What is the right way to mic a dialogue

[David Evans]

Hi, I was wondering what is the best way to capture dialogues. Let's imagine I'm shooting a scene where two characters are talking to each other and they don't always talk one after the other, they talk over each other. So probably the best way would be to have two mics boomed over each actor, right? But what about during post production? Each actor's track will have his own voice but also a bit of the voice of the other actor. How do you guys deal with this? Is this a problem?

Thanks

 

[Jema]

I know this one! "Whatever sounds best".

...on a more serious note, about overlapping dialogue, this becomes a really big problem if the editor tries to cut in one of those lines - it rarely works, so they will be constrained to cut it in a certain way, or be forced to ADR those lines. For this reason, overlapping is one of the things we try hard to convince the director and actors not to do.
If they don't cut during overlapping, then it's not a big problem as long as they don't lose intelligibility and are both recorded well, and there are many ways to do that.

 

[Bruce Watson]

...what about during post production? Each actor's track will have his own voice but also a bit of the voice of the other actor. How do you guys deal with this? Is this a problem?

It's not usually a problem. What usually happens is that both feeds get mixed together and end up on the center (dialog) channel. That way you hear what each actor is saying with equal clarity, which is the point of the whole exercise.

Dialog is recorded completely differently than, say, a symphony orchestra recorded in stereo. For the orchestra, you'd use a setup that would capture hall ambiance and phasing to give you an acoustical sound stage (so the listener can locate the individual instruments similarly to how they would if sitting in the audience listening to the orchestra live in concert), typically using something like an ORTF setup. And in stereo, there is no center channel.

No, dialog is specifically about clarity. You put a mic on each actor is to make the signal to noise ratio for each actor as big as you can. This in turn makes it easier for post to make that center dialog channel as clear and understandable for the audience as they can.

 

[carlone]

Putting up 2 mics pointing towards actors close together is easy to do in concept but to do it right is difficult, especially if you have overlapping dialog. The phasing that is caused by this has the opposite effect of making the dialog clear and punchy. It makes it less focused and requires you spend more time trying to clean it up. In. Y opinion the best way to capture this is to not use 2 mics but instead use 1 mic and a good boom op who will quickly start to learn the scene and be able to anticipate the best angle for the mic. As long as you can get the mic close this is easy audio to work with and sounds the most natural.

 

[J Davis]

Overlapping dialogue is key to a good performance. If you can't capture that and edit it then you need to improve something somewhere.
It should never be the editor and/or the dp telling the director and actors to not step on each others words

 

[Sheldon Charron]

Overlapping dialogue is key to a good performance. If you can't capture that and edit it then you need to improve something somewhere.
It should never be the editor and/or the dp telling the director and actors to not step on each others words

As a director, who went on to act to be a better director, I've been on both sides of this. I've been asked to not cut off dialog, and I've asked actors not to cut off dialog. Now, whenever possible, I try to ensure the setup is such that the dialog can be given naturally for the best performance. Good sound people and good editors can work with it. People naturally cut each other off all the time, and though it can be done in the edit, the chemistry is better IMO if done organically during the take.

Another issue can be differences in dialog from one take to the next. Some actors change a few words here and there every take. Veterans can get away with this more, even though it can make for trickier editing, but again, if it can lead to great performances in many cases.

If rookie actors do this, they can irritate the wrong people. I'd say it all depends. Now how to mic it? I'll defer that to the good sound crew based on the situation/location/talent.