Bad Location sound vs Pre-Planned ADR

[Kholi]

Pretend I'm audio retarded (because I am) and solve this scenario for me:

On a low budget shoot, where you may have to either run-n-gun a location and/or will have bad sound no matter what you do on a certain day, is it better to put that day's wage into ADR or hire the sound team anyway, then try to further fix it in post?

Of course, you still capture location sound with say a boom or something like that, but can someone throw out the pros and cons and the best approach -- with kid gloves. My image-centric assumption is to go without the sound guy, strap on a Rode Video Mic Pro, run sound right into camera and deal with it in an ADR session. Even employing poor-man's ADR (in a quiet park or quiet alleyway, so on and so forth.)

If'n Alcove isn't the first one to reply to this I'll be completely confused.

 

[IndieBudget]

I bet you are confused ! NP..Im frequently that way meself.

I vote get the sound CORRECT on the set, never plan on getting everything in a shot on ADR , however Im not an expert, but it is MUCH easier to get it right on the set than do good ADR later.

 

[Kholi]

I bet you are confused ! NP..Im frequently that way meself.

I vote get the sound CORRECT on the set, never plan on getting everything in a shot on ADR , however Im not an expert, but it is MUCH easier to get it right on the set than do good ADR later.

Haha. Naturally, best sound you can get, but if you already know you're not going to get good sound (for example, shooting near LAX airport) is it a futile effort and a waste of money? You're going to ADR that anyway, is it smart to hire a location sound guy when it's just going to slow you down?

On the first feature, I actually experienced this more than a few times and I realized that we were going to have to ADR, anyway... so why did I bring the sound team out? We could've gotten the shot that I needed much faster, and the money saved on that gent could've been put to the ADR session.

This is why I pose the question, for more feedback and thoughts.

 

[GuerrillaAngel]

I'd go with all-ADR. You can even hire voice talent to do it.

 

[Alcove Audio]

If you are spending the $1,500+ per day for the "Hollywood" sound crew you will also be able to afford the $1,000,000+ audio post. The production sound - a combo of boomed mics, lavs and plant mics - will be of sufficient quality that the audio post team will have an excellent chance of cleaning it up very nicely indeed (it helps when you have tens of thousands worth of NR software). And, of course, the production sound crew will have captured dialog wilds immediately after the scene is wrapped. Just for good measure the scene is ADRed anyway, because, compared to the rest of the production and post costs, it's not really that expensive. The choice of which dialog to use - original production sound, the wilds or the ADR - will be made by the rerecording mixer(s) and the director when the film is mixed.

Now, on to the realities of indie filmmaking. You do the same things - you capture the production sound as best you can and immediately do dialog wilds when the scene is wrapped. You have to plan this time into your shooting schedule for the day. As we've discussed frequently, the talent is still in character and in the moment; the odds are fairly good that you won't have to do ADR.

HOWEVER... Get a rough cut done as fast as you possibly can; you want your actors in to do ADR before they scatter to the winds and fall out of character. The longer you take with the rough cut the less effective your ADR will be.

The bottom line is you always strive for the best production sound you can get. In a noisy environment there's always the chance you could get lucky. If you don't get lucky you still need the cleanest production dialog tracks you can get to make syncing wilds and doing the ADR easier. Even when using softwares like VocAlign you get better results with more articulate source material. It's even more important when editing by hand; the less background noise there is the more of the original waveforms you can see and hear, which makes manual editing easier.

Always work production sound is if you will never get the chance for ADR.

 

[Kholi]

The bottom line is you always strive for the best production sound you can get. In a noisy environment there's always the chance you could get lucky. If you don't get lucky you still need the cleanest production dialog tracks you can get to make syncing wilds and doing the ADR easier. Even when using softwares like VocAlign you get better results with more articulate source material. It's even more important when editing by hand; the less background noise there is the more of the original waveforms you can see and hear, which makes manual editing easier.

Always work production sound is if you will never get the chance for ADR.

So your vote is to spend the money on location sound guys and rely on luck, versus getting the visual material shot with reference audio from something like a rode mic and making the day that way?

I'm not disagreeing with you, just wanting to make sure that on a 10K feature film (budget to carry you through production and post) with multiple locations that you won't be able to control (planes, trains, traffic) on those days you would still hire location sound, do wild lines and assume that you won't have to ADR?

 

[Alcove Audio]

You should be selecting your locations with sound in mind as well as the look. This way you avoid having to make the production sound versus ADR choice in the first place.

And go back and reread my post. To sum up:

Attempt to capture the production sound as if you will not have the chance to do ADR.

Do dialog wilds immediately after completion of shooting the scene.

Get a rough cut done ASAP so the talent will still be available and have "easy access" to the character to make the ADR sessions more effective.

The better quality production sound, even if it is not ultimately usable, will enhance the process of syncing of the wilds and ADR.


This is not relying on luck; this is planning for all contigencies.



There are situations - action scenes where you have wind machines, racing cars, etc. for example - where you know without doubt that you will have no choice but to do ADR. You should still capture solid production sound to facilitate the ADR process. This is all part of planning your sound well in advance.

 

[Kholi]

You should be selecting your locations with sound in mind as well as the look. This way you avoid having to make the production sound versus ADR choice in the first place.

Well, of course, but that's not a serious reality for a low budget feature film in Los Angeles. Not sure if you've ever been, but you're pretty much under an airplane no matter where you go.

There are situations - action scenes where you have wind machines, racing cars, etc. for example - where you know without doubt that you will have no choice but to do ADR.

Welcome to LA

But all of your words are taken into account. I'm sure all audio guys will agree with you, hopefully I'll hear from some producers and people who've finished nano budget projects in various ways that aren't exactly traditional, for another frame of reference.

Thanks for the info.

 

[dlevanchuk]

noisy area was my huuuuuuuuge problem for the last shoot. I ve tried to find an ideal location to shoot the film, but unfortunately had to pic the area in the loud neighborhood.

I knew right away that i d have to do ADR for the entire short, so I rewrote few things, to cutout the dialog, and started to look for friends with good audio studios.

Then I ve talked to the actors, explained them the deal, that they ll have to comeback to rerecord the audio.

During the shoot i still ran the audio on the camera for reference. Week after the shoot was wrapped we recorded dialogs. Sounds great.

Cant wait for all of you guys to see/hear it!

 

[Cracker Funk]

Great thread. I've had similar thoughts. One question -- what are "dialogue wilds"? I'm taking a total guess -- would that basically be shooting on-location-ADR, immediately after they've shot the scene, so that the performance is still fresh?

EDIT: Just googled my own damn question, and found the answer. Why have I never thought of getting wild dialogue? Face-palm! Very glad I read your post, Alcove.

 

[Kholi]

Yes sirrr. We refer to them as wild lines, just make a note for the editor, which in both of our cases will be ourselves. Haha.

In a perfect world you would always pay to get the best audio you can on location, but a 10K production/post budget is far from a perfect world, especially considering genre. I have to be able to shoot out a 7-10 day schedule of about 100 pages. There won't be any slowing down to wait for planes or car alarms to go off. Dogs to stop barking or neighbors to stop sawing.

A location sounds perfect when you aren't shooting in it. Then you show up and you hear all sorts of things that weren't there before.

So I'm trying to figure out what is a plausible method for a budget like this, not just money but time. Like Dievan had to do, I suspect i will as well so why not just go with the flow of the tide and navigate it?

I could realistically, for interior vehicle material and exterior, strap a rode mic pro on a hot shoe mount or dangle it somewhere, maybe even hide lavs so on and so forth, that should be plenty enough for a decent guide track and then definitely stop and get those wlld lines right then and there.

There's no better way to find out, though, than to test it out.

Still, anyone with experiences please share.

 

[brianluce]

Consider the amount of dialog too. If the scene is highly visual then I think you can easily just rely on ADR. But if it's talking heads, or dialog driven, ADR can be sorta cold and flat and lacking authenticity.

 

[PaulGriffith]

Haven't shot a feature yet. Of course we aim to get clean as possible sound on location for every shoot, but the day we shot the car chase thing we did, it was uncontrollably windy. Had about 20 people out and some were from out of town so there was no way to reschedule, so it was our first attempt at 100% ADR. Any attempt at booming audio was 100% wind noise anyway, so we just went with on camera mics to help sync sound later.

It wasn't terrible. We had a decent actor and there wasn't exactly a ton of lines, and he knocked them out pretty quick. Our audio tech was a little new at ADR, but he was able to time stretch lines that were already really close to match up. It wasn't the best recording environment, but it was what it was, a 90 second no budget scene you know?

After that experience, and now that we have a for real production AND post sound guy with 10 or so years of experience on the team, I'm confident that if we're ever in a similar situation or downtown on a street we can't close or something that if we have to run and gun with an on camera mic, we can do decent ADR for the scene.

A whole feature done that way sounds a little intimidating, but with really good actors and a good post tech I'm sure it's doable on a meager-ish budget. Tron 2 did it, the light up suits made a high pitched whine so they went in to it planning on 100% ADR. Still had an experienced audio team on set capturing as good as can be audio, but still.

Again, actors are important. If an actor can't do it or needs 100 takes or can't deliver emotion when not surrounded by lights and in costume and makeup, then you either need a lot more money for post or a different actor haha.

 

[IndieBudget]

I just did a vid on my cheap azz sound setup and I was directly under the takeoff path about 2 miles north of Houston's airport. I was using a Lav mic and it sounded OK. I included the on cam sound and the difference was amazing. The cam mic made it sound louder than it was, but the lav mic was useable IMO... A good sound person w/ good eqt could do better ?

At 2:48 a jet was taking off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PXrZX8Pg24

 

[Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC]

Well from the issues I had with location sound, in thhe future I don't want to shoot any take with dialogue with less than 3 takes. That is a magic number to at least piece something together without a siren, a honking horn, or a passing plane.