Dialogue Editing

174 IMAGE, DEPTH, AND PERSPECTIVE
up such a dialogue scene on your workstation and you’ll sense the lunacy of
your “logical” plan right away.
Panning
People interact differently with dialogue than with music, sound effects,
backgrounds, or Foley. We’re both more critical and more imaginative with
dialogue, and when it’s panned, we’re not the least bit forgiving. Rather than
enhancing the fi lm experience, panned dialogue (other than an occasional
offscreen line or group loop) often takes the viewer out of the scene—the last
thing you want. Problems crop up when you place dialogue anywhere but in
the center loudspeaker behind the screen.
Here are some of the factors that go into dialogue placement within the sound
image:
To create a versatile stereo fi eld for the dialogue, you can produce a
phantom center image between the left and right loudspeakers and
your dialogue will be dead center when you want it there. With a
simple left/right pan you can put the words wherever you want; since
it’s stereo, this isn’t as complicated as a multichannel pan. A great idea
for the handful of viewers sitting in the sweet spot of the theater, for
whom phantom center is indeed center and the pans behave properly.
For the rest, the center pulls to one side and the pans don’t move
linearly. Everyone’s experience of the dialogue is different, and the
dialogue is generally gooey. With a center loudspeaker, the dialogue
is grounded in the middle of the screen and most viewers will experience
the movie as planned. Center channel dialogue keeps the viewer
focused on the screen rather than wandering off toward the exit lights.
You rarely need to pan the dialogue. Watch a movie, almost any
movie, and you’ll realize that the dialogue isn’t moving around,
although your brain “pans” the sound in the direction of its visual
source. Without trying, you connect source and voice. Now try the
opposite. Pan your dialogue to match the placement of the characters.
After the initial thrill of this hyperrealism, you’ll likely admit that it’s
not working. It may be “accurate,” but it’s annoying. Worse yet are
moving pans. Few sound gimmicks take you out of the fi lm more
resolutely than dialogue moving around the screen.
You’re determined to pan some dialogue. What will you do when you
encounter a cut in which your character’s screen placement suddenly
changes? If you want to lose your audience very quickly, try sending a
character’s voice all the way from one side of the screen to the other.