background dialogue

TheMacB

TheMacB

Veteran
i'm starting production in a few weeks on a short that takes place predominantly in a crowded bar. How do most directors deal with the background dialogue? When the main actors are talking, do i have the extras talk really quietly? Or just mouth the words of fake conversation and add background dialogue in post? I'm afraid if they're talking, even if it is very quietly, that it will make cutting the main dialogue very difficult. Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
have the bar atmosphere [bkgd] pantomime during the actors dialogue.
you can then get a wild track of atmosphere sound in the same bar with everyone talking.

Main Entry: [1]pan·to·mime
Pronunciation: 'pan-t&-"mIm

3 a : conveyance of a story by bodily or facial movements especially in drama or dance b : the art or genre of conveying a story by bodily movements only
- pan·to·mim·ic /"pan-t&-'mi-mik/ adjective


t :grin:
 
I believe you should have the extras fake dialouge, and not make any noise. Then add a back crowd track in post. If your scared of movements and actions of extras matching up during cuts, then your subject may not be interesting enough, cause most good movies with action going on in the background is drown out and never noticed when someone watches. If you are still scared, then I say narrow your depth of field and make the extras out of focus. Seriously, look at any film with the scenario scene that you are filming, almost always, if you focus on the extras or action in the background, there is barley continuity in actions.

-Matt-
 
Don't forget to have your principals speak a little louder during the BG pantomime. They're speaking over a loud, crowded room. Sounds obvious, but I've seen this mistake happen before and it played poorly. Good luck.
 
alveraz said:
They're speaking over a loud, crowded room. Sounds obvious, but I've seen this mistake happen before and it played poorly. Good luck.
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Are you kidding me? I see this weekly on network primetime. Very good observation. We all oughta staple this one to our chickens
 
you won't need your leads to speak loudly if you are going to drop the ambient BG noise..

if you drop the background noise and leave the leads voice(s) at a normal level it will sound fine...


but then again that is also a creative sound choice.. what you actually want the scene to be like...
 
Normally we have the actors mouthing out dialog or speaking in a very soft whisper. All sound, bar glasses, people, music is added later in post.
 
Loki said:
you won't need your leads to speak loudly if you are going to drop the ambient BG noise..

if you drop the background noise and leave the leads voice(s) at a normal level it will sound fine...


but then again that is also a creative sound choice.. what you actually want the scene to be like...
Click to expand...

It may be well recorded and intelligible but it won't be realistic. People have to talk louder in a crowded bar in real life, and this is visible and audible in the amount of physical effort they exert to make themselves heard. What Alvarez and John Hudson meant (I believe!) is that if the leads aren't making this effort despite the quiet set, it will look and sound strange, although an audience may not be consciously know why.
 
I see your point, yes, your main talent has to talk like they are talking in such a situation. Whispering in a crowded bar is not believable. I worked on a film some years ago called "Night Hawks" with Sylvester Stallone. We did scene in a crowded club. Side bar: Actually one of the female extras who gets a lot of camera time, I later dated but we never knew each other on the set, nor met.

In the club scene the extras were not talking, just mouthing out words and the people dancing had no music. The two characters talking had to talk loud as if they were talking over the crowd and club sounds. Something about that a particular scene in this instance bothered me. I saw it the other day on Tv and thought how you could tell they were shouting but that when they were there was nothing they were really shouting over. Maybe it's because I was there. Rent the film and look at the scene. That is an example.
 
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