Dialogue Editing

108 GETTING STARTED ON DIALOGUE EDITING
Table 9-1 A Typical Dialogue Track Layout for Small- to Medium-Length Films
Tracks Source Audio Format Comments
Dial A → L Mono from original Usually mono Use Dial 1 → 12 or Dial A → L. Let
fi eld recordings the supervising sound editors
and mixers decide.
Work tracks 1, Blank Mono and/or Use as “safe” places to open fi les,
2, 3, and up stereo make complex edits, and use
shuffl e mode.
Junk 1 → 6 Blank Usually mono Use to fi le away anything you
don’t want in your active tracks
but don’t want to delete.
PFX A → D Blank for now Mono Use for production effects you
want to separate from the
dialogue either to use in the
international version mix or for
better mix control.
ADR A → D Mono (or wider) Mono Don’t place ADR lines onto
fi les that will dialogue tracks.
originate in your
ADR recording
sessions
Dial X, Y, Z Blank for now Mono “X tracks,” use to hold lines you
removed from the dialogue
tracks and replaced with
matching tone fi ll. The rerecording
mixer uses the X tracks
to compare the original line
and the ADR line.
The risk lies outside your screen, where you can cause all sorts of unseen
damage.) The work tracks are also where I record new sounds into the workstation
and where I perform any editing operation that calls for rippling the
track, as in Pro Tools’s shuffl e mode, which is very convenient but famous for
knocking tracks out of sync.
I also open several new tracks, inelegantly entitled “junk.” Any sound I don’t
want in the mix but still want to have around just for safety I put on a junk
track. As you work your way through a fi lm, there are some regions you can
delete with total confi dence. For example, when you use phase cancellation
to discover dual mono regions, you can throw away one side of the dual mono
pair with a clean conscience. You’ll never need it again.
On the other hand, if you’re editing a scene with a boom on one channel and
a radio microphone mix on the other, you may decide to use only the boom
but you probably aren’t cavalier enough to toss the radio mic. Junk tracks are