Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316380
Simplified lined script Moviola until you heard a short audio sync point, usually is was a plosive word beginning with a "d," "t," or "b," which is marked on the mag film. Then play the same dialogue on the work track till you hear the same sync point and mark it the same way. Then place the reprint in gang #4 with the sync mark between the same sprocket holes as on the work track. Then you would play both tracks until you heard phasing on playback. The phasing indicated that sync was as close as within one sprocket hole away from the original. It was fortunate that you had four sprockets per frame with a 35mm film because, with 16mm, you only have one sprocket hole per frame. Playing back the tracks over a cut, you hoped that nothing at the start or end of the line's edit was clipped. If the line was clipped, cut out by the picture editor because an off- screen line overlapped the word, the sound editor had to order alternate takes from the same camera setup to find a clean beginning or end of the line to cut in. Once you established a clean in- and-out cut point marked, you cut the mag film into the gang #3. It was always good to add some room tone to both the cut's head and tail to smooth the audio transitions between audio cuts. I preferred using a Rives diagonal butt splicer with pre-perforated tape. There was no moving the mag track on to a new position on the splicer after the cut is made If this were a feature film, and you had the time, you'd attempt to cut each character's lines to a separate track. But this is not possible with the short turnaround time frame of episodic single-camera television. So, checker-boarding the sound from each shot's audio cuts between four or five dialogue reels was the best method to organize the DIAL edits for the mix. But Masters and wide-angle shots were always put on DIAL-1, as they usually had multiple charter's lines recorded on the same audio track. The dialogue editor built the rest of the DIAL tracks by checker- boarding each audio cut by where the audio recording came from. On some of my series work, I was told to break out all of a certain actor's lines as they needed special treatment because of the voice's character, but not for this series. DAY THREE (TUESDAY) The early morning, if not done before, was used to create ADR cue sheets for each of the principal actor's replacement, voiceover, and added off-screen lines. The Group ADR was broken down into a general group background reacting to the action of the scene. The ADR recording was done on the ADR stage at Fox in the morning. I sat with the recordists in the control booth while the associate producer would be on the stage coaching the actors. This protocol was strictly followed for ADR sessions. One time when AP was late for a session with a principal actor, I tried to take over the coaching role and was quickly put down by the actor by saying, "I only take direction from R****T." With Fox's ADR system, the in- and-out foot and frame numbers were programed into a computer- controlled Automatic Dialogue Replacement system. After the old line's cue points are loaded into the system, both workprint and mag are advanced to start at the selected line's start point. The recordist will then roll back to include the lead in-line for playback. The computer automatically cues banner wipes and adds three pops as cues for the actor. The actor's looped lines are recorded to 6-stripe full coat mag. I prefer 6-stripe because it limits the possibilities to six takes possible to choose from for editing. If the producer wants to try for a seventh take, one of the cue's previously saved recording must be replaced with a new take. Because this is a TV mix and my ADR editorial time frame is so short, I have only two takes, a fist and second choice determined by the associate producer transferred to single-stripe mag to be cut into the ADR tracks. The transferred single-stripe mag given to me will have a foot and frame sync marks in the mag track's head to lay-in the cue with the sync as it was initially recorded. When fine- tuning the cue on the sync block, the editor can cut within the vowels to lengthen or shorten the vowels to have the plosives match the same point on the work track. The producer can choose to hang the 6-stripe full coat mag at the mix, but they won't have any editorial fine-tuning of the lip-sync. With the script in front of the actor, and with headphones on to hear playback and pops, the actor would record the looped line into a microphone (usually the same type of microphone that recorded the production dialogue) within an acoustically dead room. It was up to the rerecording mixer, as Walter Murch described it, to "Worldize" the line to match the acoustic character of the production sound. This change usually consisted adding perspective, wetting up the line, and changing the EQ at the mix. Added lines where the actor's lips were not visible, then the lip- sync was not as critical. After principal ADR, the loop group was brought in to do extras' crowd reactions and background Walla to match the screen's action. The loop group was always the same for the entire season. Only foreign-language native speakers were added if called for in the scene. As the loop group was quite familiar with the series, the sessions moved along quickly. They were all SAG actors, paid the union contract day rate. On the first track, an effort is made to record the background vocalizations as non-English specific as possible, as this track would also be added to the foreign M&E mix. Then an English-specific Walla track was recorded for the domestic soundtrack. Multiple passes would be added if the