These notes aim to give a brief introduction to sound for films. Some details are specific to India and Bangalore.
Sync sound means capturing the actors’ vocal performance on set during production. The goal is clean dialogue so actors do not have to re-record lines in ADR later. It is difficult to recreate spontaneity, pitch, intonation, rhythm, and emotion-especially alone in an unusually quiet studio.
Sync sound seems like the right way-so why doesn’t everyone do it?
Firstly, it is more expensive than dubbing the film afterward-but that is the easy part. Sync sound demands hard work and discipline from every department: direction, production, actors, camera, crew, and editorial.
Direction
A shot breakdown is best; at minimum the script should be locked. Changing dialogue after picture edit is not advisable with sync sound. Prompting lines or giving direction while a take is rolling is not advisable.
Production
When choosing locations, consider the soundscape. A village that is supposed to be isolated cannot be shot next to a highway just because it looks beautiful-unless a highway is acceptable in the script and can be established visually, in which case occasional truck noise during dialogue may be believable.
Actors
Co-operation with hidden wireless microphones is essential. It is surprising how many actors cannot or do not bother to remember lines-obviously problematic for sync sound. Actors must know the language they speak; sync sound is not viable if a lead who does not speak Kannada is playing the Kannada lead.
Camera department
Multi-camera shoots with drastically different lensing should be avoided. If one camera shoots an extreme wide master and another an extreme close-up, the boom must stay out of the master frame-but editors often cut to the close-up for dialogue, making the recorded perspective wrong and the production track unusable. There are workarounds; I will write about that in a future note.
Crew
The crew must be quiet-astonishingly difficult in practice. I have had entire two-minute takes ruined because an executive producer was on the phone at full volume during the take. Sound-proof generators are preferable; otherwise park generators as far as possible to minimise interference.
Editor
A specific workflow applies to sync-sound films. I will write about that later. Each shot must be synced to the correct sound files before editing begins. I highly recommend timecode to automate syncing. Trying to sync sound to an already-edited film is disastrous-I have been there. Never again.
It can seem like a lot of problems-but any director or editor who has seen a film fall flat after dubbing knows the value of the actor’s original performance. It is well worth the effort to capture that coherent performance on set.