should i consider dubbing a whole feature with minimum dialog ?

roei z

roei z

Veteran
Hi-
tried to search but did not find a relevant answer.

i'm starting a no-budget feature shooting and i thought about maybe leaving all sound for post. audio studio work is more accessible to me for free.
(i'm aware of the "less credibility" issue concerning post dialog recording of course).

the reason i seriously think about it is mainly the script has very little dialog in it (about 15%),
second reason is to simplify the shooting workflow.

so i have a couple of questions:

- any chance of 'getting away' with it? is it possible to concentrate on post sound and deliver good results? (pros and cons, risks)
- if it's a practical option, then what is still absolutely necessary to record while shooting ?

and any link to related threads, or other external reading, tips and general pros and cons
will be gladly welcomed.

thanks in advance.
 
its going to take you about 4-6x longer to finish the film only using post sound. its much more than dialogue that needs to be added. some friends of mine tried to do the same thing and vowed they would never ever do such a thing.
 
thanks.
i considered it shout take longer, so in that aspect i will have time to do it.
but on shooting schedule i am extra tight and have to be super flexible and fast.
i know there's a whole lot of ambiance build fx, i've done this lot's of time on shorts.
 
There was a member here who shot a feature about a year ago and decided from the get-go that he'd ADR the entire thing. Honestly, I've only seen clips, but it was dreadfully obvious that it was ADR. It's more than just building a believable sound bed underneath... it's matching EQ, placing the voices in the environment (through use of reverb or delay), and getting a recording that sounds believably like it was delivered the first time around. It's a huge undertaking that isn't for beginners.

Even if you decide you're still going to do this, you really need to be able to record at least intelligible dialog during production so that actors can (hopefully) match their original performances.

If you have so little dialog in the film... why not focus on recording it right the first time? Leaving this for post seems a bit counterproductive.
 
C2V said:
If you have so little dialog in the film... why not focus on recording it right the first time? Leaving this for post seems a bit counterproductive.
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that was my original idea, but i thought i might pull it off entirely, that's why i'm asking.


i also think that different scripts and moods can provide more 'reason' or logic for ADR, let's presume my script is very dark and hallucinatic...
besides, i've seen many works that were ADR and sounded very authentic (and i do have very judgmental ears), and if i'm not mistaken, a lot of big budget movies go ADR.

last thought- do you believe that the member here who done the feature put in 1/2 a year of serious pro work on ADR and failed ?
or he just did a decent 1 month ADR ? this is very crucial !

btw- thanks for the response.
 
roei z said:
and if i'm not mistaken, a lot of big budget movies go ADR.
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You are mistaken. This is a myth that keeps getting passed around DVXUser, and I'm not entirely sure why or from whence it comes. Big budget films have big budget production sound crews who get it right the first time. There are some extreme cases where production sound just cannot be captured the right way, and for that very small percentage of shots they will use ADR, but that's the exception and not the rule.

As for the other member's film, he put in months of work on it.
 
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If you don't really know what you're doing, ADR is a great way to ruin your sound and your film.

In my opinion, if you can't find actors able to reliably deliver a tiny amount of dialog, or a sound guy/crew to capture it, there's either a problem with the script, or you're just not trying to find the right people for your shoot.
 
JordanBlock said:
If you don't really know what you're doing, ADR is a great way to ruin your sound and your film.

In my opinion, if you can't find actors able to reliably deliver a tiny amount of dialog, or a sound guy/crew to capture it, there's either a problem with the script, or you're just not trying to find the right people for your shoot.
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basically i agree with all that. it's just i'm a VERY one man operation kinda guy, and sound is the one thing you just cannot do alone.
(i even bought the DR100 in advance, so it's not that i didn't plan on recording sound properly)
 
C2V is correct, many films DO NOT use large amounts of ADR. Where the "bad" information comes from is that a lot of ADR is recorded "just in case" there is a problem with the production dialog. It is cheaper to have the talent ADR anything that is even remotely problematical when doing ADR than to have the talent come back time and again when it is found that additional ADR is needed. Rerecording mixers (with the director) generally make the production sound vs. ADR decision during the first very lengthy (mostly organizational) pass at the mix. They and the directors mostly prefer production dialog; no matter how talented the actor the ADR often falls far short of the original performance. In addition, the dialog editor(s) may also pull alternate dialog from the unused takes providing even more choices. These days, with more advanced production sound recording techniques and all of the wonderful noise reduction and other tools used when mixing, ADR is used less than ever; and directors like Tarantino now make huge efforts to capture great production sound because of the superior on-set performances of the actors vs. ADR.

So, to sum up, though they may have recorded a lot of ADR they do not necessarily use it.
 
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great piece of info, uncle bob. thanks.
in that case, what would you recommend on doing when shooting no-dialog parts ? are there other options to cover that beside using a boom ?
 
roei z said:
great piece of info, uncle bob. thanks.
in that case, what would you recommend on doing when shooting no-dialog parts ? are there other options to cover that beside using a boom ?
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You can shoot that MOS if you want, and recreate all the sound with ambients, FX, and Foley.

Just make sure that you get plenty of room tone during dialog scenes, and have plenty of ambient sound beds to work with as well.
 
MOS ? (still not knowledgeable on some of those shorts, sorry)
btw if you can link me to a proper guide or article of sound covering non-dialog scenes, i'll gladly dive into it :)

thanks
 
roei z said:
btw if you can link me to a proper guide or article of sound covering non-dialog scenes, i'll gladly dive into it :)

thanks
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This will be very useful to you.

http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxshop/SoundDVD/

Im no sound guy - but heres my workflow in relation to sound.

Record dialogue only on location.
Rough image edit. Make audio list with TC based on rough.
Record foley and ambient tracks.
Lock image edit.
Sound edit.
 
thanks Noel, didn't think it was THAT simple.
so when choosing MOS, i probably need to realize there would be all those little body and face gestures i'll have to recreate (goes under foley, right?)
 
MOS - According to Hollywood legend Erich von Stroheim told the crew, in his heavy Austrian accent "Ve'll shoot dis Mid Out Sound." Others say it was either Ernst Lubitsch or Fritz Lang.
 
roei z said:
so when choosing MOS, i probably need to realize there would be all those little body and face gestures i'll have to recreate (goes under foley, right?)
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It's Foley, not foley. This is a proper name. And yes, Foley typically "recreates" all the little sounds of the film, though it creates them in a larger-than-the-original manner. Often, any single sound you hear comes from something that has nothing to do with the original source, and that sound is likely to be a layer of 5, 10, 15 different sounds.
 
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