Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1261193
18 I M PS E . O R G T here were many shows with footage in the can when the Ides of March came to shut down our business. Fortunately, some possibility- thinkers jumped at figuring out how to continue post production without requiring staff to share physical space with one another and still have enough editorial horsepower to keep the projects moving forward. One of the possibilities that had to be explored was "Can we record ADR and loop group in a worthwhile way if all actors are doing it from home?" Short answer: yes. Long answer: someone once said, "The best camera to have is the one you have on you when you need a camera." A Canon 5D D does no good if a person sees a great photo op while out and about, but the camera is at home. That person's cellphone is now the best camera they have. So goes our sound world during the lockdown. Our high-end sound studio capabilities that we've spent decades and millions of dollars perfecting have been unavailable to us. Enter the best recording gear we have on us: our cellphones, our walk-in closets, whatever USB mics are not back ordered online, some imagination, and a soundstage load of patience. What do we need in order to capture usable recordings remotely? This daunting task as a whole, is surmountable if one approaches it with a positive sense of curiosity and flexibility. To be true, nothing of what I am talking about should be construed as equivalent to an installed sound studio with expert engineers and mixers, nor anywhere near ideal. While I have been successful in doing lockdown ADR and loop group, it is tougher, more complex, more stressful, and takes longer than our ideal studio methods. The end result needs to be such that the quality withstands the test of time. I don't think we get to put an asterisk at the end of the credits saying, "Sorry about the crap audio, but COVID–19." I will be very grateful for the day in-person, in-studio ADR and loop group can resume on a regular basis. What we are talking about is akin to the crew of Apollo 13 trying to make it back from the moon. The gear isn't ideal, things will go wrong, and there's the real risk of failure. All of this is a compromise. For better or for worse, the actors are now wearing the hat that our indispensable studio engineers are supposed be wearing. Scary thought, right? No two actors will have identical setups with identical results. Some will have made assumptions about what makes a room sound good, but in doing so actually made it worse. Most don't understand bit depth and sample rate, or the various audio file formats, lossless versus compressed audio quality. Often, they aren't even addressing their microphone correctly. It's likely they don't hear the incessant clunking of their mantle clock anymore, and their ears are numb to the dying smoke detector battery chirping somewhere in the house. (Yes, this happened … twice!) All of this is okay. What makes it okay is having the attitude of, "All right, this is what's currently going wrong so how do we fix this one thing right now?" Overcome that one thing and move onto the next. Nobody is an expert at any of this. A constructive attitude will save you and allow you to discover solutions to get it done. If you have possibility–thinking, a constructive attitude, and a willingness to help nontechnical actors navigate this process, go ahead and read the rest of this article. If, however, you're thinking that this is more work than you are interested in putting in, that the technical hurdles are too great, this article is done for you. Stop here ADR AND LOOP GROUP IN THE TIME OF CORONA BY BRENT FINDLEY MPSE ADR and loop group voice recording are necessary parts of the storytelling process for motion pictures, whether it is a solo actor adding or replacing lines, or a dozen voice actors piled in a room to simulate background people in environments surrounding lead characters in a show. Over decades, we have built the perfect environment for post production sound recording. We capture voices with pristine quality in sync with picture. Hooray for us, right? But what good is all that capability if we can't tap into it? …if we're prohibited from using it? …if it is mothballed because of a pandemic? "There are levels of survival we are willing to accept." –The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded