Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1529989
Are there common disconnects about what needs to be ADR'd as opposed to what can be cleaned up in the production tracks? Are there any hurdles or roadblocks you commonly encounter to getting the clearest and most intelligible tracks to the mix? What are some of your favorite tools or tricks to maximize clarity in productions recordings? (To which Jessie replied, "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you.") Joel Shryack starts: "Editing production dialogue is always an exercise of making it easier to understand. The basic exercise is to remove or diminish distracting beds of noise, such as traffic, machines, rain, etc., and additionally removing or diminishing audio interferences such as knocks, taps, footfalls, bangs, clinks, etc. At some point, this subject of clarity gets into a more subjective realm, such as heavy accents, bad diction, slurring, or mumbling words. The norm is to replace or fix bad pronunciations with that same word or phrase from other takes or recordings or ADR, but when an actor is constantly mumbling or talking imperceptibly, then you could be trampling on a creative choice." Joel Erickson: "I start focusing on clarity from my first rough pass, making sure it's intelligible to me on the first listen. If I can't understand it right away, it's a red flag for potential audience issues. I'll pick it up on the second or third try, but I know if I didn't understand it on the first pass, then chances are someone in the audience will have the same issue. So, I mark it for cleaning up." Jessie Anne Spence: "In most cases, the dialogue supervisor is one of the last hires in the post- production process. Since we don't have any control over how the content is shot on set, we're frequently up against the noise from generators, fans, planes, rain machines, microphone interference (cloth rustle, RF interference, dropouts, etc.), mumbled lines, mispronounced words, and accents that are hard for your everyman to understand. We have to trust the roles everyone has played in combating these problems up to the point where they're handed over to us. "Clarity is our number one priority, so from the first moment I view and listen to the project, I'm noting all the potential problems and coming up with solutions that may take some planning and coordinating, like having an actor in for ADR to redo lines. One of the more difficult tasks is determining what can be cleaned up in the editing/ mixing process, versus having to completely replace lines of dialogue. This has shifted somewhat with the quick progression of AI-driven noise- reduction software, and the ability to navigate the actors' busy shooting schedules and locations, which are often not close to an ADR studio." On the subject of performance, Joel says: "I sometimes feel like the technical tools to help clean up bad recordings are moving at the same rate the acting art form is moving to a more natural, imprecise way of performing spoken language, so the better we get at restoring clarity, the more muddled the actors' performances have become. In real life, you often say to someone, 'I'm sorry, what'd you say?'—in movies, you don't get to ask the actor to repeat the line. If you add this long trend of realism to the trend of viewing in more distracting settings, you will get to the point of subtitles being a default." Jessie, on the subject of differing perspectives: "The issue of clarity is so subjective: One person who travels internationally will have a better understanding of foreign accents than someone who has never left their country. If you watch a lot of British TV, you will have an easier time understanding that range of accents. Sometimes we're asked to bring in actors in Joel Shryack MPSE Joel Erickson Jessie Anne Spence MPSE 44 M PS E . O R G