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ADR with BG noise


Olle Sjostrom

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Hiyas!

 

It’s truly been a while since I posted anything here it seems.. 

Anyway, nowadays I work in radio and there's just a different approach to everything, basically. One thing is background noise for example. Journalists like to keep things realistic, and therefore there's not a lot of recording separate backgrounds to add on later. If they want bg noise in their speakers/VOs they just record them in the environment they want. Sometimes at least. Most (99,9%) of the time they don't want the noise. 

 

Anyway. The other day this guy had made a similar VO, recorded in the street. But he got some facts wrong and needed to replace a few words. So he went in the studio thinking he could shoehorn the words in there somehow, failed miserably of course. Then we decided that he should do it over, but he wanted to keep "authenticity" of course. So we just took the handheld recorder he'd used in the street, in the studio, and played back another street noise in his headphones. That way he could sort of hear things the way he'd heard them when he did the original recording. 

 

Now, that got me thinking of how this could be used in ADR. Most of the time, actors will deliver a lot less volume and intensity than on set. I mean, I've spent hours on just trying to get an actor to actually louden his voice in order to get it right. Maybe hearing the background from the scene would help in that? 

 

I guess leakage from the headphones would be a thing, but it'd be covered by the real BGs later on.

Dunno, is this already being used? I don't think I've come up with an amazing new thing here, just reality checking I guess. I know for a fact it's not being used at all in Sweden (that I know of).I used to love doing exterior ADR, just because it sounded a lot more like the real thing from the get go. It was hard to get there, but totally worth it in terms of performance.

 

All the best to all of you!

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I've done that in ADR sessions from time to time when an actor needs help. 

 

You can can also use the volume of his/her headphones to "trick" the actor into giving more or less projection - louder backing track in the headphones usually means they will naturally speak louder to compensate and vice versa. 

 

I always prefer to work work with an actor and guide or ask for what I want first before resorting to tricks like these... but sometimes they're the best way to get results. 

 

-Mike

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