Last week in part 4 of this series on Audio Post Production Workflows Using Pro Tools, dialog editor Michele Woods continued her look at what a dialog editor does, at the ADR process and the rest of the work as a dialog editor. Michele continues….

Once I have marked up ADR and found alternate takes, an ADR list will be sent to the post production supervisor who will organise the actors and crowd to come in for a session. For the ADR session, we use the same QuickTime I have been working to, we have scripts with all the lines that actor(s) will need to do, and I often provide a bounce of my dialogue edit with alternate takes. This gives an opportunity to check with the director that he/she is happy with the alternate take(s) and therefore we possibly do not need to record the line(s) for ADR.

When the ADR and crowd are recorded, I edit them into my master session and provide fill (a bit of atmosphere from the original recording of that scene) to make the transition from ADR to sync as smooth as possible and unnoticeable. I have in the past recorded whole lines of ADR and used only a word that was needed (either for technical problems or as an additional line) into the ADR and smoothed it out with fill.

Meanwhile a few more passes on the entire project are done, smoothing edits by using fades between bits of audio, removing sync SFX and moving them to the sync SFX tracks for M&E, and possible level adjustments. I tend to do a general nominal level adjustment to monitor properly between microphones and shots to hear background noises that may need filtering or denoising. The mixer will obviously do a more intricate level mix against the SFX and music while adjusting EQ, reverb and whatever processing that may be required which will affect the level of the audio.

The rerecording mixer receives from me a session which should need minimal editing. If any processing has been done by me to the original audio, it is necessary to have the original unprocessed audio (muted) edited in the same way so that if the mixer wishes to change the processing the mixer can take your edit and adjust it accordingly. Same goes with giving alternate takes. Always have the original audio available in case the client does not like the new alternate take and can then hear the difference between the two. The session provided is usually a saved session copy of the final dialogue edit which I either upload to an ftp or deliver personally (since depending on the length of the project and the amount of ADR, it can become quite a large file).

As mentioned earlier, for the mix I always provide the original AAF files and all alternate ADR takes inactive tracks in case the client wishes to monitor other takes. Ideally, they should have chosen their preferable take on the day but in the mix things can change and it’s best to have the mixer have all available takes in case.

So after all that, and the magic provided by the rerecording mixer, the dialogues, sound effects and music should all work together smoothly without allowing the viewer to notice anything but the story telling.