Dialogue Editing

Sync Now! 103
Syncing the OMF and the postconform (if it exists) to the guide track
before you make a safety copy means that you’ll always be able to use
the safety copy as an absolute sync reference.
Doubts about sync will make you crazy. If you know your tracks are
in sync, you never need to worry. This leaves you free to edit, to
create, and to think about things more important than the silly sync
Schnauzer gnawing at your ankles.
You’re just starting the fi lm and you have yet to get a feel for it. Going
through the fi lm a shot at a time is a good way to familiarize yourself
with how it’s structured.
It’s a joy to edit knowing that the fi lm is really in sync.
Know What You’re Syncing To
If you’re working to a digital picture, you’ll sync to the audio track of the
imported movie. Import the movie’s audio onto a new track, lock it, and use
it as your sync reference. Syncing to the guide track doesn’t necessarily mean
that the sound is in sync with the picture—it’s only as tight as the assistant
picture editor made it. However, you need to start somewhere, and the fi lm’s
guide track is a comforting place to begin.
If your picture is on videotape, you have two options. If you’re monitoring
your sound through an external mixer, mix the VTR’s audio with the output
of the workstation to compare sync. If you don’t have an external mixer, open
an aux track and run the VTR audio through this input. Syncing against
a guide track on videotape means you have to recue the tape and wait for
the workstation to lock each time you want to check sync. This is time
consuming.
You’re much better off recording the audio from the videotape into your
session on a new track, called a “guide track” or GT. Recording is in real time,
of course, but this is another opportunity to study the fi lm. Besides, this is
what assistants are for. Use the guide track’s timestamp to automatically sync
it to the session. Then lock the track so that in a moment of passion you don’t
lose its sync. A reference out of sync is of little use.
You probably won’t be able to determine the real sync of the fi lm—the actual
relationship between picture and sound—until you receive a telecine of the
fi rst answer print (discussed in Chapter 16). This high-quality transfer refl ects
the negative cut of the fi lm and is the fi nal arbiter of sync. For now, sync to
the guide track and readjust the sync on only the most criminally out-of-sync
shots.