CHAPTER 1

What Is Dialogue Editing?

I can't mix a thing if the tracks aren't prepared.

Tom Fleishman, rerecording mixer
Goodfellas; The Age of Innocence

Dialogue editing is one of the least understood aspects of motion picture sound postproduction. Most people have some grasp of the roles of sound effects editors or backgrounds editors or music editors. To most moviegoers, Foley is a charming—yet perhaps a bit silly—process, and it's not hard to understand it once you've seen it. Mixing, too, is a pretty straightforward concept, even if massively complex in actual fact. Few non-pros, however, understand dialogue editing.

A dialogue editor is responsible for every sound that was recorded during the shoot. She takes the more or less finished film from the picture editor, makes sense of the edited sounds, organizes them, and finds out what works and what doesn't. The dialogue editor wades through the outtakes to find better articulations, quieter passages, sexier breaths, and less vulgar lip smacks. He replaces washy wide-shot sound with clean close-up takes, establishes depth in otherwise flat scenes, and edits tracks for maximum punch and clarity.

Dialogue editors work to remove the filmmaking from the film. Dolly squeaks, camera noise, crew rustling, and light buzzes must go; otherwise, the magic of the movies is compromised. They help present the actors in their best light, quieting dentures, eliminating belly noises, and sobering slurred syllables. And when the production sound can't be saved, the dialogue editor is involved in the ADR process, that is, the rerecording of voices in the studio to replace problem field recordings or to beef up performances.

Dialogue editing is all of these things and more. Dialogue is what makes most films work. The dialogue editor makes the dialogue work.

Most narrative films rely on the spoken word to tell the story, develop characters, and touch hearts. You can eliminate most of the sound effects in a scene, the backgrounds can largely be muted, or the music can be dumped. The scene will still work. But for the most part you can't eliminate the dialogue track, even for a moment.

We've grown so accustomed to the language of film that blind acceptance of the implausible is the norm. After a century of unknowingly mastering the language of film, we accept the convention of cutting from one speaking character to another and we interpret this unnatural collision as a “conversation.” We have no trouble trusting scenes in which we hear both sides of a telephone conversation regardless of whom we see. And we don't shake our heads in disbelief when hearing a distant tête-à-tête in a long shot—dialogue we rationally know would be out of bounds to us. We want to believe that what we see and hear is very real. Only something that patently breaks the rules of the language of film will shatter our confidence and make us question the reality we've been accepting.

Most people know that films are rarely shot in order but rather in a sequence determined by location and set availability, actors' schedules, exotic equipment rental coordination, and overall efficiency. Even within scenes, the shot sequences may not be in script order. Don't be surprised to discover that two people who are apparently talking to each other on screen were not together when the close-ups were shot. This shooting discontinuity makes the dialogue editor's job even more crucial. We must do everything in our power to convince the viewer that these characters actually were talking with each other; we must remove any impediments to the audience's total belief in the reality of the scene. Poorly matched ADR, grossly inappropriate backgrounds or sound effects (birds out of season or location, incorrect guns or motors, etc.), insensitive use of perspective, or a sloppy mix will drag us out of the film, even if for a moment, and it's a battle to reestablish trust after such a betrayal.

Dialogue editors play a vital role in the subterfuge of moviemaking. It's up to us to turn the many shots and production sounds into a convincing, coherent scene that even the most skeptical filmgoer will watch without being aware of the filmmaking that went into it. Unlike sound effects editors, background editors, or music editors, our magic most certainly goes unseen (or unheard)—if it's performed well. Only our failures attract attention.

So, just what is the dialogue editor's part in this process?

• To organize and manage the material. When you first screen a film, the sound may seem to work, but just beneath the surface it's unorganized and unfocused. One of your biggest jobs is to make sense of it; otherwise, you can't help the dialogue discover itself.

• To smooth the transitions between shots so conversations appear to be happening in the same space, at the same time.

• To fix articulation problems, overlaps, and other language issues. This usually involves searching through alternate takes to find similar deliveries that can be used for patches.

• To address unwanted, unseemly actor noises such as lip smacks, denture clatter, and hungry belly rumbles. At times any one of these may be appropriate, but each must be challenged, removed, replaced, or at least thought about.

• To pay attention to changes and adds that will enhance the story or motivate characters' actions. This often involves a combination of observation and talks with the director and editor.

• To remove unwanted external noises, whether crew or dolly noise, unnecessary footsteps, or birds chirping during day-for-night scenes. The list of on-set noises is endless, and each one of them reminds the viewer that we're making a movie.

• To replace sections of dialogue corrupted by distortion, wind, clothing rustle, boom handling, and the like.

• To determine what can't be saved through editing and must be rerecorded through postsynchronization. This is done in conjunction with the ADR supervisor, if one exists.

• To serve as the arbiter of sync issues in the film. Usually the other departments follow your lead in deciding the film's sync.

• To prepare the dialogue tracks for the dialogue premix (predub). Your tracks not only must sound good but must be presented to the mix in a logical and efficient manner so that the mixer can spend precious time telling a story with the dialogue tracks rather than sorting out disasters.

• To assist in the dialogue premix. You, more than anyone, know the tracks, and you planned a particular interpretation of the scene while cutting them, so you need to be involved at this stage. You also have to be available to make fixes or changes to the dialogue tracks during the premix.

• To separate production effects from the dialogue track in preparation for the M&E mix.

Dialogue editing is the glue that holds the production sound together. No other facet of sound editing requires such a wide array of skills.