Dialogue Editing

Depth 175
You can place or pan a production effect, such as a car-by, but you
have to be careful to follow some rules. If the effect is carrying the
room tone of the shot, panning it will result in the shot’s room tone
panning—a very unsettling effect. Properly toning out the track and
preparing the PFX element will keep the scene believable. (See
Chapter 13 for more on production effects editing.)
The bottom line on dialogue imaging is that you can, in fact, do a bit of
panning but you must be terribly sober about it. Normally, however, the dialogue
comes out of the center speaker and none other.
Depth
Just because fi lm dialogue is mono doesn’t mean it’s fl at. In a fl at scene, the
dialogue sticks to the screen. Everything is given equal weight, so there’s no
focus. To “manage” levels, the scene is compressed too much so it presents
itself as a wall of sound. There’s no air in the sound, and the scene is fatiguing
to watch. In short it lacks depth.
When a scene has depth, there’s a feeling of space around the words. There’s
a focus, however subtle, that not only guides the viewer but adds commentary.
And even though all of the dialogue is coming from one speaker, there’s
a feeling of layers, as though some sounds stay near the screen while others
move progressively away from the speakers.
Achieving Depth
First of all, it certainly doesn’t hurt to start with excellent recordings. When
the dialogue is well recorded and on-axis without too much ambient noise,
you don’t have to overcook the tracks in the premix, so you can hold onto the
natural roundness of the voices. The refl ections in the room, undamaged by
aggressive noise reduction, contribute to a sense of space.
But depth control is mostly about well-planned, well-mixed tracks. When you
receive an OMF, the narrative is there but there’s no discipline in the tracks
and it’s impossible to fi nd the personality of each region. As you reassemble
the shots, rid them of noises, and smooth the transitions, you develop an
understanding of how the regions work and how they fi t together. You begin
to understand them in a way that you couldn’t when they were all jumbled
together. Each scene, and in fact each shot, you discover, contains a “moment.”
This moment is the focus of the action. Make sure that it isn’t compromised
by a footstep, door close, or other natural but ill-placed sound. Give the featured
moment a bit of space in which to breathe, thus putting it on stage.