ADR - HOW TO DO YOUR OWN AUTOMATED DIALOGUE REPLACEMENT
Having a scratch track means you have a guide for voice actors when they come to record their ADR but also it enables you to sync the two together later in post production. Aligning newly recorded dialogue to match a scratch track is easy. Remember: For most motion pictures and television dramas all audio including the dialogue is replaced in post production. If you also replace the dialogue, you have an extremely clear sound track for your motion picture. So using a scratch track, you can make films which reach the quality control of all film distributors. So here is a practical guide to doing your ADR -Automated Dialogue Replacement for your film.
MY RECIEPE FOR AUTOMATED DIALOGUE REPLACEMENT You will need ....... A mac computer 1. Lock your final edit of the film. That's it! No more just trimming that shot or moving a scene around. Lock your film. If you change a shot you will have to re do all of your ADR again because the track will go out of sync. I'm doing ADR for my new film "Judy and Jim" and I finished the edit and then made a Quick Time H.264 version of the film and imported it into Sound Track pro ready for recording my automated dialogue replacement to picture. If you don't record to picture your film will be out of sync! I screened a film made by Don Boyed called "My Kingdom", starring Richard Harris, when I was a projectionist at film school running the film society. I tested the film and saw that it was out of sync, because they had meddled and changed some shots. At this point the distributor panicked. However, I worked out how many frames the film was out by and I cut out frames of the film until it dropped back in sync...genius I know! So don't mess with the film once the pictures are locked. 2. Find a room in your house to do it in. For me it's where my MAC PRO is. The biggest problem doing automated dialogue replacement on a low budget motion picture is building the recording studio. Getting a good sounding room which is totally quiet is not easy. 3. Once you've decided where to do your automated dialogue replacement . Buy acoustic ceiling tiles (also called sound proofing foam, acoustic foam, sound proofing insulation ect.,) and cover the room in them in the direction the actor will be facing. Attach them with a carpet adhesive for foam backed carpets from your local DIY store. Don't put them behind the actor, what's the point! If the actor is facing front then that's where you place your tiles. I covered a corner of my living room. Accoutic foam tiles will help create a dead sound which is what we're after.
4. Buy a microphone stand with a pop shield. Pop shields are really important to reduce pops, odd sounds, breaths and it stops actors spitting over your mic (see Why Use a Pop Shield Article). If you don't know how to set it up ask the salesman to show in the store, don't just think you know how they work and then set it up wrong at home. If you set it up wrong then it won't work properly so you'll have wasted your money. Of course you can make one with a coat hanger and a pair of tights and gaffer tape it to the mic stand or broom handle, which some film books would have you think is cool (and you know which one I mean). But to be honest although that works in an emergency situation, like your studio burns down and you have a deadline, there's no point in looking so unprofessional. As a guerilla-filmmaker you only have your professionalism to cling on to - don't throw it away by being cheap!!! 5. Buy the most expensive and the best microphone you can afford. High end Sennheisers, ISK, Neumanns or AKGs are the best. I'm currently using an ISK BM-400 which I've borrowed from a friend. This is so important. I like the AKG C 414 XL II is has unrivaled up front sound which is what we want and costs around £900 from GAK.CO.UK my favourite The Audio Technica AT877 which I also use for recording my guide tracks whilst on location. This is a great microphone. It has a wide-range, unidirectional short shotgun condenser designed for sound pickup over a long distance. Ideal for broadcasting and film / TV sound. The polar response is designed to provide excellent on-axis sound pickup with maximum rejection from the sides and rear. It comes complete with stand adaptor. It's also cheap at around £400 from The ISK range of microphones are great value around £70 It has a cardioid polar pattern making it perfect for recording ADR and in my opinion sounds like a microphone worth 2 to 3 thousand pounds it's that good.
A preamplifier (preamp), or control amp in some parts of the world, is an electronic amplifier which precedes another amplifier to prepare an electronic signal for further amplification or processing. The preamplifier circuitry may or may not be housed as a separate component. In our case it is. What your looking for is a basic pre-amp to connect to your microphone via its XLR in-put. I've seen pre-amps on
ebay
for a matter of £35. However buy a good one the better the pre-amp the better the sound. I'm using two pre-amps the first is a STUDIO V3 TUBE AMP made by ART which warms the vocals up with a series of tubes and makes it sound like you're in an old school professional studio with really warm tones. Don't go silly and spend thousands, many manufactures add on extras to boost the price, so be careful as you can over do it. For a good solid preamp go to
K & K Sound
or
Maplin
8. Now that your ready to record use Apple's Sound Track Pro to do your looping to picture with each of your actors. Schedule one actor only to turn up to their automated dialogue replacement session. However, if you choose to record more than one actor you'll need another microphone - so it can get expensive. If your computer is near a window cover the window with a pieces of black out cloth and close all the windows and doors. You want the room as quiet as possible. Sound reflects off surfaces and can be recorded so cover all hard wood surfaces with cloths, duvets, draw the curtains etc., only record when it's quiet. I had a man up stairs vacuuming every time I went to record so we all sat there listening to him vacuum his flat whilst we had a cup of tea!9. Using Sound Track Pro you can record multiple takes and edit the dialogue to create the track you want; manually syncing the sound to the picture. I record using the Sound Track Pro time line or wave form, then when my actor does a take I line it up with the original wave form which I find easier then looking at the picture and you'll always be in sync! I did use a program called VocalAlign which was good in places but because it's a mathematical algorithm I found that it wound the voice to tightly to the picture. It worked but it made the actors voices sound forced. So I ditched it and manually synced the sound which was quicker. As usual only use the best takes. Sound Track Pro is made for this because it's a simple editing program. But it will take some time as you edit each character's voice onto a single track. If you've got five characters you'll end up with five tracks of the dialogue for each section of the film from the beginning of the film to the end for each character. Remember, If you don't record to picture your film will be out of sync! 10. Now you've recorded your actors to picture, edited their dialogue to make the best automated dialogue replacement track. Now, you'll notice that on your tracks you'll have noise from your computer's fan kicking off if it gets hot but also a car might have gone down the road outside or an airplane passed over during a take and you didn't notice. Nothings a problem you just need IZOTOPE RX software which is the very best sound restoration software on the market. It's not expensive. They also do other plugins but to be fair I haven't personally used them but I hear they're amazing too. Okay that's enough of a plug here's the website:-
iZotpe RX Complete Audio Restoration
However, DO NOT USE Sound Track Pro's sound restoration program it's rubbish and it'll take you forever to clean up your tracks. The program cuts frequencies in the track so the voice sounds like it's in a bottom of a toilet! I made that mistake so you don't have to, yes I went cheap and payed the price. Please buy IZOTOPE RX you won't regret it! 11. Your tracks sound beautiful now it's time to sync your track to the film. You'll need to purchase Apple's LOGIC PRO or PRO TOOLS software. Import each characters ADR track into logic pro placing them on the time line. Once you've done this press play and watch your film with amazing ADR. When I first did this I spent around £2000 but recently I did my ADR £500 and I know other filmmaker's who are recoding their ADR for less. It certainly beats £100,000!!! The worst thing about the 'professional' sound post houses is that you inevitably end up paying for their address, their trendy coffee bar (usually called the centre of new cinema or some other crap) and you know that swimming pool that you can use to relax and unwind in between sessions, yep you guessed it, you're paying for it as well. So now your ready to start work on the rest of your sound design knowing that you have outstanding professionally recorded automated dialogue replacement tracks...
Additional or Alternative Software. If your budget is extremely low, you can use GarageBand 3 for the automated dialogue replacement. You just need a program which can play the movie while you record the dialogue. A better alternative is a music program. Most music programs now include full DAW functionality. Get one which is easy to use and you'll be able to do the automated dialogue . Professional Software titles like Gallery's ADR Studio are widely used for Professional ADR sessions. Steinberg's "Nuendo" and Digidesign's "Pro Tools" are two audio software applications commonly used for post-production. They are available on both Macintosh and Windows platforms but these do not have the specialist features of titles like ADR Studio or VoiceQ ADR. They're pricey but good. If you can go for it they are made specifically for automated dialogue replacement recording and sound design which is always better. They have features such as the script text scrolling on the screen as the video file plays and audible 'cues' playing without manual intervention. Gallery's VoicePro software is used for Video Game Dialogue Recording so there's no reason not to use it on your movie; dubbing or looping a game is basically the same as dubbing a film. ...and that's how I did my ADR for The Greenwich Village Massacre and now for my new film "Judy and Jim"! If you have any problems with your automated dialogue replacement let us know and we'll help you in anyway we can. We might even come round to help you in person! THE GUERILLA-FILMMAKER GOLD MEDAL AWARDS - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
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