Tips for ADRing?

[David Peterson]

So I'm the soundie on a low budget indie feature being shot overseas, and my first day here I got thrown a bit of a curveball when they revealed to me they plan to do ADR while they're shooting it at the same time.... and they're expecting to have completed all the ADR before the last day of shooting?? And.... They're expecting the location sound recordist (me!) to do all this.

Crazy right? (Oh well... probably just easier to do it for them than try and explain to them why this is a bad idea)

Any tips or tales on how to do this decently given the circumstances? Perhaps some other approach than simply showing them the same day rough cut on a laptop then recording them attempt to say it back accurately afterwards.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

It simply can't be done. . . or, at least, done well-enough for any conceivable standard. How on earth could you possibly be expected to ADR dialog without knowing which shots are going to be included in the edit? That's ridiculous.

Stephen

 

[PatrickFaith]

I'd limit the remote "ADR" to over the shoulder, wide and action shots. For close up shots tell them they need to get those during the shoot. also doing adr in hotel rooms only makes sense if the shot is in a room, i'd attempt to do the adr at the location. i prefer calling this remote dialog, since the lips are not synced like ADR, just so the producer isnt confused.

 

[David Peterson]

Oh, I'll be provided a rough cut of the scene prior to doing the ADR with tbe actors.

 

[Hugh Scully]

I think it is reasonable to ask for wild takes for some scenes but ADR on set? That's a new one.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

So I'm the soundie on a low budget indie feature being shot overseas, and my first day here I got thrown a bit of a curveball when they revealed to me they plan to do ADR while they're shooting it at the same time.... and they're expecting to have completed all the ADR before the last day of shooting?? And.... They're expecting the location sound recordist (me!) to do all this.

That makes exactly zero sense.



Sorry for zero help with the issue, just a way of expressing condolences.

 

[Curtis boggs]

train wreck waiting to happen.

Only way is to do it like "real" ADR where you have an edit the actors can
match pace to. But sounds like there's going to be some very long work days.

Might want to make sure they even know what and how ADR is.
I had an inexperienced director try to do ADR in a car in the parking lot, ..
I didn't have the heart to laugh toooo much

Curtis

 

[David Peterson]

Quote from talent who is here for the ADR, as he looks at the 2nd AD after watching his scene:
"It sounds so good"

2nd AD (who is running the ADR session in place of the Director): "(...beat of silence, as she takes this in...) we'll just record this anyway"

LOL

I was expecting something like this might happen....

 

[Matt Bai]

Great thread.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I'm on board with the "train wreck" theory.

Dialogue is so location-dependent, it's impossible to predict how bad/ugly/noisy/crazy certain exteriors will be. Planes, trains, automobiles, horns, traffic, insects, air conditioning, ventilators, crowds... there's many ways the best intentions can go horribly wrong.

The nature of ADR is you only re-record the material that actually winds up in the film, not every scene. I think it helps in some cases to have every speaking actor wired up with a wireless mic, and also use a boom (sometimes two) to get more "realistic" dialogue in an acoustic place. It never hurts to get "alt" tracks after the take to give the editor and dialogue editor more options. Between the wireless lavs, boom, and wild tracks, they generally can salvage quite a bit, but ADR is a necessary part of every film and it has to be done in the traditional way.

There are affordable ways to do ADR, but a lot depends on where you are, how much ADR is necessary, and what your expectations are. I suspect the filmmakers are very inexperienced and don't know what they're getting into, but that doesn't give them the right to subject the sound mixer to solve impossible problems on top of their regular location sound duties.

 

[Craig Parkes]

Ok let's ignore usual standards of quality and professionalism, and let's think about this from a production stand point.

My first question would be is this a production in a non English speaking country. If it is you have to bare in mind the tolerance for bad sync is a lot higher because so mych of their content is dubbed anyway. Obviously top end productions (like those out of Bollywood) do so much ADR and have people that are do good at it because things get dubbed into like 9 different languages even for a domestic release, but as budgets go down so does quality and thus expectations.

So maybe aiming for great ADR by English speaking standards is not only unrealistic, but also unnecessary for the majority of the productions audience. In fact in some cases there is a chance that the actual majority of a productions audience will actually be watching the whole thing dubbed anyway, so the request may be less crazy than you think.

Secondly, if the production is low budget getting it done on set makes sense in terms of not requiring additional actor availability. This may be a major cost saver if travel is a consideration for access to talent. Now maybe a line or two won't work out but if the cost of getting talent to do ADR includes a business class flight back to the shoot or post country (which again might sound insane given they could just go to a place local to talent, but may be a pre requisite if there is say a co production treaty in place that mandates where production and post spend goes in what percentages) then doing sort if wild lines 'plus' on set in the hope to avoid ADR later on could actually be a very smart move by production.

Doing your best, even if your best equates to what you may view as a train wreck, may actually end up not just useful to post but actually a life saver to the production budgetarily.

My point being just because doing something seems a bad idea technically, or unnecessary or wasteful, doesn't mean that it's actually just stupidity or over ambition at play - sometimes it's people proceeding with seeminhly unconvemtional workflows to you that serve them very well for their market.

So the only real question is does doing it impair the rest of production in a meaningful way? If it doesn't then not just going along with it, but actually devising a workflow to do as good a job as possible, is the right thing to do for the production.

 

[Marc Wielage]

So the only real question is does doing it impair the rest of production in a meaningful way? If it doesn't then not just going along with it, but actually devising a workflow to do as good a job as possible, is the right thing to do for the production.

I'd have to have more facts to provide any opinions. Knowing where the production is being done, who's doing it, what the schedule is, what the budget is, and what the intended market is will cover a lot of background information. A $5000 student film or YouTube video would have different rules than (say) a $500,000 indie feature intended for festivals and a small commercial release, or a $5,000,000 theatrical film intended for worldwide theaters.

But in general, there's no excuses for crappy work. There's also no excuses for producers and directors who don't know their jobs and arrogantly cling to doing something in an ignorant way. They're gonna find out soon enough how wrong they were once they wind up in post. Maybe they'll learn a lesson from this and won't repeat the mistakes in the future, but that assumes they're going to get a second chance to shoot another film someday.

Even in a foreign country, it's not that big a deal to slap a wireless lav on every speaking actor via multitrack and have a boom guy there to get the best possible "natural" coverage you can get for dialogue. I've seen this done on ultra-large-budget TV series and also really ultra-ultra-low budget movies, and they've found a way to make it work. I've also myself done projects in the past where the producer attempted to do some ADR on his own, and when we got into the final mix, it sounded so terrible the supervising mixer threw it out and just massaged the on-set recordings and got them to work. A lot hinges on giving the editor and final mixer choices, so they have dialogue on iso lavs, reasonable dialogue from the boom, and alternate tracks recorded without camera or movement. Great dialogue editors can mix and match from all of those and get them to work a surprising amount of time. The rest of the time... you ADR it. And you find a way to do the ADR traditionally, in post, at an affordable budget.

 

[dio Zafi]

So I'm the soundie on a low budget indie feature being shot overseas, and my first day here I got thrown a bit of a curveball when they revealed to me they plan to do ADR while they're shooting it at the same time.... and they're expecting to have completed all the ADR before the last day of shooting?? And.... They're expecting the location sound recordist (me!) to do all this.

Crazy right? (Oh well... probably just easier to do it for them than try and explain to them why this is a bad idea)

Any tips or tales on how to do this decently given the circumstances? Perhaps some other approach than simply showing them the same day rough cut on a laptop then recording them attempt to say it back accurately afterwards.

David

Do they mean wild lines?

 

[Elsie N]

Ok let's ignore usual standards of quality and professionalism, and let's think about this from a production stand point.

My first question would be is this a production in a non English speaking country. If it is you have to bare in mind the tolerance for bad sync is a lot higher because so mych of their content is dubbed anyway. Obviously top end productions (like those out of Bollywood) do so much ADR and have people that are do good at it because things get dubbed into like 9 different languages even for a domestic release, but as budgets go down so does quality and thus expectations.

So maybe aiming for great ADR by English speaking standards is not only unrealistic, but also unnecessary for the majority of the productions audience. In fact in some cases there is a chance that the actual majority of a productions audience will actually be watching the whole thing dubbed anyway, so the request may be less crazy than you think.

Secondly, if the production is low budget getting it done on set makes sense in terms of not requiring additional actor availability. This may be a major cost saver if travel is a consideration for access to talent. Now maybe a line or two won't work out but if the cost of getting talent to do ADR includes a business class flight back to the shoot or post country (which again might sound insane given they could just go to a place local to talent, but may be a pre requisite if there is say a co production treaty in place that mandates where production and post spend goes in what percentages) then doing sort if wild lines 'plus' on set in the hope to avoid ADR later on could actually be a very smart move by production.

Doing your best, even if your best equates to what you may view as a train wreck, may actually end up not just useful to post but actually a life saver to the production budgetarily.

My point being just because doing something seems a bad idea technically, or unnecessary or wasteful, doesn't mean that it's actually just stupidity or over ambition at play - sometimes it's people proceeding with seeminhly unconvemtional workflows to you that serve them very well for their market.

So the only real question is does doing it impair the rest of production in a meaningful way? If it doesn't then not just going along with it, but actually devising a workflow to do as good a job as possible, is the right thing to do for the production.

I think this is the best advice for the OP.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Do they mean wild lines?

Wild lines are totally cool and done all the time. But "real" ADR is a lot different, since it generally deals with scenes that are specifically cut -- not raw material shot the same day.

 

[David Peterson]

Ok let's ignore usual standards of quality and professionalism, and let's think about this from a production stand point.

My first question would be is this a production in a non English speaking country. If it is you have to bare in mind the tolerance for bad sync is a lot higher because so mych of their content is dubbed anyway. Obviously top end productions (like those out of Bollywood) do so much ADR and have people that are do good at it because things get dubbed into like 9 different languages even for a domestic release, but as budgets go down so does quality and thus expectations.

It is being filmed in Australia, but for the Bollywood market with basically the entire film in Hindi (which has been an extra fun challenge for me! As I don't know the language at all).

It is an ultra low budget feature film (they've made several features already though, so you'd think they'd be "experienced"? But.... their previous feature didn't even had a sound recordist?!?! :-o & yup, they tried to do ADR for a 100% of that film).

 

[David Peterson]

We're almost 100% wrapped up the shooting! Just tiny bits left. I'm busy still doing their "ADR" for them (the best I can with my limited resources at hand). But I'm heading back to Auckland in a few more days.

Wild lines are totally cool and done all the time. But "real" ADR is a lot different, since it generally deals with scenes that are specifically cut -- not raw material shot the same day.

Yeah I already try and get wild lines as much as I can, when it is relevant and appropriate.

But nope, they don't mean wild lines on set. But "ADR" done later on at abother location after a rough cut of the scene has been done (sometimes as soon as the next day!).

 

[Marc Wielage]

It is an ultra low budget feature film (they've made several features already though, so you'd think they'd be "experienced"? But.... their previous feature didn't even had a sound recordist?!?! :-o & yup, they tried to do ADR for a 100% of that film).

Yes, ADR is the rule for a lot of foreign films. I worked on the HBO series Rome back in 2004, and on that the producers tried diligently to force the crew to record actual usable dialogue for all the interiors and a lot of the exteriors. The reality was that Cinecitta Studios was pretty noisy (jets, traffic noise, you name it), which is hard to justify for a show that took place in 50 B.C.

When I saw the finished show on HBO, I kind of smacked my forehead because it was pretty much 100% ADR'd from top to bottom. It was very good, very clean ADR, but absolutely not the location sound recorded in Italy.

ADR is rough on actors, too, because typically they're called in 6 months or even a year after production wraps, and they have to totally get in character and figure out their energy level, their emotion, and their timing that was originally done on the shoot day. But it's a necessary part of filmmaking.