Dialogue Editing

136 NOW, THE ACTUAL EDITING
Figure 10-6 If there’s absolutely no interesting information in Fanny’s short
cutaway, remove it and fi ll with Edmund’s room tone. Also, if Fanny’s cutaway has
useful information but is unacceptably noisy, remove it and fi ll with tone from
32B. Later, Foley may be added to liven up the gap.
On small fi lms I typically use about 14 main dialogue tracks. By the time I
get to the dialogue premix, I’ve added a few ADR tracks, some production
effects, and X, Y, and Z tracks, ending up with about 30 altogether. Any
mixer can handle 30 tracks, but if I’m working with a mixer or dubbing stage
I don’t know, I’ll e-mail a list of my tracks and ask if this arrangement is
reasonable.
No matter how many tracks you end up with, be sure to have the same
number on each reel, in the same order. Even if you don’t use every track on
each reel, go to the mix with every track in its proper place, muted if unused.
This way, the tracks will always come up on the correct channels of the
mixing desk. Repatching is a nuisance and always leads to mistakes.
Splitting Scenes
Just as you split your tracks within a scene, you can split one scene against
the next, making for easier mixing. Most rerecording mixers prefer to “checkerboard”
their dialogue premixes (or predubs) onto different premix record
tracks so they have greater control over scene transitions or additional processing
during the fi nal mix.
If your mixer wants to work this way, try not to recycle tracks on adjacent
scenes. Say that one scene uses eight tracks (Dials A → H); try to start the
next scene on track 9 (Dial I). The third scene will then begin again on Dial
A. (See Figure 10-7.) If you have a very long or complicated scene that won’t