ADR...When and How?

[Gorilla King]

If over the course of a shoot the scenes don't allow you to get the mic close enough to get the sound you want, how do you go about doing ADR? I'm interested mostly in the process and the conditions in which it's recorded. Danke.

 

[wabbit]

The simple answer is, you decide what to ADR. Is the original audio salvagable? Often even if the audio is not great a director will stay with original dialog since ADR is almost never as good a performance as the orignal. One of the most important reasons to work as hard as possible to get the sound right on location.

When you have to ADR you need a proper studio or at least a booth and a DAW to record the audio clean. Have the actor watch or listen to the original dialog several times to get the rythem down and then record the new performance to your satisfaction. Once you have that you sync and mix it to resemble the orginal audio.

Simple to describe, much harder to do do well.

Cheers

 

[Noiz2]

THe best way to cheat on a budget is to do a "wild ADR" right after the take. Of course the director has to on board for this, but it will save a lot of $$$ or time later.
On a film with a full post crew the ADR supervisor decides what needs to be ADR'd, working with the dialog editor(s). It's recorded on a stage (booth) set up for ADR, pretty much the same setup as foley. Well done ADR cut by a good editor (and with a bit of luck) and well mixed will be unnoticeable. But that means you have spent a lot of $$$. ADR makes some sense on BIG budget films where your cost per hour on set is way more than the cost of ADR. It makes almost no sense on low budget films where the reverse is true. Figure 5-10 hours per screen minute to record and edit ADR well, and 1/2 that time is in a studio. That's a lot of $$ and time that could have gone on the screen instead.

 

[Oleg 2]

if you are going work on hard location and definitely know your work is just scratch track , especially sea shore or extra buisy street try to do the wilds befor the actual takes during the rehearsals , it not take setup time and usially the actors would be in better shape then after few hours in the sun