ADR for no-budget films (I)

I have been recording actors for a while, both for voiceover work and for dialogue replacement. Voiceover sessions are fairly straightforward – I'm looking to capture a good performance that will fit in specific places in the show's timeline. While some producers and actors like to read to picture, it still comes down to wiggling the lines a bit to make them fit, but you have a few extra frames to play with, and sometimes, even a few seconds. So it's not surgical precision, in most cases.

ADR, on the other hand, is a complex beast. You are matching a new recording on the actor's lips, so any discrepancy, no matter how small, will be noticed immediately. So a special degree of care, timing- and performance-wise, is needed. You not only have to be very mindful of "lip flap" (the words not matching the actor's lip movements), but also of performance likeness. For example, if the actor is whispering on screen, you want to record them delivering with the same intensity, or the result will look and sound very weird.

Many directors hate ADR, because they really want to keep the original performances, so they will try to avoid it at all costs. The problem is that sometimes, the original line is totally unusable (see my post "Some thoughts on production sound (I)"), and the director just won't accept the advice of the Supervising Sound Editor, which will impact very negatively the sound for the film. On the flip side, other directors will try to do as much ADR as possible, as they see it as a second chance at getting a better performance from the actors. This is very expensive and time-consuming, and for a small indie film, it can quickly eat up a large portion of the post budget. A few directors fall right in between, which is the healthiest position to be in – they understand that sometimes things go wrong at the shoot and it is imperative to replace some lines in post, so they try to make the most of it.

For the most part, ADR is recorded using a method of having the actor in a booth or a quiet stage, and playing the scene with the dialog line they are replacing on a screen several times so they can get the inflection and the timing right. They have a visual cue, which is a white vertical stripe (called "wipe") going across the screen (the dialogue line starts when the wipe reaches the right edge of the screen), and a sound cue, three beeps as a countdown (the dialogue line starts where the fourth beep would be). This requires some specialized gear, such as a wipe generator, a video player or a projector and a large screen. It also calls for a control room and a booth, or an acoustically treated soundstage.

Some people call ADR "looping", which is a term from the old days when a loop of fullcoat magnetic film was synced to a loop of optical film with the scene, and the actor would record the line several times to the magnetic film loop. This process was very slow compared to the one we use now, because it required a great deal of preparation for each line that had to be replaced.

A system for recording "poor man's ADR" involves a combination of both old and new, with a twist. You need a laptop computer with ProTools LE, an MBox (any model except the Micro), a headphone splitter or amp with at least three outputs, a few packing blankets, a microphone that is as close as possible to the one used on the actual shoot, four decent mic stands, and three sets of high-quality closed-ear headphones. The microphone, the headphones, the splitter and the mic stands are cheap to rent, so don't worry about buying them.

Find yourself a relatively quiet space (an office will do fine, as long as you turn off the AC or heating for the record). With three of the mic stands and the packing blankets, create a booth in a U shape. Place the fourth mic stand in the booth with the actual microphone. Make sure the back of the mic is facing one of the booth's side "walls". Place a table or desk in front of the booth's opening and set up the laptop with the interface and the headphone splitter. Have two chairs at the table in front of the booth – one for the engineer and one for the director. Everyone will wear a set of headphones.

You will need to create a ProTools session that contains all the lines to be replaced as separate clips on a single track, labeled "Guides". Create another track to record to. This track will reflect the character's name and the line being recorded. You will need a transcript of the film cut with every dialogue line numbered and with its timecode location marked down. So, when naming the track before recording, you'll type something that looks like "SG_ADR025_Jack". "SG" refers to the film's name, "ADR025" refers to the line number to be ADR'd, and "Jack" is the character's name. Set up ProTools to Loop Record. In the Edit window, make a selection on the timeline that spans roughly 2 times and a half the length of the guide region for the line to be ADR'd, starting at the top of that region. This way, when you record in loop mode, the actor will hear the line, and he or she will be able to repeat it right after, with the same intensity, inflection and pacing. Then the loop will repeat, the actor will hear the line again, and he or she will say it again, and so on, until the director is happy with the performance and you are sure the pacing is good. ProTools will number the takes automatically, so when you stop the recording, you will have all of them neatly labeled in the regions bin. Then you can rename the track to reflect the next line number and repeat the process. When the actor is done, rename the track again with the new character and line number.

It is a good idea to keep a copy of the film as a Quicktime movie in your hard drive, to allow the actor to watch the scenes and get a sense of the visual aspect before stepping into the booth to record. Have plenty of water bottles for everyone and keep a close eye on the actors to make sure they are as comfortable as possible. This method of working requires them to be very trustful of you, as it is an unconventional scheme, so you need to make them feel at ease.

In the next post, I will talk about how to best edit the recorded lines so the replacement is seamless.