ADR totally rocks!

Movie Star Diary – 21 & 22 April 2012

For those who don’t know, Automated Dialogue Recording (ADR) – aka “looping” – is total movie magic. It replaces dialogue that’s too quiet, too cluttered, too wimpy, or just plain bad with a new and improved version. As the fans of Chartarum know, all of our outdoor lines were rendered null by The Evil Crickets of Luther Who Never Shut Up (and who may deserve their own horror flick). To correct this cosmic wrong, I found myself in headphones and leaning towards a microphone while I tried to redo my lines while matching my on-screen lips.

After some fumbling around, and learning not to make noise by talking with my hands, I got to participate in a technological miracle. I said my line; John dropped it into the movie, and tweaked it until everything matched exactly. If I was out of breath toward the end of a line, John just had me do the end part, and dropped it in to the movie like a Lego^®. He was as precise as a surgeon, and I sound fabulous. John was kind enough to point out that I have a bit of a talent for ADR. I was just happy to sound the way I wanted/needed to (intense anarchist), instead of how I actually do (deadpan suburbanite).

We did some really fun stuff at the end: I had to make “fight noises” (Ugh, Engh, Urgh) – the kind of sounds you make when kicking bad guy butt – as well as snarky voice-over lines. AND I got to see the practically-done cut of the movie. Twice. I won’t spoil it – I just think everyone’s gonna love the film’s drama, cleverness, and humor. Good times.