Dialogue Editing

28 NO ONE WORKS IN A VACUUM
feet, 12 frames/minute) and back. The “picture dumps,” the videotapes made
from the Avid for the sound department, must run at 24 fps, but negative
cutters usually request a 25 fps tape for their purposes. The fi rst answer print
is transferred to video at 24 fps, not 25, as picture must stay at its natural
speed at this point in the process. As a result, the telecine of the fi rst answer
print always displays the telltale bump that comes from repeating a fi eld
every 12 frames. The speed is right, but the motion looks goofy.
Shoot Film (24 fps), Record Sound on Hard-Disk
Recorder, Edit Picture and Sound in PAL
More and more fi lms are being recorded with hard-disk recorders, so you’ll
eventually face this work model. (See Figure 2-7.) On the picture side, nothing’s
changed from the DAT paradigm. The picture still makes its round-trip
speed change, ending up at its original 24 fps. Only on the sound side of the
story are things a bit more complicated because the larger word lengths available
with hard-disk recordings.
Soundfi les that are 24 bit can be loaded into an advanced Avid such as
Adrenaline can be imported directly into a digital audio workstation via
OMF. Assuming there are no audio problems, you can use the OMF—no need
to return to the original fi les. If, on the other hand, the picture editor worked
on an older or more modest Avid, he used 16-bit sound. After picture editing,
the original 24-bit fi les must be relinked to the Avid OMF so that the sound
department can take advantage of the larger original word lengths.
Shooting and Posting at 25 fps (in PAL)
Even though it’s no longer rocket science to shoot 24 fps fi lm and edit in PAL
or NTSC, you can still fi nd a number of producers in the PAL world who
choose to shoot their feature fi lms at 25 fps. With this method, the fi lm stays
at its natural speed throughout the postproduction process and is slowed
down to 24 fps only during projections; also:
The picture editor can work on virtually any workstation, so no more
hunting for Film Composer or Cinema Tools.
This technique offers an easy way to avoid fl icker when shooting a
fi lm involving lots of television screens or data monitors.
Original sound recordings can be easily synchronized to the telecine
dailies, since there’s no speed change in the transfer.
There are two downsides to shooting at 25 fps. One is not your problem; one
is. At 25 fps, fi lm rushes through the camera 4 percent faster than at 24 fps,