ADR: Mission failed or Part of the process?

[Edmond Smith]

It's been roughly a year+ since I have really invested in Production sound, two years since the start of school and I have yet to, or at least know of, the projects I've worked on need ADR. (yes chances have it the students don't have the time or resources to do a proper ADR session)

Still I wonder, how you guys feel about a project you worked on needing ADR?

[Mark LeBlanc]

So much of why a scene needs ADR occurs when a location is selected for the visual only and not taking sound into consideration. Prime example (recent show) - Get an angry email from Post, why didn't I (Mixer) stop the jackhammer during this tender dialog scene outside a church. My reply, what you thought was a simple jackhammer was in fact a machine designed to crush entire buildings. The machine was almost a mile away and was having a good time taking down a Hospital in East New Orleans destroyed by Katrina. 50 bucks wasn't enough to stop it. The other fun time is the Wide / Tight that most production companies are doing these days to help make the day. Call comes during editing "why does person X closeup sound like a lav, where's the boom", to which I direct them to the B camera armed with 35 mm lense, on the deck, looking up at the ceiling. Do your best, take fastidious notes and know that sometimes you are in a no win situation in which case our dear friends in post too can invoice!!

[Bondelev]

It's both. It's a necessary part of the process that may be completely out of your control. They may be looping for performance but don't want to tell the actor that. They may be adding explanatory dialog that needed rewriting. They may be fixing an overlap that was uneditable. Don't be too insulted.

if there are large amounts of ADR then it's time to worry, but even then, always follow through on your work with the editor to see how it is working. They will let you know when there are major problems.

[Tom Visser]

It also depends on the standards of what you are working on. I've seen plenty of shorts and features that could have benefitted greatly from some ADR, but there may not have been budget, actors may not have been available, or it was a conscious by those in power to not use ADR even if technically advisable. I don't feel that ADR is a hit against a production mixer's abilities. There are many reasons why ADR is required and often times out of the production mixer's control, including a poor / incomplete job done by the post team in saving dialogue that just needed some heavy handed processing and better post-mixing. Actors always complain about rewriting... you want to hear some badmouthing of the writers? Bring in the actors for ADR for rewritten lines. Whenever I go on set and introduce myself as the ADR mixer, I get a slightly self conscious feeling, a certain perceived sensation from the production mixer knowing that I'm one of few people who listen to his work really critically. Since I straddle both sides of the line as a production mixer too, I can certainly understand how he feels. (I'm the guy here to fix your f-ups) This is certainly NOT the relationship that exists between ADR recordists and mixers and I don't think it is healthy to judge others based upon their track record of needing ADR or not. Pretty much 100% of us need ADR on our work, it's just a matter of time. And for many, it happens quite often, just part of the workflow.

[Philip Perkins]

ADR is an important tool in filmmaking and there is no point at all in location soundies getting shirty about it, any more than they should about scenes being remixed from isos, EQ changes in the mix, editing together several takes to get the hero one or any other post audio tool or technique. ADR is sometimes done to replace problematic location sound, but it is also done to change performance or to get dialog content that has been changed after editing has started. Everyone involved would rather use the production sound than ADR a scene, for many obvious reasons, unless the film was planned to be ADRed from the start. Realize that when ADR happens on one of your projects that it very well might have nothing to do with you.

phil p

[studiomprd]

" if there are large amounts of ADR then it's time to worry " + " unless the film (or scene) was planned to be ADRed from the start. "

two words: Waterworld

(100% ADR, as planned from preproduction, and nominated for best sound...)

There are a lot of factors, and ADR should not necessarily have either blame or any stigma attached to it.

Edited August 10, 2011 by studiomprd

[Tom Visser]

Also when doing ADR, I can't ever remember a time where we were like "hey, let's tell the production mixer about this"... it just wasn't a consideration. No one ever was pissed or attributed the session to the production mixer (except the actors, where the professional staff and producers always defended him), so it very well may have happened without your knowledge if it happened at all.

[RPSharman]

I have worked on (and seen) movies where ADR should have been used over production tracks. There are times where the environmental noise prohibits recording good sound, or radio mics get buried and can't be properly EQ'd, or any number of other issues which can cause the production track to not be optimal. But they use it anyway, for one reason or another.

I always try my best to minimize mistakes and get the best sound I think the situation will allow. That's my job. If ADR is required after that, then I don't mind. I have done movies with no ADR, and other movies with lots. But I am very proud of my work on all of them.

Robert

[Marc Wielage]

I have worked on (and seen) movies where ADR should have been used over production tracks. There are times where the environmental noise prohibits recording good sound, or radio mics get buried and can't be properly EQ'd, or any number of other issues which can cause the production track to not be optimal. But they use it anyway, for one reason or another.

I can think of two reasons why this happens: 1) the director feels the actor's performance was perfect on the original track, and doesn't want to replace it with ADR; 2) there's not enough time or money for ADR.

I'm continually blown away by the amount of production sound being used in TV. In the old days -- I'm thinking Universal during the 1970s -- it seemed like 80% of the location sound was replaced by ADR. Now, more than 80% of it gets used in the show, and the dialog editors and re-recording mixers find ways to make it work. Wireless lavs is one reason for this, and I think most will agree that a decent-sounding lav on location is "more real" than ADR, in cases where a boom couldn't work (as with multiple cameras and wideshots).

I just got thrown into a post sound situation recently (and I don't pretend to be a post sound guy), and I was appalled at how much EQ and NR I had to use to make a wired lav work on a badly-recorded track. This thing sounded like a rectal mike. The editor was amazed that I had managed to make it sound so good, but it took an hour for me to make 5 minutes of track usable, with a couple of thousand dollars' worth of Pro Tools plug-ins. (Waves WNS is a miracle worker.) ADR was not an option for this, since it was a one-shot charity presentation. You do what you gotta do.

--Marc W.

[geordi]

I have worked on (and seen) movies where ADR should have been used over production tracks. There are times where the environmental noise prohibits recording good sound, or radio mics get buried and can't be properly EQ'd, or any number of other issues which can cause the production track to not be optimal. But they use it anyway, for one reason or another.

I always try my best to minimize mistakes and get the best sound I think the situation will allow. That's my job. If ADR is required after that, then I don't mind. I have done movies with no ADR, and other movies with lots. But I am very proud of my work on all of them.

Robert

I think we are all striving for this, but Marc answers it too: Do what you gotta to get the sound. I don't claim to be anything other than what I am - a greenhorn, but at the same time, I think I am similar to the most experienced among us - I strive for pure production tracks. If that happens (as it has thus far) then great. If they change their mind in post... Well, that wasn't my call. I still can't spell ADR.

[Marc Wielage]

Note that if the track had been recorded right to begin with, it would've worked great. In my case above, this was an example of a salvage job, not taking halfway-decent tracks and making them better. This was taking awful tracks and making them acceptable. Not fun.

--Marc W.

[Mark LeBlanc]

Quick on set ADR story. Just wrapped a show that the director wanted the voice of one character to be replaced with a second (Young character on screen, but hear the voice of the older actor - ghost possession). Wild lines weren't a good option as the actors dialog needed to match up. We were at a single location the entire shoot that happened to have a giant LCD monitor. I transcoded the Red One footage for the scene into DV25 format, dropped it into Protools along with Streamer running in background and cranked out an on set ADR session with the veteran actor M.C. Gainey who nailed the scene in only a few takes. He was surprised how well it worked and was able to stay in character when he did it. Tighten a few of the lines up with VocAlign and the director was floored with the results. Being a low budget feature, being able to save on a potential ADR session in a few months made a big impression on production..

[old school]

That's an interesting story Mark. I have read a lot about VocAlign but I've never used it. Good to be a hero once in a while. Cheers.

CrewC

[Bondelev]

Vocalaign is surprisingly good. I am always thrilled when production mixers get wild lines, they save the day much more frequently than ADR.

[Jeff Wexler]

To David B., please whenever you get the chance to speak with a director or producer you are working with about the value of wild lines (properly recorded, not done at wrap in an actor's trailer), this would be greatly appreciated by all. I was very lucky in the beginning of my career to work very closely with ALL aspects of a movie beyond just the responsibility of recording the production sound. Even before starting my career, I had spent quite a lot of time in the editing room, both sound and picture, and got to watch and listen first hand as wild lines replaced problematical production dialog.

[Bondelev]

I do. No one ever listens. The other important thing is that wild lines get circled on the logs. People forget they exist.

[Bondelev]

BTW, done at wrap in a trailer is better than not done at all. Actors will still remember cadence and match performance.

[mikewest]

Dialogue replacement is part of the process.

Our task is to record what happens in the given circumstances

If the location as noisy, if the weather is against us and if the actors whisper then that's the deal.

We are technicians not magicians

Additionally the director may need to pull up performances in ADR

That's it

mike

[geordi]

Vocalaign is surprisingly good. I am always thrilled when production mixers get wild lines, they save the day much more frequently than ADR.

I am happy to provide wilds whenever I know the production tracks will be a guide only... It is a problem to remember to note them however! I just finished a project where the two actors were doing a walk-and-talk down a busy street that we were not able to completely lock up. In about 8 takes or so, I figure that about 80-90% of the dialog is usable, but b/c I was running wireless and separate boom and the actors would not be available after... I elected to also provide wild of the whole scene. The actors were great and delivered locked-tight matches for their performances. I know that if the production track is hit by traffic or something, the wild exists to save it.

Anytime I can offer more options and not lock the post team into something they might not like, then I feel like I have done the best job I could. I've taken a couple projects through post with my own (and a couple with other mixer's tracks) and it does offer a certain appreciation of the value of those options.

[Todio]

Two stories of ADR:

First film I worked on, busted my hump to get clean sound. Get to the post process and every single line is replaced by ADR! (~every~single~line~) I'm freaking out that I did some awful rookie mistake but Director just wanted a 'Sergio Leone' feel to the short. :-/

Just last summer I did my first feature after 25 years in the biz. Get a call from Director who tells me the post audio guys are thrilled with my work and there was NO ADR, not one word, that can be put on me (there was some, they re-wrote a line or two and one of the actors made a character decision to chew gum (tobacco) through his entire performance so lots of his stuff was looped but we knew that going in...) Director said I saved them almost $10,000. My response was that the next time he hired me I was writing into the contract that they give me the ADR budget and I pay for DR myself and pocket the balance as a bonus. ;-D

[Matt Bryant]

Those 2 mission failed votes make me think there are 2 noob producers with JW accounts on this forum ; )

Anyways, I had a teacher who does a lot of ADR for big budget features who was only teaching because he was in-between mix studios. He played us raw dailies from some big budget features that he was doing ADR night sessions for, these sessions were for single scenes just because it happened to be very windy on one of the exterior days. In the end product, all the audio mixed together seamlessly.

As for "Wild Lines" a lot of the indie stuff I worked on, since it's HD and not film, they sort of embrace the ability to figure out the movie while on set and I'm always confused as to how they know which performance to re-enact since most of the takes seem to be all different; trying out new character motivations or sense memory and stuff during different takes. The wild line takes always feels like a hail marry option that could have been prevented by just including sound in the pre-production process to plan for certain wardrobe situations or elaborate one shot mis-en-scene stuff with no punch in coverage. I can see on a heavily rehearsed indie movie how this could work but Indie people, these days, just seem to expect mixers to be able to "wing it". (I'm not talking about the studio produced "indie movies" here either, more like the micro-budget movies going to or striving to be included in the Criterion collection...)

But if you're good at "winging it", I strongly believe you should have a lot of job opportunities coming up with the new Canon camera coming out. That camera should make winging it much easier for filmmakers than the HVX, RED or 5D that have already changed "the game".

[studiomprd]

" ability to figure out the movie while on set "

?? HUH ??

that is actually a lack of ability to get prepared to make their movie

Actually, these wanna-bee's they don't know what they are doing

[taylormadeaudio]

So much of why a scene needs ADR occurs when a location is selected for the visual only and not taking sound into consideration. Prime example (recent show) - Get an angry email from Post, why didn't I (Mixer) stop the jackhammer during this tender dialog scene outside a church. My reply, what you thought was a simple jackhammer was in fact a machine designed to crush entire buildings. The machine was almost a mile away and ewas having a good time taking down a Hospital in East New Orleans destroyed by Katrina. 50 bucks wasn't enough to stop it. The other fun time is the Wide / Tight that most production companies are doing these days to help make the day. Call comes during editing "why does person X closeup sound like a lav, where's the boom", to which I direct them to the B camera armed with 35 mm lense, on the deck, looking up at the ceiling. Do your best, take fastidious notes and know that sometimes you are in a no win situation in which case our dear friends in post too can invoice!!

Oh man! You nailed it! deja vu! Ours was a stadium being torn down... absolutely nothing we could do... I think a new title is in order:

"Production GTS"

any guesses?

~tt

[Mark LeBlanc]

Here are a few more Epic Production Fails. Shooting 4 days on a boat, company scouted saw the boat, liked the way it looked and booked it. Get on set, start the engine.... Busted muffler. Sound like a flock of motorcycles passing.. Result -ADR

Production scouted location on top of parking garage on a Sunday, never looked over the side to see the new parking tower next to it going up complete with jackhammers and cement trucks coming and going the day we shot.. Result- ADR here's my fav.. Shooting on a street near downtown Baton Rouge.. No scout, friend of friend deal. We are outside shooting with construction on one side AND Christmas music blaring from above ground speakers at a public park that are remote controlled at a government library.. Closed for the weekend. Director takes off headphones af lunch and says man this place is loud!! Dear ADR post guys.. Enjoy the windfall!

[RPSharman]

I shot in the basement of a paper mill in Portland. 96dB constant ambient sound level. Crew wore ear protection, eye protection, and masks. Actors did not. ADR was expected. It was a challenge to record a "regular" performance clearly enough for the actors to hear themselves for ADR.

We recorded one actor a few days later for a "temp", which he matched remarkably well to a rough cut on a laptop. It made the final cut. The other actor was less skilled, so hit the booth for that and other scenes shot in "quieter" areas of the mill.