Dialogue Editing

250 ADR
Looping
Long before digital audio workstations (DAWs throughout this book), before
projectors and mag fi lm recorders and players could move in reverse, much
less “rock and roll” to repeatedly play a line, sound editors rerecorded dialogue
lines by creating physical loops of fi lm—reference dialogue (and usually
picture)—of each sentence to be replaced. A fi lm loop was prepared with
beeps and visual clues to cue the actor, and because it was a loop, it could
repeat continuously.
The actor would repeatedly hear a line, and then, when he was ready, recording
commenced. Each time the actor heard his line, he would immediately
repeat the text, in a process that continued over and over until everyone was
happy. Then up went the next loop, and so on. This system was great for
rhythm, since most people can manage to accurately repeat the music of a
phrase while holding onto its spirit. You couldn’t, however, conveniently
check the sync of a loop during the looping session.
Enter ADR
As technology made it possible to better control mag dubbers and projectors
and to preprogram the complex array of electronic commands involved in
rerecording, it was all but inevitable that automatic looping would come
along. Meet ADR, automated (or automatic) dialogue replacement, which introduced
a new way of working:
The actor listens to her lines leading up to the line to be rerecorded
while watching her sync picture on a screen.
She hears three beeps as her cue approaches. There’s likely a line, or
streamer, wiping across the screen from left to right.
On what would have been the fourth beep, the streamer reaches the
right side of the screen and the actress sees her sync picture but no
longer hears the guide track.
A cue light glows, indicating that it’s time to record.
The actor speaks her lines—hopefully in sync.
The monitor controller switchs to playback and the actress hears the
continuation of the guide track.
The process can repeat endlessly (and very quickly if the picture is on hard
disk).
With gifted actors skilled in the process, ADR is a real time saver. All cue
information can be programmed offl ine and sent to the recording studio by
e-mail, and the “live” nature of ADR recording gives director, ADR supervi-