Dialogue Editing

Alternate Takes 211
Place a marker at the location of the noise you want to eliminate so
you can navigate back to your target location after scrolling through
long soundfi les.
Import the alternate take soundfi les into your session.
Drag alternate take regions onto work tracks, more or less lined up
with your original region (refer to Figure 12-6).
On each alternate take region, remove all but the desired material.
Line up the beginning of each alternate take region with the
beginning of the original damaged region.
Listen to the original take and then each of the alternates. Pay attention
to cadence, tone, and attitude and how they match up with the
originals.
Put aside the takes that patently differ from the original, but don’t
remove them from the session as they might hold hidden secrets. Just
get them out of the way. Now you’ll have only the best takes, lined up
roughly in sync under the original line.
On rare occasions, an alternate take will have all the right attributes—the
speed, mood, and linguistic “music” (cadance, timbre, energy, spirit) of the
original. You need only sync it to the original and edit it into the track.
However, you usually have to work a bit harder. Often, one part of the line
will work well but another will be wrong. There are a number of things you
can do to create the perfect replacement.
Combine Parts of Several Takes Listen to the original line—beginning,
middle, and end. Describe to yourself its spirit. I often invent a nonsense
rhyme to describe the music and energy of each part of a line. Then I play
back the nonsense tune in my head as I listen to parts of each potential
replacement. By taking the language out of the dialogue, I can better focus
on its music. It’s not uncommon to combine pieces of two or three or more
takes to make a good alternate line.
Get the Sync Right Tricks and tips for syncing are akin to fi shing hints—
everyone has the perfect secret, certain to give you great results in the shortest
time. In truth, it’s a matter of time, experience, and a knack for pattern
recognition. Try a few of these pointers and develop them into a technique
of your own.
Break the line into short, easily managed sections. If you start off with
too much material, your attempts at sync will be compromised
from the outset. Try rhythmic blocks of no more than three or four
words.