ADR & looping

We used to call this the pizza, didn't we? The pizza place. This was funny. We rewrote this voiceover about 50 million times and the last time was when Pete was about to record with Christopher Lee. I was in Malta actually doing ADR with Gimli and I was out shopping in a gift shop and my phone rang and it was Fran saying, we've got to fix this line, Pete's about to record it. Which was the line? It was the fires of industry line. The old ways of burning in the fires of industry. That's right, we couldn't get it right. It is, it's a Stephen line.

19:18 · jump to transcript →

Terrible line off the page. He did. He crowbarred it up. They ran as if the very whips of their masters were behind them. Or with a broken rib too. And yeah, on the move. It was quite a hard piece of ADR. He's a great actor, that young boy. This scene here is actually an assembly of three different scenes really.

27:49 · jump to transcript →

has the attack where the horsemen arrive was yet another scene that was supposed to be a night or two later, but we ended up just incorporating it into this one scene and making it just one particular, one longer section. This is actually Andy Serkis' voice, by the way. He did this hawk, and he actually did the urukai who spoke the other line previously. Was that when you were doing ADR in England with him and you wanted him to do a few extra...

28:58 · jump to transcript →

fitting exposition into conversation and dialogue is a nightmare really and it's an art and I was really struggling here. Danny did a shot from Jim over to Selena which is coming up quite soon that allowed for us to play around a bit in ADR to mess around with what was being said and it never

18:16 · jump to transcript →

ADR line as they're climbing over the shopping trolleys about... What was it? It's not hope we don't have to get out of here. What is it about supermarkets and shopping trolleys or something like that? It was about tower blocks and shopping trolleys. Yeah, there you go. This is a... Here he comes. He's about to come now. I don't know why I chose that one to highlight. You've got lots of lines in here. I just always remember that one.

31:43 · jump to transcript →

The father thing. Yeah. You wouldn't want to mow the lawn, but if they get in, we hear them. More exposition. Secondary to protection, our real job is to rebuild. Feels a bit more natural here, I think. And this was another shot that Danny set up so that we could change dialogue, put more in in ADR and add to what wasn't there in the script when we were shooting it.

1:11:08 · jump to transcript →

Yes, it is. And one of the things that happened very, very early on, and this is going back to 97, 98, when we were writing Return of the King, and this actually didn't change. These are probably grey pages that were shot as they were. The original pages that were never revised. Not really revised. I think, Fran, you did some revision during ADR and stuff, eh, on some of the lines. But the actual concept of Frodo sending Sam away came because we felt

1:24:29 · jump to transcript →

and I have a lot of admiration for Viggo and Miranda's concentration here because what you're listening to is dialogue that's recorded later in ADR. It's added in, you know, after we finish shooting. But the original dialogue was them talking with the sound of this tin shed crashing and rattling in the wind and the rain and it was just, it was a huge storm and it was so loud that it was actually quite hard to concentrate and yet, you know, look at the two actors there, absolutely in the moment and ignoring everything else.

1:43:12 · jump to transcript →

was how it had actually started to pop up on a magazine cover. Those things give you a bit of a morale boost, especially when you're a year into shooting a difficult movie. In the book, Sam puts the ring on, doesn't he, at one stage, just earlier than this, which is something we avoided that, didn't we? Yeah, it was a difficult moment here. Actually, the thought was very late in coming to us and how to shape the scene, wasn't it? And in the end, it was a bit of a salvage in ADR.

3:01:49 · jump to transcript →

It was interesting when we came to do some ADR on this that Sir Ian Holm was absolutely brilliant at ADR and usually only requires one or two takes. ADR is additional dialogue recording. In this particular scene where he played it slightly tipsy on the day, he could not ADR these lines and he just turned and said to us in the ADR session, can you clean this up? I can't redo it. We added a little bit of psychological...

24:53 · jump to transcript →

We had the discussion. We said, oh, you know, supposedly tomatoes. I thought it was Dominic ad-libbing on the day. No, no. No, not ash on my tomatoes. No, one of my tomatoes burst. Oh, yeah, no, that was the ADR ad-lib, yeah. That's right. No, no, no, the tomatoes, the tomatoes. We're getting into the vegetables again. We're talking about vegetables. Weathertop was...

1:12:06 · jump to transcript →

deliberately attempting to ratchet the tension back out into the story again. This was another pickup. And this one was done so close to the bone that we didn't have time to ADR Ian's side of the dialogue, so all of that had to be cleaned. Do you remember?

1:29:52 · jump to transcript →

Judd Nelson

I have a lot of gray now. Giving me everything inside and out and Love's strange So real in the dark Think of the tender things that we were working on Slow change may pull us apart When the light gets into your heart... Now there's a person... This is a woman I have to tip my hat to, Dede Allen. Incredible. - Before I knew what editing was about, this woman was really an interesting presence. And it was cool, too, how she would come to the set. Remember? She would really work closely with John, which was really cool to see. And also, that's the first time I'd ever been looping where she made me feel that the worst I could do would be the production draft. That it's possible, in looping, to improve a performance. Right. - So, from that moment on, it's like, now I don't get all like, "Why didn't we get that on the set?" And also, at the time, I think the studio, as well as John, I mean, I was too young to appreciate it, but I think everybody was thrilled that this woman who had cut all these classic movies, like Reds and Dog Day Afternoon... - Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah, it was a great choice to arm John with. She was a real ally for him. And also, there were a lot of overlaps which they, as a rule, don't like, which is when one character in the close-up is talking... And then somebody talks over like this. Yeah. - And somebody talks over... Sorry. Sorry. Judd and I both need a shave, and here we are. You wanna explain for the people at home that don't know what looping is? Looping is a slang term for post-sync dubbing, which is when, on a movie set, you've shot something, but a plane went overhead. Then, you have to redo that in the studio, and you have to get the picture synched up with the sound. The technical term is ADR, which stands for "Automated Dialogue Replacement," but in the industry we call it "looping." As Judd was telling that story before, it is a cool thing to learn. It's part of our craft that you can often make a performance better, and you can come back in and add some element or dimension to it, which helps. If you can help. And it's hard to take stuff that's off camera that overlaps on camera and keep it in the movie. If you're not on camera, and you talk over the guy on camera, they can't use either piece. She was able to save a lot of it, and that was very important to a lot of those high-octane scenes. Definitely.

1:11 · jump to transcript →

Judd Nelson

I don't even remember thinking that I understood that concept then, when we were making the film. That the simplicity of one room unlocking all of that potential, he really had something in mind here. And you're right, like you said, Jason, before, the school is definitely a character. These are the actual hallways of the school. And it was empty, so it was kind of... - And you get that feeling. They don't shoot that much outside the library, but you get the feeling it's this big, empty building. You really do. These hallways and the ADR with your footsteps and the whole bit. School on Saturday, who's gonna be there? Kids that get in trouble, the teacher unlucky to have the job, and the janitor. And then you set us out on this journey, which also represents risk here, like we're risking together to come back safely. Yeah, for all of you to agree to do it. 'Cause basically, I'm going to get my dope. Right. All these themes. - Look at that locker. It's very funny. The Doors, he's got The Doors going on in there. Yeah, all sorts of shit. Did you get to decorate the locker? I got to remove things that were incredibly bad, that I was like, "I ain't putting that in there." Meaning, for that particular character, I don't think we got... It was a little awkward. Most of the prop guys were like... "It's a little bit soft rock vibe for me, "so let's take Hall & Oates out."

44:07 · jump to transcript →

And this scene was originally written at night, and Brian called me up and said, we have to shoot this in a day, because the whole damn movie takes place here. Yeah. It's fun in a day, too. You get more perspective, and you get the notion that there might be people in the neighborhood, like, around watching, but since the action is so boxed in by these vans, maybe they don't see it. And now see the palm tree? Oh, you can't. Little ADR there.

32:35 · jump to transcript →

This is interesting. The dialogue in this scene was actually... Verbal's voice is from another take, and I put it over this take. I remember that. I did that a few times in the picture with a few people. Not because it just works for me better in certain ways. That was one that I don't remember. I hate ADR. Where's your head, Agent Kuyon? But we had such a good time writing all the ADR for... For the television and airline version, yeah.

1:03:01 · jump to transcript →

Chris David and Chuck Michael at the mix for saving a lot of scenes that we thought would never work with the production dialogue. And making scenes where we were forced to ADR in the end fly. Yeah, absolutely. I haven't seen it at home yet, but in the theater, some of these scenes, I wouldn't have known they were looped. They did a good job in the mix. Yeah, well the scene with Benicio and Sarno outside the diner, and then the scene with Abner and Sarno right after that, both are completely looped.

1:13:53 · jump to transcript →

Here's Jose. His ADR is great. I wish there was a way to isolate his ADR. His ADR is so much fun. It's so funny. Jose, by the way, again, another beautifully understated, completely overlooked performance. Watch Jose. In a beautifully understated and completely overlooked movie. Thank you. And by the way, the most understated scene. Talk about subtle. But watch Jose in this scene and what he does with his eyes.

1:29:11 · jump to transcript →

Hi, I'm Steve Summers, the writer-director of this thing. And to my left is Bob Doucet, the executive producer and editor. Hello, everybody. Here we go. Didn't we just finish this movie? So, as we sit here in ADR 6 on the Universal lot a couple months after this movie is open, the picture is closing in on about $200 million at the domestic box office, and

0:01 · jump to transcript →

real jungle, and then you cut to a sound stage. And we had to replace all the sound and dialogue here replaced because we have these huge fans that are screaming in the background. In fact, in the movie, there's an enormous amount of ADR. It was a huge job for our ADR supervisor, Patrick Dodd. Additional dialogue replacement. We had to lip sync a lot of the dialogue because of all the noise and

1:26:16 · jump to transcript →

Richard Curtis

I would like half-pint of... They all came in and did ADR on this, they replaced their dialog with exactly the same. No, it was great. Still saying... - You're kidding. Really?

1:22:42 · jump to transcript →

Richard Curtis

That is one of the most feeble of all the ADR, the ones for the TV version. I think It's, "Let's have a drink and watch some telly." -/t was absolutely... - The Disney version, yeah. Very good acting here, Hugh. That's a very serious face. Isn't it? Isn't it? That's the one you can use when you're playing George Bush. It was a very odd moment and I feel like a prize idiot. Particularly because, if you can't say it at Christmas when can you, eh, I'm actually yours. With love... Dawning realization. I remember having to talk you through this bit. "Put down the card." "Thinking things." - "Look serious. Pick up the card." "Slightly furrowed brow. Pick it up again." They were nice hands. "Reach for the phone." "Urgent voice." - This is how directing works, isn't it? You just talk them through.

1:41:25 · jump to transcript →

LCD monitor in there, and that's how we shot these close-ups. This, for whatever it's worth, this was all an ADR. Billy re-recorded the audio. But he did such a great job doing this. He gave it a very kind of, that kind of very cool, you know, that great kind of spy clandestine sort of vibe. But he did a great job.

10:12 · jump to transcript →

Lindsay, I'm gonna short out the explosion with your head. You're gonna be okay. And we did a lot of tweaking on this to make it clear that there was 30 seconds. All the way to the end, it was how long and... Right. Even, by the way, when, you know, Maggie falls out of the chopper and, you know, you're saying, you know, hold on, hold on. I mean, just that dialogue, that looping that we put in helped explain that moment in a huge way. This was a great ILM piece. That shot is ILM. This shot's ILM. That, that, that's back on stage.

24:47 · jump to transcript →

and went up here and built this was in hopes to have snow there. I feel sorry for Zita. Yeah, the voice. Her voice got dubbed over. I did, too. It was very hard for a lot of the audience to understand. Yeah, and there were technical problems, too. She was not available at the time of ADR, right? How long were we shooting this, do you remember? This was my portion of the first unit, I think,

2:59 · jump to transcript →

a lot of it just using different hallways or trying to make it look like different hallways with using the same set. This is killer. I love how the brick breaks away. Bam, that punch is vicious. This is the best right here. The brick break. What is that made of? I think foam. Foam? Foam. I would play that shot of her smashing into that brick, and it was my Monday shot. I'd have the video guys just loop that and say, can you please play my Monday? That's just how I felt whenever I got a migraine or whatever, and that would just be looping.

48:22 · jump to transcript →

Patrick Tatopoulos

Leave? We did-- This... Tried to match in as well as it could. This was all ADR in the end, right? - Yeah. It's just these wind machines and everything, wasn't it? We had to keep them warm enough because there was wind machine. Again, the space we had was great for its size... ...but the sound was not... We had a lot of work to do on post. Tilt-up concrete warehouses that had been built... ...to house sheep feed, those pellets that sheep eat. And they were definitely not sound stages. Also, there's little ADR add-ons in here.... I wish we could've gone in a little bit more detail... ...about the shackles around their neck that... Right, yeah. - The moon shackles. Yeah, that he actually said that if I can remove this shackle... ...and they've got the silver spikes in them that... I wish we had. We wanted to. I mean, we'd talked about it and had a scene for it. That you see, if they tried to transform, those silver spikes... What happens, of course, their neck grows, they get larger... ...and it immediately digs into their skin... ...and stops them from transforming. We never really had a chance to bring that across in the dialogue.

15:12 · jump to transcript →

Patrick Tatopoulos

In the original draft for this thing, the script... ...Kevin wasn't been bitten in this scene. That's right. Yeah. And would turn into werewolf much later. I mean, would be bitten much later in the movie. So this part of the what you do with ADR... ...changing the moment of camera having him saying... ...basically changing his word and saying: "What happened to them?" to, "What happened to us?" And just realise it would help because people had a hard time... ...understanding when... It just didn't quite work, and if that scene just seems a little odd... . It's because it is. It just a little bit of patchwork to mend something... ... that just wasn't working. This one's gonna be pretty clear scene, though.

42:15 · jump to transcript →

Yeah, and a little you can't really see of him. That's a big hose strapped to the side of Bette's face. You've got a little mouthpiece in there for the vomit to come out. Who's there? I love the way Jay delivers his line. Yeah. I got a big fucking stick! And we ADR'd a lot of this, so it was pretty good.

28:28 · jump to transcript →

And we used an obnoxious amount of cans of smoke with our foggers that we had. And what ended up happening is it set the fire alarm off, which is like there's an alarm on the outside of that home that's like an air raid siren. And so it was like basically like at 5 a.m. till like 7 a.m. that thing was blasting. And so we had to basically like ADR all those lines and just kind of, you know, try our best to ignore it.

1:20:56 · jump to transcript →

I don't remember whether I tried to get her to change it or not, but I decided after the fact to loop her with an actress who had a southern accent. And that necessitated looping Warren as well. As you know, to get a balance, you have to... Of course, yeah. If you do one, you've got to do the other. I want to get down there and fix it up before she gets there.

1:16:31 · jump to transcript →

Paul Davis

They could the the rain machine that they had wasn't powerful enough and they couldn't see the rain on camera So they just got a guy to come and stand with an industrial fire hose To stand next to them firing it up into the air in an arc so that it dropped down and he was wearing a waterproof jacket and his Pockets were absolutely filled with water throughout the entire thing his hands just froze And because it was his first film he didn't didn't understand that he had to go and do ADR for

52:46 · jump to transcript →

The actors took less than their normal salaries to do it. Did they? Yeah. I think the sound man was stoned and had the sound machine set on automatic. Some of the sound was distorted. I know he had problems with that. But there are new technical things. You can overcome them in the end. You can do post sync and looping and everything else.

17:27 · jump to transcript →

Pedro by the oil refineries. Now, this argument also, if you remember, I went across, we were doing it looping, and it was myself, and then I went across to Holiday Hell Spa, found two Latinas, and we brought them in, paid them 50 bucks, and they actually were doing that argument with me inside the house. Great. Wasn't this house used, again, in the film Scarface? It looks similar to that. I think that it's almost exactly the same shot, yeah. That's right.

49:14 · jump to transcript →

There's a post-production looping that. Beep, beep, beep. I always loved this one. He didn't even move. Yeah. I think we were giving it all we got. I don't think we were being too bashful there. Yeah. He was a big guy. Still is. He still is. Oh, this is funny.

1:01:54 · jump to transcript →

When you came to do ADR for the scene, I remember you were a little surprised at the way the scene was constructed. Was it that the flubs felt... I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair... Not integrated? What was your first reaction for seeing it? Well, I think... My father's in the Army. He wants me to join.

41:28 · jump to transcript →

Now, Stallone's got a missing daughter. We can talk about this more, but the missing daughter element never really... I mean, we ended up shooting something where he actually finds his daughter, but we cut it out because it was dragging the movie and with great actress Elizabeth Ruscio. But when you come to the sex scene, everyone in the test audience thought Sandra Bullock was going to be Stallone's daughter. So they're all like pulling their hair out and groaning. So we had to do some ADR to...

35:47 · jump to transcript →

People expect them to be one way, and it's like, no, that's acting. He came in. It was right before he did the Cop Killer song. Oh, yeah. And he came into the mix and did Cop Killer for us. Wow. One of the great moments. Just, like, me and the mixers. No, it was not the mixers. It was the ADR. Me and the ADR guys. And he raps the whole song. And you're like, okay, this is why my life is so awesome. I can't believe it. Wow.

1:07:07 · jump to transcript →

Yeah, this is good, though, because Dao, that shot, it gets the green screen again on stage. So in reality, on the stage, it's all green. And then later on, you know, boss film or Cinecide, in this case, put the background in the clouds. And we had wind machines going here. So you have to dub all the dialogue later on one more time because you couldn't understand a word because of all the wind machines making all that noise to create that wind. Do you direct your own ADR?

1:38:10 · jump to transcript →

You can't even tell. No. Beautiful looping. Yeah. I don't know what you are. Some kind of highly trained G-man or part of some super secret elite force of international super cops. Wow, super cop. I just thought it would be up to me to get a job to support us. Once we get to Mexico, I'm going to ransom you. If I have to, I'll shoot you.

1:16:50 · jump to transcript →

Len Wiseman

I still have a scar from this. I hated this day. - I remember you hurt yourself. Getting you to pull Soeedman out of this elevator. That's when they dragged me along a nail here. Your leg got caught up on some board. But there was a nail sticking up or a corner of a tile. And those crazy contacts too. - You couldn't see out of those ones. Yeah. - Yeah, he was completely blind. I don't think I could have gotten those in my eye. Hats off to the guy. You had big ones. - Yeah. I hear you have big ones. - Yeah. That's a rumour. - Sometimes. Only sometimes. Oh, my God, and all this stuff here, when we were outside. You and me, to be out of breath, just running and running. I remember you started the whole running-around thing. Yeah. - I got a call from your agent... ...before I even met you. He said: "I want to warn you, Scott kind of runs around set before he shoots a scene." But everybody does if they need to be out of breath, don't they? You run around a set after you shoot the scene. I run around not just to be out of breath. I'd run just to kind of get some energy out and kind of get loose. I don't know, it's weird. - You went flying over that car. I was freaked-out that I'd broken you. - Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love this shot. - What song Is this? What's that? What... - Speedman said a bad word. I'm the only one that swears. - I know. I tried to say "asshole"-- Oh, this is so cool. I love this. This is the famous carpet thing, right? There he goes on his carpet. - A magic-carpet ride. It looks great. - And that was half of Todd Schneider. This. - Yeah. That's Todd right there. That's so dangerous. Michael did the jump onto that, right? Michael did the jump, and Todd did the run-by. Oh, this is where we were reacting to nothing. And this where you refused to scream. You said, "I'll do itin ADR. I'm not going to scream on the day." Remember that? - I didn't think... I still didn't think the character was a screamer, But I was wrong. That'd be kind of painful, though. I'd give it a yelp. I think it's healthy for a child to have her parents... ... sort of stabbing each other through the hoods of cars.

27:50 · jump to transcript →