Dialogue Editing

How We Got Where We Are 13
at the proper speed, indicated by a fl ag on the front panel, the location mixer
will say something to the effect of “Sound speeding.” Next comes the
camera.
When the set, the actors, the background actors, and the photography department
are absolutely ready, the assistant director will call, “Roll camera!” In
comes the clapper/loader, who has written the appropriate scene and take
information on the slate. He stands in a place visible to the camera and
audible to the microphone and verbally announces the upcoming shot. When
the camera is running and locked, the camera assistant will announce,
“Camera speeding.” At this point, the clapper/loader will call “Marker!” to
let the world know that the clap is soon to happen. One gentle smack of the
clapper, and the deaf fi lm camera and the blind Nagra have what it takes to
fi nd their sync in postproduction.
The Film Lab At the end of a shooting day, or at some other sensible interval,
the clapper/loader gathers up the negative, labels it, and sends it to the lab
for processing. The lab develops all of the negative, but to reduce costs only
the takes selected by the director during the shoot are printed for screening
and editing (hence the familiar command: “Cut! Print it!”). These selected
takes arrive at the picture cutting room in the form of positive 35 mm workprints,
which will soon be organized by scene and slate, or whatever other
system the picture editor chooses. But not just yet.
The ¼″ Nagra tapes, or sound rolls, are transferred to 35 mm mag stripe. To
ensure that they’re played back at precisely the same speed they were recorded
at, a resolver attached to the Nagra compares the pilot tone recorded on the
tape with the mains frequency (50 or 60 Hz) and slews the tape to the right
speed. For the rest of the postprodcution process, whenever sound and picture
must be interlocked, the mains frequency serves as the common clock.
The Picture Cutting Room Back in the picture cutting room, the assistant
editor uses the slate information and claps to synchronize picture with sound.
Then the lab rolls are broken into a more sensible order, usually by scene,
and leaders with start marks are added. Each picture/sound pair of rolls is
coded with a unique series number, a several digit edge code stamped at left
intervals on the workprint. Once printed, the edge code information is entered
into the “Code Book,” a vast database also housing the Keykode and scene/
shot/take data for the entire fi lm—vital for locating alternate shots, reprinting
shots, and keeping things in order. Now the director and editor will sequester
themselves in the cutting room for weeks or months, fi nally emerging with
a locked picture.