom Menace, the post guys were very happy having to loop 'only' 1,500 lines! I'd guess these projects probably did have stellar production sound, but I think some directors do things up to a fanatical level just because they can.

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by seanmccoy

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was 98% ADR. Bet that was fun! And when Lucas did The Phantom Menace, the post guys were very happy having to loop 'only' 1,500 lines! I'd guess these projects probably did have stellar production sound, but I think some directors do things up to a fanatical level just because they can.

Ususally it's becasue alot of those special effects shows have issues becasue of the sets. Wooden floors, wind machines etc.
Trust me. They only loop if they have to.