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C I N E M O N T A G E
T E C H N O L O G Y
Auto-Align Post can be helpful for ADR, too.
fers a free trial: https://www.soundradix.
com/users/. Don't forget to check out the
user manual (https://assets.soundradix.
com/downloads/Auto-Align%20Post%20
1 .0 % 2 0 Us e r % 2 0 M a n u a l .p d f ), w h i c h
explains all the features, like Dynamic
Mode and Static Mode, and Multi-Input
Mode for working with stereo and sur-
round clips.
As the dialogue re-recording mixer on
20th Century Fox's "Alita: Battle Angel,"
Engleking was often working with three
production mic tracks for Alita (Rosa
Salazar) — her lav, the boom, and the
head-locked mic that was part of her
motion-capture suit. "I could quickly
phase-align those with Auto-Align Post
and pick and choose the balance of those
without having to choose one over the
other. There were different things to
admire about all the different miking
options. Being able to put all the tracks
together made it sound even better,"
says Engleking.
P h a s e /t i m e a l i g n i n g m i c s i s a l s o
helpful for situations where actors are
standing very close together and their
mics are picking up each other's lines.
Engleking says, "Now I can fader those
in and out and have smooth transitions
from one mic to the next. The dialogue
editor doesn't have to micro-edit those
into phase, and we don't have to cut
between them and try to match all those
angles on what are essentially hard cuts."
Another bonus to mixing mic tracks
together is being able to get a more
natural sound. "Let's say the boom mic
sounds roomy and the lav, of course,
sounds close. I can adjust the mix of
those two to add more room or less room.
So let's say a character starts far from
the camera but then moves closer. By
gradually changing the mix between the
two mics, I can match the character's
movement. If the two tracks are phase-
aligned, then the world is your oyster,"
says Engleking.
Auto-Align Post has become an every-
day dialogue tool for Engleking and his
editing team. "What I'm telling my crew
now — because this tool is so easy to use
— is that if the boom is questionable and
the lav is questionable, then cut both the
boom and the lav, phase process them,
and then I can either decide on the day
or come up with a combination of the
two tracks, whichever works best in the
final mix. I don't have to decide on A or B.
Having both tracks phase-aligned allows
me to find the best dialogue sound for the
scene, and make those decisions on the
fly a little bit more. It gives me more flexi-
bility while mixing the dialogue," he says.
Auto-Align Post is helpful for ADR too.
Award-winning re-recording mixer and
Guild member Andy Koyama at Formosa
Group (https://formosagroup.com/) in
Los Angeles started experimenting with
it on ADR while working on Netflix's
"Velvet Buzzsaw."
"Frequently, they'll record ADR with a
lav and boom, and I found that combining
the two mics adds more perceived size to
the sound of the voice. The combination
of the two mics gives the sound more
complexity. Then, in mixing them —
featuring one mic over the other, EQing
one differently, and changing the balance
— you have more flexibility in being able
to change the timbre of the ADR in order
to help match it in with the production,"
Koyama says.
REVOICE PRO
BY SYNCHRO ARTS
While production sound is preferable,
sometimes you just can't avoid ADR.
And getting ADR to work seamlessly
with production is not an easy task. It
takes talent on both sides of the glass to
make it work. And even then, it doesn't
always work perfectly. Synchro Arts
Revoice Pro (https://www.synchroarts.
com/products/revoice-pro/overview)
and VocALign (https://www.synchroarts.
com/products/vocalign-pro/overview)
plug-ins can help with that.
T h o m a s d e G o r t e r, E m m y - w i n -
n i n g s o u n d s u p e r v i s o r , G u i l d
m e m b e r a n d o w n e r / p r e s i d e n t a t
Atomic Sound Post P roduction Ser-
v i c e s ( h t t p s : //w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m /
Atomic-Sound-Post-Production-Ser-
vices-182305518793209/?tn-str=k*F ) in
Los Angeles, CA, started using Synchro
