Echoes of Silence - ADR Sessions

On the Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we held the ADR sessions for two of our main actors at CCAD. The first session on the Tuesday was with actress Eliza Hunton, who plays the character of Emily, the AI companion of the main character Julian. As both writer and director of the film I understood how hard this was going to be to get right from the very beginning. It's a difficult thing to pull off caring for and understanding a character who you never see physically. I also knew from the beginning that I wanted someone with a soft textured voice who could play a sophisticated program-minded being. When I was sent the voice recording from the actress I knew straight away that I was to utilise her, so I cast her back in February. It evidently took a while for us to get around to recording the ADR. This was because at the time we were in a heavy shooting schedule, which ended up benefitting us as during the ADR session we had a lot to work with. On Tuesday we attempted to record every line that the character of Emily has in the film. Not realising what I had done so early in the process of creating an AI character, I made the easiest possible scenario for recording ADR. The fundamental issue with ADR is timing. Getting the timing right in recording the actors line to match how their mouth moves in the footage. In the case of a character that never physically appears, that is never an issue. All we had to do is record the line and place it wherever we want it in relation to the other character who responds to those lines. Despite this it was still important that the lines felt authentic, which meant there was still a lot of directing to do during the ADR process. The actress Eliza was fantastic to work with as a director. It becomes increasingly easy as I age and mature as a director to differentiate between a theatre based actor and a screen based one. Eliza is quite clearly theatre based, as she constantly questions the inner motive of the character. We explored the morale issues of the film in depth, and I strongly believe those conversations lead us down an avenue in which she was successful in her readings. I really felt during this ADR session that I was applying my research into directing actors, by simply coaxing the actor into conversation and exploring the possibilities off the script pages. All in all the ADR session was a great success. Over the next week I will be reviewing the audio files and allowing them to fit into the edit. If I eventually do feel like I didn't get what I needed, I can easily reschedule a second ADR session to improve upon any weaknesses I find. Below is an image of our sound recordist and actress at work during ADR. 

The second day of ADR recording took place with our main actor. In contrast to our previous day recording with our actress who does not appear as a physical entity, this time we had to use the ADR to match the previously shot scenes. This was where the ADR got tricky. I already had an understanding of how hard ADR can be to pull off from my previous experience. For these reasons I was less intimidated by the prospect of how much ADR there was to do. I simply got straight into it with the hope of achieving results. Graham unfortunately had a bit of a cold the day of the ADR recording so some of his stuff is likely to sound quite sloppy through the mic. I wasn't too concerned with this as the first ADR was just a starting point which we could pick up on at a later date. The main issue I faced with the ADR session with Graham was the fact that I was doing it alone. Unfortunately the recording landed on a day when no one was in or were busy. Lack of preparation caught up with me when I realised this. I spent 20 minutes to half an hour before Graham was due to turn up running around the building looking for any unlikely soul who I could come across, with the aim of making them help me. I eventually gave up and accepted that I was going to have to both record the audio from Graham and also direct the ADR session. I can only say I regret that decision. I've had this debate many times before, and I stand by myself when I say that you can't direct and do any form of technical recording simultaneously. Nemesis suffered when I became a director/camera operator as you're seeing what it is you want objectively but you have no room for concentrating on performance and nuance. Unfortunately I think this happened in the second ADR session, whereas the first as shown in the pictures above, I had access to a recordist. I was able to talk through the script in great depth and I really felt like I was giving direction. Like all issues we come across we'll learn from them, and in the next ADR session I'll make sure I make the changes I need to get better results.