Location Audio, ADR, and Other Stuff

I’m capturing a performance, and that performance is only going to happen one time the way they want it, in the environment, with everybody in the mood. – Peter Kurland, Production Sound Recordist

This is a quote from my book on audio and it's a quote that says it all to me.

When you are on location you need to get everything right, especially the audio. I have said before that an audience will forgive bad lighting, bad camera work, or even out of focus shots. They will not forgive bad audio. If the audience can't understand the dialogue you've lost them.

Now most people say we'll just ADR the actors.

You can. But it will never "feel" as good as the original take if you had gotten it right on set. I've done a lot of ADR over the years and it may sound and look good but most of the time it doesn't feel right. It doesn't have the same emotion that was there on set.

Actors do an amazing job inhabiting a character especially on set. They are working opposite other actors and as the director you've been prepping them to get where they need to be emotionally for that scene. You've been shooting for days/weeks/months and the actors have become those characters.

And then you get in a hurry and you don't give sound enough time to set up, or the recordist tells you there's a problem with the audio and can they do it again. Someone always says, "It's okay we'll fix it in post."

Don't be that person!

One of the problems fixing it (months) later is the actors are no longer in that head space, the physical space, and they usually are not doing ADR with the other actors from the scene. So you're asking them to recreate an emotion from months earlier and not giving them any tools to do it with.

You're bringing them in to a recording studio where they're surrounded by equipment and people and can see themselves on screen not color-corrected and then they have to stare at someone like me who is feeding them the other characters lines.

And then you say, "Oh yeah and don't forget to match the mouth movement."

Some actors are great at doing it, but many of them are not. And if you don't have one of the great actors in your film it will show in the ADR. I have worked with some famous actors who weren't good at ADR while others were amazing.

Some actors have a really tough time getting back into that place they need to be especially if it's a real emotional scene. Don't put your actors in that situation. Get their best performance on set so you can do the fun stuff on post production like cool FX.

So remember if your sound people say we need to do it one more time for audio.

DO IT!

You may be on set a little longer but the time, money, and aggravation you will save yourself in post production will be worth it. The audience will thank you as well.

And if you're the Director, every time you see that scene you will cringe because you didn't get it right on set and had to use ADR. I know, I've been there.

There's a lot more great information in my book provided by professionals who do audio every day. Check it out.

Just a reminder, I'm the Key Note Speaker at the McMinnville Short Film Festival (Feb 10-13). If you find yourself in McMinnville, Oregon stop on by. It's a great festival and promises to be a lot of fun.

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Originally posted February 1, 2022