How to ensure no overlapping audio for this shot?

I was told that it was best to record audio separately for every talent so that it would be easier during audio post if I want to increase the gain for one of the tracks etc.

So if I only have a boom mic and I have a single shot of person A's reaction (no dialogue but maybe some whispering) to person B's line, which will be fed to person A, how should I go about recording person A's reaction if I do not want person A's reaction sounds and person B's dialogue to overlap.

What I originally did was to focus on person A while person B feeds him his lines. But it resulted in person B's dialogue to be off axis and overlapped with person A's reaction sounds. And if I request person B to not feed the lines, how can I go about cueing person A on when to react? Thanks!
 
You direct the actors to not speak over each others lines. If
they you you cut and do another take. When person B is
feeding person A lines they need to be mindful of the recording.
It's YOUR job to work with the actors to get clean audio tracks.
 
You direct the actors to not speak over each others lines.

There you go. You can cut them to overlap in audio post if you want to.


There's no problem with overlapping lines AS LONG AS THEY ARE PROPERLY RECORDED. This means a boom-op and PSM who really know what the hell they're doing.


If you want to see a great movie that is entirely production dialog check out "Being There." Jeff Wexler is a true master of mic booming and production sound; even quite a bit of his WIFO (Wild Foley) is recorded so well that it's used in the films he works on. Another film that is entirely production dialog is Inglourious Basterds; Tarantino is a fanatic about using production dialog.
 
This also depends on what kinds of shots the director wants to use for a scene. You could have a scene of two people trying to yell and talk over each other, but if it's OTS shots, cutting back and forth between the two, the actor who's face you do not see, could just pretend to yell and shout at the other, and you wouldn't notice, since it's the back of their head going out of frame, and out of focus, but it still looks like they are yelling at the other person, of course.

But for the master shots, it will be more difficult, of course.
 
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