ADR Studio Sydney

ADR is a big part of what we do here at Crash Symphony Productions. For those of you that are not familiar with ADR is stands for Additional Dialogue Replacement. This is where additional vocal audio needs to be recorded after filming. It is often because there was a problem with a specific line, or lines, on the day of recording. We set up our ADR studio Sydney so that the actors with have a video picture in front of them and they can lip-synch to what they have already done on set.

The film

In a recent session we worked on a film called The Bleeder. On this particular occasion it was requested that the crew from overseas be patched into the session via video link-up and watch the picture as the ADR was being recorded. ADR supervisors requested to listen to the signal coming into the shotgun microphone, otherwise known as “the boom”. Our secondary microphone was a DPA lapel microphone. This was muted during the recording session.

ADR Beeps

It was request that during our ADR Studio Sydney session we use three ADR beeps entering into all the cue points. The beginning of the cue point being where the fourth beep would have been. These ADR beeps are created using a one thousand kilohertz sine wave that only lasts for a very short time. The interval between the beeps was exactly one second. This helps the actor hear the position of the line. We use closed back headphones during our ADR Studio Sydney sessions to ensure that no signal gets on to the audio recording microphone.

Method of Recording Takes

Interestingly, it was specifically requested that we do not use loop record during this ADR session. For those of you that are not familiar with loop record, this is where the recording continues in a loop and each take is saved to a playlist. In this session, we recorded a line and then pulled the take down on to neighbouring tracks. Then we continued to record another take, if required. The is contrary to how we would usually operate in ADR Sydney Studio.