Incident on Reel #4

Spent the weekend in the sound lab, watching a crew loop dialog for a short film that we wrote.

Looping (or ADR, Additional Dialog Replacement) consists of bringing the actors in one by one, and having them re-record selected lines of dialog while the scene plays in real time on a giant monitor. (Common reasons we gave to the actors yesterday for needing to recapture their dialog: “We want to try it with a different line;” “We couldn’t hear you on that one;” “Deliver this line again, but try to sound less gay this time.”)

Sounds exciting, but it gets real boring real fast.

Until the editor said: “Hey, what’s that noise?” He hands the headphones over to the director. “Take a look at this scene. Did he just…” The director laughs, then concurs: “I think he did.”

Turns out the lead actor broke wind on camera.

Sure enough, when we play back the tape, this is what we see: A close up of the actor, waiting for the scene to begin. He looks left, looks right, then rises up from his chair and lets it rip.

When confronted, the actor denied it. Adamantly. Then he deflected the blame: “It was the chair. The chair moved.” The sound editors insist it was flatulence. After about twenty four viewings, all of the crew agreed- “dude, you farted on camera.” But the actor stood his ground.

So we asked the other actors. One by one, as they arrived to record their dialog, we sat them down. And each time, the Director says “before we begin, I want you to watch this .” One actor immediately declared "No chair makes that noise.”

The lead actor denied it. Adamantly. But the evidence against him was damming; it was all on tape. “The sound. It's perfect.” “See how it actually lifted him up off the chair?” “He looks around before he let it go.”

When we left, the crew was huddled around the monitor, analyzing the tape frame by frame. “See, watch him lift himself off of his right cheek. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left…”