June 25th, 2000/July 1st 2000

This was the worst. Missing a tape of audio, and since we shot on FILM there was no audio. We had to do looping without even the benefit of knowing exactly what was said.

Sure, you HOPE the actor said what was in the script but do you know how often actors subtly change lines?

I do...

June 25th 2000

Editing the picture. Trying a scene one way, trying it another, and seeing which one I like. Shortening clips, retrying the scene, over and over again until it’s perfect.(or as close as you can get with a little footage as we’ve got)

Discovered a BIG problem. I seem to be missing a DAT tape. If it can’t be found, we’ll have to ADR(Automatic Dialogue Replacement) without the Automatic. Also called looping, which is more appropriate to what we’ll have to do.

What that means is that I’ll have the actors watch themselves on television and try to say every line that they said when they did the dialogue.

What makes it extra tough is this. The big movies do ADR in some places because there might be too many other sounds getting in the way of the dialogue(traffic, or a plane, or any other little sound). In their case, they can actually play back the way they said the line and just try to mimic it.

In our case, we don’t even have that. So if one of my actors did any improv at all, we’ll have to take guesses at what they said. (And remember, we shot this movie over a year ago, so it’s not as if the lines are fresh in their head)

I’m going to do some extensive looking for the missing tape, but I’m not hopeful. I have a feeling it must have been lost on location, as whenever a tape got full, I left it at my store. All the other tapes were together, so if the missing tape isn’t at my store, it’s MIA for good.

JULY 1st 2000

The tape is gone. I’ve looked everywhere. It’s gone the way of the dodo.

So…I knew we’d have to do ADR for the final fight scene, as we didn’t record dialogue at all. But now I’m missing a number of other scenes, the toughest being when the police detective comes to Aric’s door and questions him about the murder in his neighborhood.

It’s a lot of dialogue. I haven’t talked to Joe Ripple(who plays the detective) since we shot the movie, other than a few emails here and there.

To test the water, I’m gonna get Rick over here to try some lines out, see how easy/hard this is gonna be. From what I hear, it’s not a walk in the park.

The good news, and I think you always have to try to look for the silver lining—even though you may not find it—is that, with all these problems, there’s not a lot I haven’t learned how to handle.

On the next movie(‘cause there WILL be another), I’m going to be well-prepared and more comfortable, because frankly, I’m pretty sure there’s no problem I can’t work around.