editing ADR - booth or in the field?

[fellinitim]

Hello. I'm a writer-director who is in post-production on my first very low budget feature. I've only previously directed three projects so my ignorance is going to show through here. But we're headed into ADR and I've only had a little previous experience with it.

I know most ADR is recorded with the actor in a booth. The idea as I understand it is to try and get a neutral sound that the sound editor can they fill in around and match to the scene. That's what we tried on the web-series I directed. I found in that experience that the sound we got in ADR really didn't match the scenes they were eventually laid into. Perhaps my sound editor needed to do a better job of recreating a better ambience around the ADR track. But it was so obvious where we used ADR that is was painful.

A director friend recently shot a short. When he did ADR, he took his actors into settings that had a similar ambience to where he originally shot but where he knew he could get better sound than he got on the set. He used his laptop as a monitor. Watching it later I found it difficult to distinguish what lines he had used ADR on.

I hear a lot of pros and cons to each approach. Some prefer the more pristine sound of the booth and believe the sound editor should be able to create the needed ambience to make it a good match. Others seem to prefer an in the field sound. Like if it's a scene in a car in traffic, get the ADR in a parked car but somewhere reasonably quiet. Then layer in the traffic sounds around that.

Some more info: the original sound we got is mixed and our ADR list is fairly long. There was a lot of ambient sound through most the shoot, even in the INT.'s, where much of the film is set. I'm getting a lot of conflicting input from many people. (I'm sure a lot of it depends on the situation.) I should add our post budget is of course very tight. But if we don't have good sound, the rest won't matter. Thoughts from anyone? And if you can, share where your experience comes from. Are you a filmmaker? Sound mixer or editor? Thanks!

 

[sfoster]

It's usually a good idea to capture dialogue wilds while you're still on set. maybe you couldn't get the mic close enough, etc.

Anything you don't have to do in post with manipulation is, IMO, a good move as a no budget novice film maker

 

[Alcove Audio]

Traditional ADR is indeed done in a carefully constructed studio environment. At the low/no/mini/micro budget indie level you just have to do the best that you can. Try to use the same mic(s) that you used on the set. If your audio recorder and/or mixer is capable use it/them as your preamp into the computer/DAW so the ADR better matches the production sound.

Getting tight sync and a good ADR performance is another challenge, even with experienced actors, and doubly and triply hard with inexperienced actors. VocAlign is wonderful for aligning ADR with production dialog, but the performances still need to be close.

Something also very overlooked is the need for good Foley work. You can't just replace the dialog; you need to replace footsteps, cloth, hands, props, etc., etc., etc. so that the ADR is more believable, otherwise the ADR is just words floating in space with nothing to connect them to the visuals and the rest of the audio.

The mix is another challenge. It is a lot easier if you have good material. You did record copious room tones, right? That makes blending the ADR into the production sound a lot easier. It may also be necessary to "dirty up" the ADR. You also need to match the reverberant atmosphere of the location; IR reverbs like AltiVerb are excellent for the task.


BTW, you don't always have to do ADR; you can use dialog performances from the unused takes. I prefer doing this before resorting to ADR.

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

I recommend you capture ADR in a booth, but other locations are possible. If you are choosing to record audio in a not-very-ideal location, then choose a location that has good acoustics, with no background noise or other disruptions that could potentially ruin the recordings. I think your best bet is to go the traditional route and avoid complications later, but if you must, test your desired recording location beforehand to make sure it is suitable for recording.

 

[Metrostar]

This is worth adding...

DO NOT leave your actors to their own devices while re-recording lines. Encourage, cajole and support them at every turn. If you do not do this, you will end up with a series of files that do not exactly match up with the lips on the screen and you will have to call the actor back in OR spend hours cutting their recordings up, word by word in some cases, to match the video.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

There are indeed pros and cons to recording in the field vs in a booth and to a large extent how ADR is handled depends on what the film is destined for. For example, with larger budget commercial films destined for the cinema or for TV broadcast, the distributors/broadcasters will require the dialogue and room tone on one set of tracks and the ambiance on a completely different set of tracks. In this case it makes more sense to record ADR in a booth and create ambiance separately, rather than trying to capture the ADR + ambiance in the field. With lo/no budget films destined for self distribution and/or film festivals, there is no requirement for ambiance on separate tracks to the dialogue/room tone and therefore recording ADR in the field becomes more of a viable choice, though still not necessarily the best or most practical choice. So, there's no absolute rule about which is always best because there are too many variables at play, but at the lo/no budget level I would think that carefully/intelligently done, recording ADR in the field could in many cases end up providing the most seamless ADR.

The two big challenges in recording ADR are performance, as Alcove mentioned, and getting something which the re-recording mixer can blend invisibly into the mix. The former, even with experienced professional actors, can frequently result in lifeless ADR which kills an otherwise good scene dead. The latter can be greatly helped by using the same mic as was used on set (as Alcove also mentioned) and taking other precautions such as not having the actor too close to the mic and mimicking the head movements (relative to the mic) of the original take.

I found in that experience that the sound we got in ADR really didn't match the scenes they were eventually laid into. Perhaps my sound editor needed to do a better job of recreating a better ambience around the ADR track.

The sound editor's ambiance could well be the cause but more likely it's just a contributory factor or not the cause at all. The more likely cause is what the re-recording mixer has done (or not done). There's no simple answer to this, as it frequently requires considerable experience, a range of quite expensive equipment and exactly what is done during mixing (pre-mixing) varies from case to case. It's also often possible to salvage the original sync dialogue or dialogue from an alt take, which is virtually always preferable to ADR, but this option depends on exactly how bad the sync dialogue is, and the experience/equipment of the re-recording mixer, and of course the lower in budget you go, the less likely it is that the re-recording mixer has either.

Can you post a typical example of your problem production dialogue? Alcove and/or I will give our opinion on whether ADR is actually essential or could be avoided and maybe give some suggestions if it can't be avoided.

G