Question about capturing wild dialog.

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harmonica44

So far on a short film I am working on, the director is shooting it in master shots only, and will only do a couple of takes each cause of time constraints.

It is difficult to boom six people who are in almost all the scenes (it takes place all in one location, and skip ahead in time, making different scenes), and I would like to wild dialogue at the end of the shoots, for sentences I missed.

However, how do you do wild dialogue accurately? An actor can easily say his/her lines differently from all the other takes, and the chances of it matching in post are not likely, compared to ADR, after watching the final video cut, and trying to mimic it.

However, most seem to think that wild dialog is better than ADR, so if it's better how do you get it to match better, before the actors see their takes?

Thanks.
 
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harmonica44 said:
However, most seem to think that wild dialog is better than ADR, so if it's better how do you get it to match better, before the actors see their takes?
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Here we go again!! You take what has been said out of context and try to make a simple rule out of it for your "Filmmaking for Dummies Rule Book". Ask yourself this simple question: If wild dialogue is always better why would anyone ever do ADR, why does ADR even exist? It's simple, there are of course advantages and disadvantages to both:

Wild dialogue advantages:
1. It's cheap and quick. The actor is already there, no travelling to or hiring an ADR studio.
2. Better performance. The actor is still "in character" and the scene is still fresh in their memory.
3. More easily matchable acoustic properties. Same location, equipment and sound recordist should mean similar room tone, perspective and sonic signature.

Wild dialogue disadvantages:
1. The timing is usually way off.
2. Potentially the same noise issues which made the sync dialogue unusable.

Usually wild dialogue takes are used to replace a problematic syllable or word in the sync track. Occasionally a whole line of wild dialogue can be used but more often than not a whole line would require too much time or be impossible to get in sync without the necessary processing destroying it's quality.

ADR advantages:
1. No noise issues.
2. Close enough to being in sync that the required processing does not destroy the sound quality.
3. NO NOISE ISSUES!

ADR disadvantages:
1. Poor actor performance.
2. Time consuming and expensive.
3. Difficult to match with sync dialogue acoustically.

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Yeah but it depends on which take they want use. Since it's usually two takes they are doing or sometimes three, I can play them all back, and have them redo them all, if there is time left on the location. Thanks, I will do that.
 
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The whole point of dialog wilds is KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!

You're not going to have the time - nor will the director have the inclination - to do play-backs on the set with newly recorded material. Just have them do two or three takes of each line. It ain't gonna be perfect, but then, that's what dialog editing is all about - making it work.
 
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