ADR/Looping

He may be very knowledgeable about sound, but he's apparently bluffing when it comes to sound in cinema. He is wrong. It is not typical for movies to be 100% ADR.

I asked a similar question, and got some good answers -- http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=34211

Most movies are under pressure from a tight schedule already. What makes him think they actually have the time to go back and re-record things?

He is a lecturer and tutor at SAE(Sound and Engineering) college so he knows what he's is talking about and is incredibly knowledgeable about sound. He seems to think that in films 100% of the dialogue is re-recorded and dubbed. No dialogue from on set is used, it is only as reference for the actors to recreate their performances.

Click to expand...

He either is far less knowledgeable/experienced than he claims or he is trying to pad his bill.



On mega-budget "Hollywood" films, especially action films, yes, a very large percentage of the the dialog is looped. This actually saves budget and scheduling problems later on.

The multimillion dollar actor is brought in very early during the audio post process to ADR the scenes in which there is even the remotest, smallest potential for a dialog problem. The way this saves time and money is that the ADR sessions are now complete, and the superstar actor will not have to be paid additional money and all of the other associated costs - remote studio time, limos, etc. - are negated.

The dialog editor will use all of the unused takes and dialog wilds (if any) as source material for his/her dialog edit. The ADR will also be cut together and synced during the dialog edit.

The final decisions about the dialog are made during the mix. The production sound dialog is almost always the far superior performance. The rerecording mixer(s) will first attempt noise reduction on the production dialog tracks prior to unmuting the ADR. (This sometimes takes place during the predub process.)


On low/no/mini/micro budget projects ADR is usually cost prohibitive, and if ADR is done the performances are quite often so poor that you are better off living with the noisy production dialog tracks. Personally - since budgets and time are so limited - I tend to do noise reduction as I do the dialog edit. When there is absolutely no choice I will ask the director if we can resort to ADR. It is not unusual that the talent is no longer available so I/we just have to live with the production dialog, no matter how bad it is.

I second what's been said above. With the obvious exception of animated films, I personally don't know of any films which were 100% ADR. I believe The Matrix got pretty close to 100% but this is the exception rather than the rule. Generally with commercial theatrical films, 40% -70% ADR is more usual. The general rule of ADR is that it's an option of LAST resort.

I'm an ex-senior lecturer myself in Music Tech and Sound for Film/TV and I used to know some of the staff at SAE (London). They tend to be very knowledgeable about sound but their background is almost always music production rather than audio post.

A factor to bare in mind: While music production and audio post are both sound and therefore share the same underlying principles and even share much of the same equipment, there are many significant differences between the two: Workflows and many of the tools and techniques are very different, particularly mixing techniques and mixing environments. In other words, only some of the skills required for music production are transferable to audio post and of course many of the skills and knowledge specific to audio post are likely to be missing entirely.

Without knowing the guy, I cannot say for sure if he really knows what he's doing but is trying to scam you (as suggested by Alcove) or if he's simply ignorant of audio post. My guess would be the latter, in which case, depending on your intended distribution (very important consideration!) either try to find someone else with real experience in audio post or at the least, get a professional to check the mix through before you commit to it.

G

As noted, on a film with a budget, yes more than 50% for sure and maybe as much as 80% or 90%. In the low budget world it's "when you have to".

Thank you all for the informative responses. You guys affirmed what I already thought, cheers.

He is actually doing this short film for free! so there is no scam happening, hes the housemate of my scriptwriter so I trust him. He did say in our meeting that his background is mostly in band and music audio. So i assume it is just ignorance on the subject.

For the sake of experience I have decided to go along with the process for this short film (its only a 4min film for uni), and hopefully i'll come out the end with a much better understanding of the whole process and can implement it in future projects appropriately.

thanks once again.

Just for fun...

Quentin Tarantino is very much into actual production dialog performance. Many of his films contain little ADR. "Inglourious Basterds" has zero ADR, he would re-block and re-light, or even completely re-shoot an entire scene to be sure that the production dialog was perfect.

dude, bob, you are probably wrong, dead wrong
I cant say for sure, first hand, but the evidence strongly suggests that there is some ADR(not zero as you claim)
in that movie
not just some,but really good ADR
as they were honored with an award for it





Soundelux wins MPSE Golden Reel for Inglourious Basterds
2/22/2010

Summary: Team wins award for Best Sound Editing: Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film.



» http://vimeo.com/9636453
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Supervising Sound Editor Wylie Stateman and his team from Soundelux were winners at the Golden Reel Awards, held February 20th in Los Angeles.

Soundelux won for Best Sound Editing: Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film for Inglourious Basterds. Stateman shares the award with Supervising Dialogue Editor Margit Pfeiffer, Supervising ADR Editor Gregg Baxter and Dialogue/ADR Editor Nancy Nugent-Title.

it must have been outstanding, that is when they give awards in that biz, when your work is outstanding

maybe next time, I don't know, maybe, try to fact check first
I wonder how much inaccurate information you have posted in the past
because what you posted here sounds like it may be utterly false

Sound Department
Robert Althoff .... sound mix technician Paul Aulicino .... sound effects editor Gregg Baxter .... adr supervisor Harry Cohen .... sound designer Benjamin Dunker .... utility sound technician Paul Flinchbaugh .... assistant sound editor Hector C. Gika .... sound effects editor (as Hector Gika) Tom Hartig .... boom operator Craig S. Jaeger .... foley editor (as Craig Jaeger) Michael Keller .... sound effects editor Tony Lamberti .... sound re-recording mixer Michael Minkler .... sound re-recording mixer Dror Mohar .... assistant sound editor James Moriana .... foley artist (as James M. Moriana) Nancy Nugent .... dialogue editor (as Nancy Nugent Title) Margit Pfeiffer .... dialogue supervisor Ann Scibelli .... sound designer Branden Spencer .... supervising assistant sound editor Wylie Stateman .... supervising sound editor Mark Ulano .... production sound mixer Brett Voss .... foley mixer Jeffrey Wilhoit .... foley artist David Young .... post-production sound engineer (as David M. Young) Ron Bedrosian .... adr mixer (uncredited) Toby Cohen .... additional sound (uncredited) Martin Gleitze .... sound utility (uncredited) Michael Karl Huber .... sound dailies (uncredited) Carsten Richter .... foley artist (segment "Nation's Pride") (uncredited) Steve Schatz .... sound mixing recordist (uncredited) Fabian Schenk .... sound dailies (uncredited) Hanse Warns .... foley mixer (segment "Nation's Pride") (uncredited)

Actually, I'm 100% correct.

The reason it won so many "Dialog" awards is for the reason I stated - there was Zero (0) ADR. This topic was discussed endlessly on numerous audio post/sound design forums, and was the subject of a very lengthy article in Post magazine when the film came out.

Here is a direct quote in the article from Mike Minkler, the rerecording mixer on the film:

"Quentin is very astute, careful and cognizant of sound at all times. He is one of the rare directors who will actually shoot a take again based solely on sound. Most people would choose to fix something in post production rather than the shoot, not only for audio but for visuals too. But, not Quentin. He'll never ADR the dialog... (Bold is mine)

Not only will Quentin retake something due to the sound, but when they are setting up the shots he will allow lights and cameras to be moved in order to reduce noises on the set. For example, he may say 'No you cannot use that light because it is humming too much.'"


BTW, if you'll notice, the awards are "Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film". That does not mean that the film must include ADR, nor does it mean that the production dialog must be included in the film. The fact that the dialog was exclusively production sound was one of the main reasons "Inglourious Basterds" won so many "Dialog" awards.

Yes, there were LOTS of voices recorded during audio post; these were loop group voices - crowds, wallas, callouts and the like; probably even the odd off-stage voice or two. But none of the primary or supporting actors did any ADR, which is germane to the discussion of directors preferring production dialog to ADR.

So, I suggest that you check out the facts yourself, or at the least have some knowledge of the topic (audio post) under discussion.

well ok lets see here hmm, lets check out some facts
diane kruger,ok she was in IB , kind of a big part I guess, second female listed on IMDB, she's certainly not background/extra/group walla etc


heres a fact

The past month was a good example of the different kinds of projects we do here at Outlaw Sound.* We had the pleasure of working with actress, Diane Kruger, doing German ADR for the new Quentin Tarantino film, “Inglourious Basterds”.* We connected with Berliner Synchron studios in Berlin with our APT Milano.* The connection and time code lock was flawless.

oh, and another ADR session with QT

Today I was called in for another ADR session. When I showed up my little brother Mike Bowen was there working on his sequence as the intern in the hospital who as an avocation sells Uma's comatose body. We all hugged and slapped each others' backs. I said "You don't think you can improve on this sequence, do you?Quentin laughed (of course)

so maybe you are not actually 100 percent correct
I believe you said "none of the primary or supporting actors did any ADR"
I suppose Diane Kruger counts as primary or supporting actor
so the fact is I cant know if they used it, but they certainly did the ADR session, and thats a fact

Hello anzel2002,

I am a bit taken back at your attack of Alcove. He has over 4,000 posts of good, useful information. Alcove is constantly one of the first people to jump in and try to give some help. OK, maybe the article he is referencing in inaccurate, maybe you have some inside information that Alcove does not have. Heck maybe Alcove made a mistake. But for you with your 13 posts, to outright attack him like this is pathetic and childish.

Kurt Kroh
Noise Ninja

I'm with NoiseNinja.

Although Alcove and I have disagreed on occasion, I find in general the information he provides to be accurate and knowledgeable. I have to say that I am very surprised to hear of any feature (particularly an action feature) which didn't use any ADR of it's main characters but that doesn't mean to say it's absolutely impossible or that it wasn't achieved on this film. Even if Alcove is misinformed in this instance (which is possible but unlikely) that is certainly no basis for questioning the accuracy of his posts in other threads.

G

hi guys
I know it looks like I am attacking Alcove for no reason,but the history/reality of it, is that when I first posted on here, once several months ago, he attacked me for no real reason at all,putting me down, pugnacious ,etc, unprovoked,

he went out of his way, bent over backwards to prove me wrong, by stating some anachronistic example from 80 years ago, when in reality I was overwhelmingly correct in what I was discussing

I knew once he had to go back about 80 years to try to make that point, that his argument was rubbish and probably disingenuous

he kept that up, even a little malicious, for almost the entire thread (now thats pathetic and childish)

theres no way around it, he simply acted like a jerk toward me,

so, anyway, my unfavorable attitude towards him stems from that I suppose

hope that sheds some light