Dialogue Editing

Alternate Takes 217
88B—single shot of Elizabeth
88C—medium two-shot of both characters
88D—dolly shot for part of the scene
Odds are pretty good that the master shot has both characters either on a
boom or on two radio mics. Same goes for 88D, the dolly shot. 88C was probably
recorded with a boom; the two single shots, 88A and 88B, almost certainly.
During shot 88A the boom was focused on Alfred; anything Elizabeth
said was hopelessly off-mic.
In an otherwise outstanding take of 88A, in which Alfred is complaining to
Elizabeth about the cost of hockey pucks in Brazil, Elizabeth interrupts the
end of Alfred’s sentence to tell him that he’s an idiot. Back in the picture
editing room, the editor and director piece together a back-slapping row
between our two characters. The picture editor includes Elizabeth’s interruption
on Alfred’s track, cutting to Elizabeth at the fi rst rhythmic pause. No one
but you notices that Elizabeth’s fi rst four words are off-mic, having come from
Alfred’s track. What do you do? You announce that it must be fi xed, either
with ADR or alternate lines.
Overlaps put you in a bad position. Often the director and the editor won’t
notice them while editing because they’re so used to hearing the cut. You’re
the only one who notices, so you’ll be stuck trying to justify the extra ADR
lines or the time spent rooting around in the originals to fi nd the replacement
material. Still, if you ever want to show your face at the sound editors’ sports
bar, you can’t let it go. Overlaps with off-mic dialogue aren’t acceptable.
When Elizabeth (off-mic) interrupted Alfred (on-mic), she ruined both of
their lines. The end of Alfred’s line is now corrupted by an ill-defi ned mess,
so it must be replaced from alternates. Let’s hope that Elizabeth won’t jump
the gun in other 88A takes. We also have to replace the head of Elizabeth’s
line (88B) so that she’ll have a clean, steady attack. Again, we have to rub our
lucky rabbit’s foot in the hope that there’ll be a well-acted alternate 88B from
which we can steal Lizzy’s fi rst few words. If alternates don’t help, you’ll have
to call both characters for ADR on the lines in question. But since you’ll face
the problem of matching the ADR into the production lines, it’s in everyone’s
interest to use alternates to fi x the problem.
When shooting a fast-paced comedy in which the characters regularly step
on each other’s lines, a location mixer may use a single boom plus a radio
mic on each actor. If this is recorded on a multichannel hard-disk recorder,
you stand a better chance of sorting out the overlap transitions. However,
even if you have nice, tight radio mic tracks of each character, you’ll have to