Dialogue at a party??

Hey, I could use some advice on what's best when it comes to recording sound for a party scene.

The scene involves two characters having a conversation over music at a house party.

Is it best to play the music and record their voices at the same time, or to have them speak as if they are talking over music and then lay the music track on in post?

Obviously from the director's POV he'd prefer it if we could do it all at once - more natural for the actors.

what is the convention for this situation?

Many thanks,
SMITH
 
Don't have anyone else make any noise except the 2 people who are having a conversation.

People might laugh at you but that is how it is done in a real movie.

DO NOT record their voices with music in the background - then you can't cut different shots or angles together unless they are perfectly synced which will never happen.

The key is to have the actors deliver their lines as if they were talking over music - which what I'd do is have a boombox on set and play loud music for a test and get them to notice how loud they are talking with the music. Then roll the scene without the boombox on but keeping that energy.

An example of this being poorly done with actors speaking softly is on planes. Have you ever spoken to someone on a plane? The ambience is loud. I watched a movie recently where people were whispering across the isle at eachother - TOTALLY UNREALISTIC. That's because they were on a quiet sound-stage set of a plane and didn't get oriented to how loud a plane is in flight.

Your reference is one of the Benjamin Button behind the scenes featurettes where they go over how they recorded dialogue in the brothel.

Your director doesn't know anything about shooting a party scene, it seems...

If you want to teach him an expensive lesson, go ahead and do what he wants and shoot the scene with everything happening at once. He's going to have to pay for ADR and dialogue mixing or re-shooting if he can't afford ADR...
 
Last edited:
No problem man - I'm here to help.

Remember, I don't think I made it clear enough in my original post:

Don't let anyone else in the shot make any noise. Make the extras sitting on the couch, at the bar, in the background silently converse with eachother if you want to keep the production sound and not do ADR of the principal characters.

Otherwise your dialogue tracks will have random people talking in the background and the mixer will kill you.

You're going to have to add in the ambient conversation later (this is done with a group of actors called a Loop Group).

Anyway, get ahold of the special edition DVD of Benjamin Button and it goes over in detail with examples of this type of thing and how to do it in shooting and in post.
 
Last edited:
You're going to have to add in the ambient conversation later (this is done with a group of actors called a Loop Group).

As most indie types don't have the budget for a loop group, and library sounds never seem to fit quite right, you get all of the extras on the set and roll sound for ten minutes or so prior to shooting (without letting them know that you're rolling sound). You'll get natural sounding conversation that way. Then you tell them you're rolling sound and have them do Walla - which is everyone just standing around saying, well, "Walla". Get a lot of this as well. Try to get a few different perspectives. You now have "real" and walla conversations to layer underneath the dialog during audio post.
 
Where I come from Loop Groups are the norm :)

Good repeater words for random talking from a group that sounds surprisingly like natural chatter:

Watermelon

Peas and Carrots

I would also let the music play for some of that time so you get the natural echo of the music.
 
No problem man - I'm here to help.

Remember, I don't think I made it clear enough in my original post:

Don't let anyone else in the shot make any noise. Make the extras sitting on the couch, at the bar, in the background silently converse with eachother if you want to keep the production sound and not do ADR of the principal characters.

Otherwise your dialogue tracks will have random people talking in the background and the mixer will kill you.

You're going to have to add in the ambient conversation later (this is done with a group of actors called a Loop Group).

Anyway, get ahold of the special edition DVD of Benjamin Button and it goes over in detail with examples of this type of thing and how to do it in shooting and in post.

I actually got to learn all about that when I was acting in a prison movie.

It's very interesting stuff. One of those little things that suddenly strikes me as common sense when I hear it but still would have never occurred to me.

Kind of makes me feel stupid, actually.
 
Back
Top