Dialogue Editing

Perspective 177
productions, so you’re expected to “box-mix” the tracks in less time, not more,
than you’d get for a mix on a mixing stage. Still, by planning your tracks well
and knowing what’s important in each shot, you can develop rich, deep
scenes that will survive even in-the-box mixes.
Focusing on One Character in a Group
Imagine a choir singing with our protagonist standing on the second riser.
The scene begins with a wide shot, and we hear the whole choir singing. As
the camera slowly dollies toward our herione, we want to call attention to her
voice. We may do this purely for “realism”—to sense more of her voice as we
approach, providing another layer to the sound. Or we may want to psychologically
focus on her, to refl ect on what we learned of her in the last scene
or to telegraph something soon to happen. In the mix we might subtly lower
the choir’s tracks to lend her an unnatural aura of isolation.
Achieving Focus in Common Situations
Whatever your objectives, you’ll need to create a clean sync track with nothing
but the character’s voice that you can mix with the track from the wide shot.
Normally, this is done with postsync (ADR), where you prepare the actress’s
lines and then rerecord her singing, sync to picture. Rerecording singing is
in many ways easier than rerecording spoken dialogue, since most music
carries a predictable rhythm. The actress need but learn the “quirks” in her
onscreen performance to make a good match. (Chapter 15, ADR, discusses
how to spot the shots, prepare the paperwork, and record and edit the
lines.)
A similar situation is a dolly shot that moves down a line of football players
attempting to sing the national anthem. As we approach an athlete we hear
his voice strengthen, hold and fade away as we pass, only to be overtaken by
the next one entering the frame. In this case, you’ll record ADR for each of
the featured characters, panning (maybe) and fading (certainly) the lines as
the camera moves down the line. If, when approaching individual players,
you can hear their voices on the original recording, you’ll need to replace the
take with a less specifi c version. Otherwise, you run the risk of hearing
someone singing with himself.
Perspective
In a scene with two characters, the sound level of each character often remains
the same regardless of who’s on screen, as though we’re sitting somewhere