How to do a phone conversation?

D

Dan_The_Man

Active member
Hi there,

I was just wondering what the best way to film a phone conversation is? I want to hear the voice of the unseen caller but am not sure how to get the timing right. Maybe film the onscreen actor first and get the other one to do a voiceover in post?

Thanks
 
Shoot the conversation with the 'phone voice' being read by someone off-screen, being sure that the off-screen dialog does not overlap your 'on-the-phone' actor. Then you can either cut out the phone voice when editing, or re-record the on-screen actor's voice performance and cut it in along with ambience to restore his side of the conversation.

Alternately, you could time it out, and give your actor cues from off-screen to time their end of the conversation.
 
I think having someone off screen reading the line would work the best. Just depends if I can get it so the actor can hear when she is to come in but for me not to pick up any spill.

I guess I could have someone reading the other lines silently and cueing everytime she should speak.

Was just curious as to whether there is a standard accepted way to do this. Thanks for your help!
 
I filmed a phone conversation once, and what I did was to record the off-screen dialog, upload it to an iPod and the actor was hearing the replies.
 
The obvious but works is. Record a real phone conversation. then dub over the on phone voice. This makes timing perfect also gives actor a real motivation for emotional response.
I find when an actor is thinking about timing emotion can be lost. So just have an open line with ques being read through phone. even better if lines are acted through phone
 
That is what I do.

legend of the steelstring said:
The obvious but works is. Record a real phone conversation. then dub over the on phone voice. This makes timing perfect also gives actor a real motivation for emotional response.
I find when an actor is thinking about timing emotion can be lost. So just have an open line with ques being read through phone. even better if lines are acted through phone
Click to expand...
 
legend of the steelstring said:
The obvious but works is. Record a real phone conversation. then dub over the on phone voice. This makes timing perfect also gives actor a real motivation for emotional response.
I find when an actor is thinking about timing emotion can be lost. So just have an open line with ques being read through phone. even better if lines are acted through phone
Click to expand...

You mean have the actors really do the scene on the phone. Record each to a separate track and then mix accordingly?
Cause thats what I would do.
 
Yeah, have both actors live, rather than prerecording the other end of the conversation. If your filmed actor is talking to a live person on the other end of the phone (even though that other person isn't seen or heard), your actor will give a more natural performance, especially with tiiming.
 
If you're only going to show one side of the concersation, one technique I've used a couple of times was to have both actors on set, both radio miked, with their audio split to separate channels. No need for later dubbing, the person on the phone is responding directly to the actual dialogue that will be used. You just need to add a filter to the off-screen voice.

If you do plan to add the off-screen voice later, try to get the actor who'll be delivering the lines on set to play off of. I tried doing it with a spare person just reading the script one time, and their delivery ended up being very different in pace to the actual actor, which made the timing in the edit a problem.

Cheers
 
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