Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1152266
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y S U M M E R 2 0 1 9 43 IS ANIMATION DIALOGUE DONE THE SAME WAY? Not really. It's still done on the stage, sometimes with the actors together and sometimes individually. The mic choice tends not to be a boom mic or an iso in that case, but a large diaphragm vocal mic like the kinds used in vocal production for records. HOW ABOUT GROUP RECORDS? Group records are exactly what they sound like. We get a group of "loop group" actors to the stage and record them to match a particular scene. For example, if the shot is of a restaurant, the supervising sound editor and the actors will note the kind of place it is, romantic and quiet or relaxed and loud, and act the appropriate kind of chatter. AND WHERE DOES ALL OF THIS GO? To the show's dialogue editor who incorporates it into his or her Pro Tools build for the dub stage. AND THAT LEADS US TO YOUR CURRENT GIG ON THE DUB STAGE! WHAT DOES THE RE-RECORDING MIXER DO? We take all of the edited source material, including the dialogue, and balance it against the picture. In my case, that's all the different kinds of dialogue, production, ADR, voiceover, group, and the music. I work with a partner who mixes all of the effects. AND YOU MIX THESE INTO STEMS, AND AN ELABORATE SET OF MIXES AND SUB MIXES? That's right, we create stems like dialogue, ADR, group, music, effects, Foley, backgrounds, etc., depending on what the client has asked for. WHEN YOU AND YOUR PARTNER FINISH WITH THE SHOW, IT IS ESSENTIALLY DONE, CORRECT? Yes, when we finish the mix and the showrunner has signed off on our work, we hand it off to our stage tech for delivery. WHAT IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF WHERE YOUR DIALOGUE, NOW EMBEDDED IN THE MIX, GOES FROM THIS POINT? There are two paths I'm aware of, but it really depends on who the client is and what kind of company they are. If it's a traditional broadcaster, the mix and the associated dialogue go to a "layback" where some of the show's producers will watch the show a final time as it is recorded to, or "laidback" to, a physical master tape. In the case of a show headed for a streaming service, the files recorded during the re-recording stage are sent to a "Finishing Facility " where our mixes are married to a master video file. These batches of files are mixed and/or transcoded into a single ready-for-streaming file. Well, there you have it: Dialogue from Set to Screen! Researching this process certainly gave me a renewed respect for the care and craftwork that goes into keeping the dialogue in its best state possible, even if the view outside of my compartment is limited. See you on the dub stage! • THE DIALOGUE "CHAIN OF CUSTODY" GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS: 1. The production sound mixer and team record the actors and hand the files off to the picture department via the digital imaging tech (DIT). 2. Picture editorial uses the mixes to create picture dailies for the director and to reference the audio side of the actors' performances during editing. 3. The ingest and assembly team at the post house use a myriad of different applications to gather and organize all the audio files for the dialogue editor(s). 4. The ADR mixer records and mixes replacement lines, line changes, add lines, and passes them on to the dialogue editor(s). 5. The dialogue editor(s) make judgment calls on what the best takes are and package them for the stage tech on the dub stage, according to the mixer's preferences. 6. The stage tech organizes the dialogue editor's output and gets it "under faders" for the mixer to address. 7. The re-recording mixer takes all the distinct flavors of dialogue and mixes them appropriately against picture. 8. The dub stage mix tech sends the resulting stems and mixes to a master tape-based layback or a digital file finishing facility. 9. Be it for broadcast or streaming, the dialogue is now ready for air!