If you hired a sound guy who knows what he's doing, he probably recorded all of the audio in 24 bits, as opposed to 16. But when the editor starts up their session, it sometimes defaults to a 16 bit session, and the editor either doesnt know the different, or forgets to change it to a 24 bit session. So all of those nice high def audio files recorded on set are being reduced to almost CD quality (which is low)! Be sure that the editor knows to run their session in 24 bits so that you arent handing a lower quality project to your post sound guys after editing.
For those of you who dont know, 24 bit vs 16 bit is the equivelant of having a fader on a mixer that is one inch high as opposed to three inches high. For you video people, its like DV vs HD. If you were trying to mix something with the small fader, you would have less room to really get that track into the mix. But if you had a larger fader, you would have more room for the sound to lay in its place and really dial in where it needs to be. Litterally speaking, we are talking about dynamic range, which is how much room you have between silence and distortion (how loud your signal can get). 24 bits gives you a lot more head room, so your signal is less likely to distort. And it sounds more natural, because it is less compressed than 16 bits. So be sure to keep this in mind.
Now, on to Dialogue Editing!
On set you usually have a number of different takes for a particular scene. In this example, I'm going to talk about a simple "two shot" scene, using one camera.
Usually you would have your two actors facing eachother, and the camera is looking at one of the actors at an angle. The sound guy would normally mic up the actor that the camera is recording. Then when the director feels you have a good take, you do the exact same thing again, except the camera is facing the other actor, and likewise the sound guy is miking up that actor as well.
In editing, your film editor resyncs the audio for each take with the picture, decides which is the best take, and pieces it together, cutting between the two angles to show the conversation. Simple enough right? In theory, but there are a couple of things that can change the outcome.
Often times when filming a two shot, the set is nice and quiet for one angle, but then it gets noisy for the other angle. So when you cut between the two, one actor always has a lot of background noise, and the other doesnt. How do you avoid this? Well, sometimes you cant. But what your editor can do is go through all of the takes of that noisy scene and put a couple of the better audio takes on an ALT track in the session, so when it is handed off to the dialogue editor, they can go in and resync the audio to get a cleaner take.
Another problem that can occure is when the actors are allowed to improvise. If they are improvising, chances are you will have a very hard time piecing together a cohesive conversation, and if they have two different conversations for both angles of the same shot, you can really run into problems. I worked on a film once where this was the case, and the director/producer decided that for one segment they wanted the actor who wasnt on camera to be speaking during a two shot while we were looking at the other actor. The problem was that we never got a good take of the question being asked in the scene because the only time the question was asked was when that actor was off camera, so they clearly sound like they were far away from the mic, whereas every other time they spoke they werent. There was no budget in this film for ADR, so we had to live with it. If the actors hadnt improvised, we could have easily found a good take of that question and layered it over the scene to get a good version of that dialogue; another thing less experienced editors wouldnt know to do.
Another thing that we try to avoid is having actors step on eachothers lines. I know that sometimes the script calls for this, but it is hard to pull off and get good sound if youre on a low budget film, and you are only using a boom with no lavs. If the actors dont step on eachothers lines, the effect can be achieved in editing with little difficulty, and your audio tracks can be overlapped as needed.
A different thing one runs into is when let's say two actors are having a conversation, and again you are using one camera, and a boom. One actor is sitting at a table, the other is preparing something in the kitchen. The actors both usually go over their lines and have their conversation during both of their shots. Now, imagine in editing, you decide to focus on the actor preparing something in the kitchen while the seated actor talks. As far as audio goes, you have a choice of getting the sounds the actor in the kitchen is making, whith the voice of the other actor far away, or just the voice of the other actor, and no kitchen noise. Which do you choose? Well, I always tell the actors that it is best to do a quick run through and know how long the other actors lines are going to be, or give them some sort of signal once they are done so that they know when to respond. This way, when the descision in post is made to stay on the actor in the kitchen, but have the dialogue of the other actor be heard, you can still get a good signal from both actors and not compromise the situation. Just stick both takes on different overlapping tracks, and have your post mixer make it sound good!
These are just a few small examples of how everyone on set can work together as a team to ensure that your film turns out sounding great, regardless of how small the production is. Your dialogue editor will be very greatful, and as always, a happy crew is a hard working crew! That includes post!
