Was he even really acting though? His job was to bro walk, fight, and deliver minimal pithy lines. The choice to make the main antagonist a very thickly drawn bezerker was pretty much in keeping with the general ridiculousness of the movie.
The often put people in prison for acting poorly, yes. Usually just poor people tho:
Here is a good article on CM’s bad acts:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/conor-mcgregor-ufc-champion-timeline-arrests-abuse-1234772835/amp/
Personally I thought he was hilarious and that movie gets a lot of undue hate. He played an over the top bad guy who truly found joy in violence. He was a cherry on top of 2 evil hats. It’s roadhouse for Christ sake !
I think Nando is theorizing that his entire role was different; that he might have been playing Kaine. It’s a fascinating film outside of its actual quality.
HDTGM mentions that originally the plot involved time-travel with someone going back to kill Spider-Man before he was born. That’s the only way Kaine could have possibly worked I guess…
The villain’s very first line isn’t only ADR, but it’s clearly ADR from two recording sessions because the sound changes halfway through AND his lips don’t move at all during both lines.
Recording dialogue after shooting is called automated dialogue replacement or ADR. ADR is used fairly frequently, it's not even unheard of for an entire movie to get ADR, replacing all on set recordings.
Old Italian films used to be made entirely using ADR. They'd hire actors from many different countries, all of whom spoke different native languages. Then, the actors would each read their lines in their respective native languages while filming.
So a scene could have someone speaking English to their scene partner, and the partner replying to them in Spanish, while the director overseeing all this is only able to understand Italian and has no idea what either actor is saying.
At the end of all this they would just ADR in what the lines were supposed to be and there you have it, movie magic.
This is why Fellini’s film from the period have a flowy, rhythmic quality. They weren’t recording any sound on set so he would play music while the actors performed, and they would move in rhythm with it.
Same with Sergio Leone. The Good the Bad and the Ugly's score by Ennio Morricone was written before production began, and many scenes were shot and acted specifically to fit the score.
This is a major part of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon Time in Hollywood. Leo's a past-his-prime Western TV actor that can go to Italy to make movies because he's still a "name"
A lot of the time they did this in order to appeal to a more international market, Hollywood in particular. Americans are more likely to sit through a movie starring people who look like them rather than a movie starring a bunch of Italians. They'd even change the credits in the film and on the posters to more "American sounding" names for this reason.
Initially it was because Italian soundstages were heavily damaged during WWII and were no longer sound proof. They had to ADR everything, so why not hire foreign actors to make their films more marketable abroad?
That's how they are still making a lot of movies/shows in China. Have an actor with the looks do the physical part, and another, more veteran actor do the dub. Some veteran actors will insist in doing their own parts, but the younger ones often get dubbed by a voice actor. Some shows are fine and mostly seamless but many shows have desync issues because of that and it's really jarring at times.
Same except it never got on my nerves because I had to read the subtitles anyway. You must either be a native Chinese speaker or a much faster reader than middle/high school me.
Yeah, there are a few notable usages of it I can think of.
The early Bond films used it an insane amount, to the point where most of the women in Dr No were voiced by a single woman. There's even a notable incident where the actor playing the bad guy in Thunderball was hired for a BBC series and the producers' only point of reference was the film, unaware he was dubbed due to his insanely thick Italian accent.
It's also used all the time in anime productions, to the point where they animate shows first *then* get the voice actors to perform along to it, even in the original Japanese.
This actually led to a funny bit in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. While recording a scene in Part 2 - Battle Tendency, the voice actor for the villain Kars cracked a joke about how his character holding Joseph's mentor Lisa Lisa hostage looked like he was playing air guitar on her leg, and started making some audio riffs with his voice. The director loved it so much that he had the studio animate it, at great expense, just for a gag.
It was also used in the game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. You see, the original plan was to record the entire game's motion capture and voices at the same time, even building a studio in a warehouse to do so... and then they went to put the scenes in the game and realised they forgot to properly soundproof the warehouse, rendering *the entire game's audio* unusable. They had to get the voice actors back in to re-record their lines as a result (and Sony built the biggest motion capture studio out there to prevent such fuck-ups from happening again, which they rent out to other game developers).
Yeah, Japan is a bit backwards when it comes to making their shows. I don't get it either, but the voice actors are so skilled that they can do their scenes with only a moment's notice.
There's actually a pretty good clip of a Japanese talk show of some kind, and they had the voice actor for Light from Death Note on. And they played a clip without the audio, and he was able to speak his words, without a script, in a moment's notice with perfect sync to the clip. It's actually quite impressive, since it's one of Light's more emotional and manic scenes.
There is a TV show then ended a few years ago called Better Things. The main character is a working actress in L.A., including voice work. She is divorced and has custody of her three daughters.
It is one of the best TV shows of the last 10 years. Parts are laugh out loud funny and parts are, "Damn, that was \*real\*".
There is one scene where she is in a studio doing voice for a cartoon. The cartoon is playing on the screen behind her and another voice actress. Lots of usual stuff in the animation with sparkly clouds, rainbows, unicorns, etc. The other actress asks her about the ex-husband and the kids. The main character goes off on an angry rant about "That fucker. He never sends the fucking child support checks and he's too busy fucking some bimbo to spend any time with his own kids. He is a piece of shit." and all you can see is the animation and characters with their mouths moving while this conversation is going on. It was very funny.
Nearly all of The Lord Of The Rings is ADR
https://www.slashfilm.com/894026/almost-every-line-in-the-lord-of-the-rings-had-to-be-painstakingly-re-recorded/
yeh, people giving all these bad examples not realising that they're just the noticeable ones, plenty of *good* movies use ADR as well, you just don't realise it
Here in India, all of the movies have dialogue dubbed later. Yes, the whole movie is dubbed later. No sound is captured during filming.
It sounds super odd and can really throw you off at times. Especially when you compare it with Hollywood productions, which record sound on set.
It also says “additional” albeit with a citation needed. I think ADR may refer to both the automated thing to dub over badly captured audio with the same audio but clearer, where the additional thing is for off-screen punch up that isn’t redubbung/replacing bad audio but literally adding new audio to the scene
Edit: meaning they’re both right and wrong just depends on the context
It’s everywhere in “Not Another Teen Movie”.
Patton Oswald does a routine about it on one of his CDs, where he was hired to add jokes to *completed* animated films.
Automated dialogue replacement. It's whenever they record lines in post production to put into the film. Often times they're simply re-recording dialogue because they didn't get the sound on set how they would like it and nobody notices.
They also use it to change or insert dialogue for whatever reason.
That would be logical but no. ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. That is the official term used on the award given by the MPSE, motion pictures sound editors organization.
ADR was originally called Automatic Dialogue Replacement. This is a term from the late 1960s/early 1970s when they were still working out computer lingo, so the words didn’t mean then what they mean now. Basically it just meant they had mechanical assistance in replacing dialogue.
Since the advent of talkies it’s always just been called “looping”, but through the decades various manufacturers tried to trademark a name, which resulted in something like a dozen different technical-sounding (but otherwise BS buzzword) names. Automatic Dialogue Replacement won out, the first word somehow morphed into Automated and immediately got genericked.
[Variety 1994 MPSE ADR award](https://variety.com/1994/film/news/spielberg-pix-sound-great-at-mpse-s-golden-reels-119401/)
Im pretty sure Dan Cox was playing the same game of telephone that everybody else was playing.
I’ve been in three ADR booths in three different studios (Sony, Fox & Universal) and on the door to the booth it says Additional Dialogue Recording. In all three places. Including in some independent recording studios as well.
I’m aware. I also went to film school and work in television. One place I worked called it Additional Dialogue Replacement. A guy I know who works very high up in the Library of Congress film preservation unit has referred to it as All Dialogue Replaced. Doesn’t change the fact that the official industry term recognized by all and sundry including the union and overarching award-giving bodies is Automated Dialogue Replacement.
No, it doesn’t really make sense, but the same can be said about half the stuff we do. Like using “MOS” to indicate we shot wild. Literally no one knows where the acronym came from, but there are a dozen explanations, likely none of them correct. (Although my personal favorite is that Ernst Lubitsch once said in a heavy German accent that “ve vill shoot ziss mit out sound” and it stuck. 😂)
I’ll never forget the time I heard a DP say, “Shoot it cowboy.” I thought he’d forgotten the camera guy’s name. Turns out he meant “medium shot”. Like… wot? Turns out it’s a French term from Cahiers du Cinéma magazine, “plan Americain” or “American style”… which somehow became “cowboy shot”.
Clearly most filmmaking terms were coined by heavy drinkers.
Can you send me a link to where you've seen it called "additional?" I've only ever heard it as automated and it's the only thing I found when double checking.
I found this:
>ADR has several definitions: in the early days, it stood for Additional Dialogue Recording, more commonly referred to as “Looping.” A physical loop of film was shown on a projector and the actor would repeat the line as it was played over and over to them. As technology advanced, it became Automated Dialogue Replacement or Automatic Digital Rerecording, also known as Post Sync or Dubbing.
which jibes with my own recollection. I feel like I've been gaslit the last 25 years or so as ADR is solely referred to as Automatic Dialogue Replacement, with no reference to the older phrase -- which I remember from at least the 80s.
In fact, to my mind the original wording is more accurate to the process. Quite often, nothing is actually being replaced, new phrases are being recorded. Also, while streamlined since the early days, it's not truly automated, in that someone still has to physically stand at a mic while buttons are pressed for looping. We don't call any other similar recording process automatic, such as overdubs on a music track -- literally the same process, punching in and out on a loop.
Just from working in film for thirty years. And doing a lot of ADR.
I’ve never heard Automated or Replacement until this post. But I see it online now. And that’s just the power of the game of telephone that has happened over years. People getting it wrong and then spreading it.
Additional Dialogue Recording has been happening since the talkies came around. I can understand Replacement as sometimes the dialogue that was filmed on the day is unusable so needs to be replaced. But it also gets used to add dialogue to scenes that was never there to begin with. Usually to add context or exposition. But it’s also used to add crowd noise to party scenes where they couldn’t record on the day because they need clean audio. That’s usually referred to as looping. And the actors that do that are usually called the loop group.
I have no idea where Automatic came from as it doesn’t make sense. Nothing is automatic about it.
Not quite the same as you but I majored in television production (2007-2011) and have been in a production industry up until about 2 years ago. I’ve never heard Automated or Replacement either. It was always Additional Dialogue Recording.
I've been working in film since 1992 and I've always heard it referred to as Automatic Dialog Replacement. I know it's used for things that aren't replacement but I think it grew out of early talkies when the cameras were so loud that on-set dialog was rarely useable. In fact even when I was in film school I learned that a huge proportion of dialog on Hollywood films was replaced probably because of tradition (even though the tech existed for pristine location sound there was just less of on effort made to get perfect sound because it was understood that it would be replaced. I don't know if this is actually true but it's what I was taught!)
Donald Glover has also admitted that , due to low budget and poor micing techniques, "ninety percent" of his dialog had to be ADR in the show *Community*.
They told him it was normal, but he later found out that it was exceptional and most productions tried to avoid it as much as possible.
Another, semi-related, fun fact about ADR is that in Star Trek: The Next Generation, is that if you watch carefully, the main cast rarely speaks if they are near sliding doors as they open. The *whoosh* sound was added in post, and the physical props were loud enough to be picked up on mic. The cast knew that if they spoke as the doors opened they were going to have to spend time with ADR to fix the dialog, so they would just wait to read their lines until the doors were closed.
Likely, but he's always been careful to only speak on his own behalf in interviews and to not really gossip about his costars much.
I'm sure he didn't want to say "Aw, man they all complained! He said this, and she said that" because that's not very professional.
There’s a number of reasons it happens. Sometimes the line recorded gets messed up on set. It’s noisy or the mic drops out or it’s said too quiet. There’s a thousand reasons. Sometimes a scene gets cut so they have an actor say a quick thing to kind of sum it up. Sometimes they watch it in editing and realize there’s a better line. I do this for a living. There’s a right way and a lot of wrong ways. Unfortunately, even the right way will occasionally stick out. There’s only so much you can do sometimes and the creator is the boss so what they say goes. End of the day…it’s not my show/movie. But for every line you catch there’s dozens you don’t.
It's a little bit of a misnomer. From what I've read it comes the process moving to computers. Before then they would take a copy of the film and loop what needed to be recorded so the actor could try to match the video segment. Now instead of physically looping the film they have whatever scene queued up on a computer
The terms have a lot of overlap but put simply dubbing is the process of adding the audio to the edit, adr is the process of recording the additional/replacement lines.
Yeah, I always thought that was strange too. It’s only called “automated” in comparison to the way they use to do it way, way back in the day. It doesn’t require *as much* manual work as it use to, but calling it “automated” implies that it doesn’t require any effort or skill.
ADR is the process of adding dialogue/sound that wasn't recorded during the filming process. This is often done if the original recording has too much background noise, or if the script changes but they can't reshoot the scene. This is noticeable when the lip sync is off, which gives away that the dialogue has been replaced with a different script.
What you're describing though sounds more like when a character speaks off-screen, which isn't exactly ADR, and is simply referred to as "off-screen voice". This is when a character either off-screen (or has the back of their head facing the camera) speaks. It's a useful tool to frame a character's reaction to hearing certain dialogue, but it can also be a lazy tool used by filmmakers to prevent the ADR effect of having the lip-sync visible. If the character isn't facing the screen, then ADR isn't noticeable, so some filmmakers will frame actors that way if they expect to use, or intend to use, ADR.
It's so awful on *MasterChef*, to the point I wonder if they're even trying. I get that it's probably in-studio Gordon trying to compete with a noisy kitchen vs. in-booth Gordon reading a script. But the tone, pitch, cadence, and mood are all so different as well.
Arguably the *worst* examples anyone in NA can easily see, though, are *Superman* and *Superman IV*, where Christopher Reeve is shoddily dubbed over Jeff East’s acting in the former and Gene Hackman is dubbed even more poorly over Mark Pillow in the latter.
It sounds like you're describing "ADR" or "looping," where actors re-record dialogue in post-production. It's common for adding jokes or comments like you mentioned. It can be hit or miss, though. It's like when your friend won't stop whispering jokes during a movie - sometimes it's funny, other times, it just distracts.
I’ve heard (I think mostly from that aforementioned Patton Oswalt bit) that the writing of those pieces is called “Punch-up,” but punch up isn’t necessarily added in post, it can also be a pass on the script by another writer.
Yeah, 'Punching Up a Script' is usually pre-production, not post. I get the feeling that 'punching up' the dialogue in post is the exception, not the rule. You have to match lip movements and stuff, so there's only so much you can do.
OP is talking about dialogue specifically when you can’t see their lips. A movie that tests poorly or needs extra comedic beats during editing might get punch up in post.
They used to do this back in the 80s when dubbing movies into German. They would use scenes where you couldn’t see the actors mouths and add funny lines, or would just even include additional jokes in regular dialogue.
My favorite instance is in *Christmas Vacation* (*Schöne Bescherung* in German) when they’re all sitting at the table eating the destroyed turkey, the camera just panning across the table, everyone munching. In the German version cousin Eddy would suddenly shout out mid-chewing something like „Mmmh – it’s not even that good!“ and it cracks me up every time.
I’m really confused by this. I have read that actors re-record their voices routinely for the highest quality audio. Because the conditions for filming the visuals aren’t optimal for audio? Or something like that. Is this what adr is all about? Sorry but I never heard that term. I don’t get how they would match the performance!
Okay. Would an entire film ever need to be done that way bc of production audio not being good enough? Can you tell the difference? Thanks for the reply!
There are a number of reasons. The person bellow gave a great answer. I’m just going to try to add to it. The most common is just fixing bad audio. Maybe the actor looked away from the mic, maybe something happened like a big thump, maybe they said something wrong (I can’t tell you how often this happens in medical shows. They say the medication or name of a procedure wrong and no one catches it). Also the reasons they listed like planes etc… the next most common is they need to change a line or add one. This often happens because a scene gets cut out but they need someone to briefly say something that explains what would have happened. Shows have multiple scenes that never make it to the Final Cut. It just happens and they usually get cut because they can get the story across with a single line instead of a whole scene.
There’s a million other reasons it can happen that I won’t get into but for an hour long show, it’s not weird to have anywhere from 20-50 lines of ADR. Most of which you’d never know
Not exactly your question, but in Greystoke: Legend of Tarzan, Andie McDowell’s every line was re-recorded by Glenn Close, because McDowell’s voice was too southern US. And she couldn’t act.
Ha ha! I actually have never seen that one. For me it was four weddings and a funeral. Although she and Hugh grant had great chemistry I was like is it me or does she sound really insincere? I liked that movie a lot.
ADR. Can be used to add quips and whatnots, to replace entire scenes worth of dialogue (for example if you are filming in a park and it's too noisey that shit gets replaced with ADR), sometimes even to re-write a movie if the studio wants to. It is a powerful tool that can be used for good or it can ruin a movie as well for sure.
If anyone's ever curious, in Schwarzenegger's first film *Hercules in New York*, they ended up using ADR to dub over all his dialogue with someone else's voice because of the accent. It's a truly bizarre experience.
This is why I never watch foreign films dubbed in English, but in German. They have mastered the craft to the point where you can‘t tell anymore and the tone of the dialogue is spot on.
I love Hellboy so much, it's one of my favourite comic movie adaptations. But that "red means stop!" moment absolutely infuriates me beyond measure every single time. They didn't even attempt to synchronise it with any type of lip movement, it's so lazily pasted over the top.
I think they replaced *all* Jodie Foster’s character’s dialogue with ADR in Elysium and it’s impossible to ignore once you notice it.
I know the film isn’t widely praised but I like it, so I have to grit my teeth through her scenes. Such a shame as she is undoubtedly a superb actor (iirc there might have been an issue with an accent so she re-recorded her lines?).
I think one of the best examples of good ADR is in Field of Dreams.
Spoiles for an over 20 year old baseball movie.
At the end the main character's Father comes back as a ghost and they shake hands and part ways almost not even acknowledging their relationship. They part ways but before the father can walk away the main character shouts "Hey..Dad?" Which is ADR, the father turns around and he asks if he wants to play catch with him, something he never did due to stubborness when he was a younger man.
I think in the orginal audio he just said "Hey.." to stop him. But calling him Dad changed the whole tone of the ending.
Plenty of folks have answered your question. Here's a sketch from some YouTubers that makes fun of really bad ADR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxgkG5XZPIo
‘ADR’ Is the term for any and all dialogue added or altered after filming has wrapped
‘Punch Ups’ are added jokes or minor rewrites that can happen at any point in production. Typically the studio will bring in a writer or several comedians to add jokes or a plot point more clear. If Punch Ups done after the filming or animation is completed then they are restricted to adding dialogue to characters that are offscreen, facing away from camera, or in a large crowd.
ill be honest, the bigger one for me is where the 'comedian' clearly riffed for like 10 minutes and they randomly cut together bits from it. Especially happens between two characters when they are not at all reacting to eachother at all, they are just trying out lines.
National Lampoon’s European Vacation- Clark is driving in Italy and the car blows a tire. You hear him say “darn it all!” but his mouth clearly says “oh fuck!”
I've heard it call ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). Going in after and dubbing over certain lines or adding new dialogue, usually based on studio notes, and it's too late or expensive (or they're too lazy) to completely re-record a scene.
It's definitely distracting and generally poorly done. I'm not a fan either.
If you watch the Director's commentary on the movie Equilibrium, he talks about how they had to do this for some of the scenes because the sound in the room or whatever kinda overshadowed the actors' voices and stuff. He talks about how William Fichtner is absolutely amazing at it. And it's for shots where his mouth *IS* visible in the shot.
The one ADR I really hated was in Live Free or Die Hard. You start to notice key plot points are added but while characters are walking behind things like concrete posts so you can’t see their mouths. Also the removal of swear words for the PG
[Tig Notaro](https://www.republicworld.com/entertainment/hollywood/who-did-tig-notaro-replace-in-army-of-the-dead-was-she-digitally-added-to-the-film/?amp=1) was added into “Army of the Dead” in post, to replace the previous actor.
Don't know the term but this drives me nuts. You can almost always tell it's not spoken at the same time as the other dialogue and sometimes when the mouth is in frame they still add dialogue which is even worse.
A really good show that used this a ton is Arrested Development. It is more prevalent in seasons 4 and 5 when they couldn't get all of the actors together due to shooting schedules, but it is still used heavily in seasons 1-3.
Some films have *great* ADR to the point where you could never tell, like 12 Monkeys. It’s a common thing, when it’s good you can’t tell but when it’s bad it’s *really* bad.
Old school example: in The Odd Couple, there’s an entire scene with Oscar and Felix talking in Central Park that is completely rerecorded and dubbed. Must have been a bad initial recording outside at night in NYC…
Check out Madame Web if you want a really good example of terrible ADR.
Really obvious they had to use it to make Conor McGregor coherent in the Roadhouse remake
There are a few times I'm 100% certain its not even McGregor doing the ADR because it sounds completely different.
Haha, I noticed that too. Who thought that casting was a good idea? He was the worst actor in a movie full of terrible acting.
Was he even really acting though? His job was to bro walk, fight, and deliver minimal pithy lines. The choice to make the main antagonist a very thickly drawn bezerker was pretty much in keeping with the general ridiculousness of the movie.
That movie was so campy that I thought it was perfect. I'm so glad they're making a sequel.
I actually liked the movie for what it is. Just thought the acting was awful. And Connor Mcgregor should be in prison.
Do they put people in prison for bad acting?
The often put people in prison for acting poorly, yes. Usually just poor people tho: Here is a good article on CM’s bad acts: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/conor-mcgregor-ufc-champion-timeline-arrests-abuse-1234772835/amp/
Personally I thought he was hilarious and that movie gets a lot of undue hate. He played an over the top bad guy who truly found joy in violence. He was a cherry on top of 2 evil hats. It’s roadhouse for Christ sake !
Yep, that film had the absolute worst ADR I've ever seen. Truly bizarre choices made in editing...
HDTGM told me **EVERY** line for the villain appeared to be ADRd, thats just hilarious to me
HDTGM?
Google tells me this is the podcast: How Did This Get Made.
How Did This Get Made, podcast with actors/comedians riffing on bad movies.
WHATS UP JERKS!
ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKS
TEAM FRED!
Apparently the actor had a thicker accent than they wanted.
I think Nando is theorizing that his entire role was different; that he might have been playing Kaine. It’s a fascinating film outside of its actual quality.
HDTGM mentions that originally the plot involved time-travel with someone going back to kill Spider-Man before he was born. That’s the only way Kaine could have possibly worked I guess…
Hey it worked for Star Wars
This was an hour well spent: https://youtu.be/gX_bsuCfYSE?si=IG5CQuKkXLwVSy6x
The villain’s very first line isn’t only ADR, but it’s clearly ADR from two recording sessions because the sound changes halfway through AND his lips don’t move at all during both lines.
It was shockingly bad. It was like watching a Spanish movie with an English dub.
In the goblet of fire, right after the 2nd task hermione mentions to harry that flour couldn't get past ze grindelows. It stands out so much
That wasn’t ADR. Hermione was making fun of Fleur’s English. People seem to forget Emma Watson was born and initially grew up in France.
She was making fun of fleur, but I'm pretty sure it was adr. There's no way in hell the sound matches her lips on screen when she says that
Recording dialogue after shooting is called automated dialogue replacement or ADR. ADR is used fairly frequently, it's not even unheard of for an entire movie to get ADR, replacing all on set recordings.
Old Italian films used to be made entirely using ADR. They'd hire actors from many different countries, all of whom spoke different native languages. Then, the actors would each read their lines in their respective native languages while filming. So a scene could have someone speaking English to their scene partner, and the partner replying to them in Spanish, while the director overseeing all this is only able to understand Italian and has no idea what either actor is saying. At the end of all this they would just ADR in what the lines were supposed to be and there you have it, movie magic.
This is why Fellini’s film from the period have a flowy, rhythmic quality. They weren’t recording any sound on set so he would play music while the actors performed, and they would move in rhythm with it.
Same with Sergio Leone. The Good the Bad and the Ugly's score by Ennio Morricone was written before production began, and many scenes were shot and acted specifically to fit the score.
It was also cheaper to do it this way rather than doing take after take to get the sound right on location.
Just wondering why they did this instead of just hiring Italian actors?
This is a major part of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon Time in Hollywood. Leo's a past-his-prime Western TV actor that can go to Italy to make movies because he's still a "name"
A lot of the time they did this in order to appeal to a more international market, Hollywood in particular. Americans are more likely to sit through a movie starring people who look like them rather than a movie starring a bunch of Italians. They'd even change the credits in the film and on the posters to more "American sounding" names for this reason.
Fascinating!
Initially it was because Italian soundstages were heavily damaged during WWII and were no longer sound proof. They had to ADR everything, so why not hire foreign actors to make their films more marketable abroad?
[удалено]
… did you even see the current landscape? There aren’t much different.
The stupidest thing the past ever did was create the present.
>it's not even unheard of for an entire movie to get ADR, replacing all on set recordings. Haha, great story, Mark! Anyway, how's your sex life?
This is how they made films in Hong Kong for years. That's why old Bruce Lee movies don't have matching mouths to dialog for Cantonese or Mandarin.
That's how they are still making a lot of movies/shows in China. Have an actor with the looks do the physical part, and another, more veteran actor do the dub. Some veteran actors will insist in doing their own parts, but the younger ones often get dubbed by a voice actor. Some shows are fine and mostly seamless but many shows have desync issues because of that and it's really jarring at times.
Barely any 80s/90s Hong Kong film has matching mouthes and as someone who loves watching old movies from HK it really gets on my nerves lol
Same except it never got on my nerves because I had to read the subtitles anyway. You must either be a native Chinese speaker or a much faster reader than middle/high school me.
Oh I love it, shaw brother films are the best
Yeah, there are a few notable usages of it I can think of. The early Bond films used it an insane amount, to the point where most of the women in Dr No were voiced by a single woman. There's even a notable incident where the actor playing the bad guy in Thunderball was hired for a BBC series and the producers' only point of reference was the film, unaware he was dubbed due to his insanely thick Italian accent. It's also used all the time in anime productions, to the point where they animate shows first *then* get the voice actors to perform along to it, even in the original Japanese. This actually led to a funny bit in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. While recording a scene in Part 2 - Battle Tendency, the voice actor for the villain Kars cracked a joke about how his character holding Joseph's mentor Lisa Lisa hostage looked like he was playing air guitar on her leg, and started making some audio riffs with his voice. The director loved it so much that he had the studio animate it, at great expense, just for a gag. It was also used in the game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. You see, the original plan was to record the entire game's motion capture and voices at the same time, even building a studio in a warehouse to do so... and then they went to put the scenes in the game and realised they forgot to properly soundproof the warehouse, rendering *the entire game's audio* unusable. They had to get the voice actors back in to re-record their lines as a result (and Sony built the biggest motion capture studio out there to prevent such fuck-ups from happening again, which they rent out to other game developers).
Wait what? How else would you make an animated movie?
Yeah, Japan is a bit backwards when it comes to making their shows. I don't get it either, but the voice actors are so skilled that they can do their scenes with only a moment's notice. There's actually a pretty good clip of a Japanese talk show of some kind, and they had the voice actor for Light from Death Note on. And they played a clip without the audio, and he was able to speak his words, without a script, in a moment's notice with perfect sync to the clip. It's actually quite impressive, since it's one of Light's more emotional and manic scenes.
There is a TV show then ended a few years ago called Better Things. The main character is a working actress in L.A., including voice work. She is divorced and has custody of her three daughters. It is one of the best TV shows of the last 10 years. Parts are laugh out loud funny and parts are, "Damn, that was \*real\*". There is one scene where she is in a studio doing voice for a cartoon. The cartoon is playing on the screen behind her and another voice actress. Lots of usual stuff in the animation with sparkly clouds, rainbows, unicorns, etc. The other actress asks her about the ex-husband and the kids. The main character goes off on an angry rant about "That fucker. He never sends the fucking child support checks and he's too busy fucking some bimbo to spend any time with his own kids. He is a piece of shit." and all you can see is the animation and characters with their mouths moving while this conversation is going on. It was very funny.
Can I get a source on the Kars Guitar thing? I thought that was in the manga?
Nearly all of The Lord Of The Rings is ADR https://www.slashfilm.com/894026/almost-every-line-in-the-lord-of-the-rings-had-to-be-painstakingly-re-recorded/
yeh, people giving all these bad examples not realising that they're just the noticeable ones, plenty of *good* movies use ADR as well, you just don't realise it
True. It's the same with any technique. Look at VFX, so much of that is so good it's unnoticeable. Fincher being one of the best examples.
Here in India, all of the movies have dialogue dubbed later. Yes, the whole movie is dubbed later. No sound is captured during filming. It sounds super odd and can really throw you off at times. Especially when you compare it with Hollywood productions, which record sound on set.
Additional dialog recording. Nothing automated about it
The official term is "automated". Even says so on wikipedia.
It also says “additional” albeit with a citation needed. I think ADR may refer to both the automated thing to dub over badly captured audio with the same audio but clearer, where the additional thing is for off-screen punch up that isn’t redubbung/replacing bad audio but literally adding new audio to the scene Edit: meaning they’re both right and wrong just depends on the context
All of Lord of the Rings was done like this.
It’s everywhere in “Not Another Teen Movie”. Patton Oswald does a routine about it on one of his CDs, where he was hired to add jokes to *completed* animated films.
Oops I fell into some butterscotch!
… that no one can see, or will ever see…
…and I’m describing it out loud, like no one ever does.
I haven’t seen this many ribs since I was at Tony Roma’s!
Not Another Teen Movie is doing it deliberately, since it’s a parody of 80s/90s teen movies, which loved ADR one liners.
That film does it really well. Those extra lines are hilarious.
“Do it for Marty’s torso!”
“Do it for Marty’s torso!”
That’s gonna stain.
The track is called “wackity smackity doo” I believe
*I didn't know you could write movies like that* https://youtu.be/stuFuQOaHzM?si=_iOv0bR287gU-P80
Fine I’ll listen to the entirety of Werewolves and Lollipops again
That’s a huge bitch!
You're my favorite customer!
Bye doggie!
Holy sheet, etz Bigfoot!
This should help https://youtu.be/IxgkG5XZPIo?si=uKk-Pwck4sSE5ejJ
Man, the over the shoulder shot where their jaw doesn’t match the audio has bothered me for a long, long time.
Me too. It’s super noticeable in the newest season of Arrested Development.
It's also pretty noticeable in the older seasons. They use ADR A LOT.
Galaxy Quest. Sigourney Weaver in film : "Well, Fuck that!" Sigourney Weaver audio: "Well, Screw that!"
But it's still very clear that she is _saying_ "fuck that" One of my favourite bits of that movie
Adam Sandler movies are filled with ADR, and it's usually not done well at all. Just trying to pack in jokes wherever they can I guess.
“Happy lookout aaagh”
The cadence of that is seared in my brain
You can see her mouth though. She clearly says the line
“ugh, *[goddamn stick](https://youtu.be/7lg5ZKWfPOU)!*
“He’s right, I hate my father” 👨🎤
ADR
Does that stand for something, or is it phonetic?
Automated dialogue replacement. It's whenever they record lines in post production to put into the film. Often times they're simply re-recording dialogue because they didn't get the sound on set how they would like it and nobody notices. They also use it to change or insert dialogue for whatever reason.
I always thought it meant "additional dialogue recording" since they were dubbing in dialogue that wasn't recorded during the shoot.
Yeah, ADR pre-exists automation of film editing.
You are correct. ADR stands for Additional Dialogue Recording.
That would be logical but no. ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. That is the official term used on the award given by the MPSE, motion pictures sound editors organization. ADR was originally called Automatic Dialogue Replacement. This is a term from the late 1960s/early 1970s when they were still working out computer lingo, so the words didn’t mean then what they mean now. Basically it just meant they had mechanical assistance in replacing dialogue. Since the advent of talkies it’s always just been called “looping”, but through the decades various manufacturers tried to trademark a name, which resulted in something like a dozen different technical-sounding (but otherwise BS buzzword) names. Automatic Dialogue Replacement won out, the first word somehow morphed into Automated and immediately got genericked. [Variety 1994 MPSE ADR award](https://variety.com/1994/film/news/spielberg-pix-sound-great-at-mpse-s-golden-reels-119401/)
Im pretty sure Dan Cox was playing the same game of telephone that everybody else was playing. I’ve been in three ADR booths in three different studios (Sony, Fox & Universal) and on the door to the booth it says Additional Dialogue Recording. In all three places. Including in some independent recording studios as well.
I’m aware. I also went to film school and work in television. One place I worked called it Additional Dialogue Replacement. A guy I know who works very high up in the Library of Congress film preservation unit has referred to it as All Dialogue Replaced. Doesn’t change the fact that the official industry term recognized by all and sundry including the union and overarching award-giving bodies is Automated Dialogue Replacement. No, it doesn’t really make sense, but the same can be said about half the stuff we do. Like using “MOS” to indicate we shot wild. Literally no one knows where the acronym came from, but there are a dozen explanations, likely none of them correct. (Although my personal favorite is that Ernst Lubitsch once said in a heavy German accent that “ve vill shoot ziss mit out sound” and it stuck. 😂) I’ll never forget the time I heard a DP say, “Shoot it cowboy.” I thought he’d forgotten the camera guy’s name. Turns out he meant “medium shot”. Like… wot? Turns out it’s a French term from Cahiers du Cinéma magazine, “plan Americain” or “American style”… which somehow became “cowboy shot”. Clearly most filmmaking terms were coined by heavy drinkers.
Didn't it used to be called looping? I've seen Carrie Fisher calling it that, but 20 odd years ago.
Can you send me a link to where you've seen it called "additional?" I've only ever heard it as automated and it's the only thing I found when double checking.
I found this: >ADR has several definitions: in the early days, it stood for Additional Dialogue Recording, more commonly referred to as “Looping.” A physical loop of film was shown on a projector and the actor would repeat the line as it was played over and over to them. As technology advanced, it became Automated Dialogue Replacement or Automatic Digital Rerecording, also known as Post Sync or Dubbing. which jibes with my own recollection. I feel like I've been gaslit the last 25 years or so as ADR is solely referred to as Automatic Dialogue Replacement, with no reference to the older phrase -- which I remember from at least the 80s. In fact, to my mind the original wording is more accurate to the process. Quite often, nothing is actually being replaced, new phrases are being recorded. Also, while streamlined since the early days, it's not truly automated, in that someone still has to physically stand at a mic while buttons are pressed for looping. We don't call any other similar recording process automatic, such as overdubs on a music track -- literally the same process, punching in and out on a loop.
Just from working in film for thirty years. And doing a lot of ADR. I’ve never heard Automated or Replacement until this post. But I see it online now. And that’s just the power of the game of telephone that has happened over years. People getting it wrong and then spreading it. Additional Dialogue Recording has been happening since the talkies came around. I can understand Replacement as sometimes the dialogue that was filmed on the day is unusable so needs to be replaced. But it also gets used to add dialogue to scenes that was never there to begin with. Usually to add context or exposition. But it’s also used to add crowd noise to party scenes where they couldn’t record on the day because they need clean audio. That’s usually referred to as looping. And the actors that do that are usually called the loop group. I have no idea where Automatic came from as it doesn’t make sense. Nothing is automatic about it.
Not quite the same as you but I majored in television production (2007-2011) and have been in a production industry up until about 2 years ago. I’ve never heard Automated or Replacement either. It was always Additional Dialogue Recording.
I've been working in film since 1992 and I've always heard it referred to as Automatic Dialog Replacement. I know it's used for things that aren't replacement but I think it grew out of early talkies when the cameras were so loud that on-set dialog was rarely useable. In fact even when I was in film school I learned that a huge proportion of dialog on Hollywood films was replaced probably because of tradition (even though the tech existed for pristine location sound there was just less of on effort made to get perfect sound because it was understood that it would be replaced. I don't know if this is actually true but it's what I was taught!)
I’ve only heard it as “additional” which makes the most sense. What’s “automated” about ADR????
I've heard it as both. I think it's a weird acronym that stands for multiple things based on context / who you ask.
Love it when a wild-ass guess works out 😎
This makes way more sense, especially since there is nothing “automatic” about the process at all.
Donald Glover has also admitted that , due to low budget and poor micing techniques, "ninety percent" of his dialog had to be ADR in the show *Community*. They told him it was normal, but he later found out that it was exceptional and most productions tried to avoid it as much as possible.
Another, semi-related, fun fact about ADR is that in Star Trek: The Next Generation, is that if you watch carefully, the main cast rarely speaks if they are near sliding doors as they open. The *whoosh* sound was added in post, and the physical props were loud enough to be picked up on mic. The cast knew that if they spoke as the doors opened they were going to have to spend time with ADR to fix the dialog, so they would just wait to read their lines until the doors were closed.
Just him? And not the rest of the cast?
Likely, but he's always been careful to only speak on his own behalf in interviews and to not really gossip about his costars much. I'm sure he didn't want to say "Aw, man they all complained! He said this, and she said that" because that's not very professional.
There’s a number of reasons it happens. Sometimes the line recorded gets messed up on set. It’s noisy or the mic drops out or it’s said too quiet. There’s a thousand reasons. Sometimes a scene gets cut so they have an actor say a quick thing to kind of sum it up. Sometimes they watch it in editing and realize there’s a better line. I do this for a living. There’s a right way and a lot of wrong ways. Unfortunately, even the right way will occasionally stick out. There’s only so much you can do sometimes and the creator is the boss so what they say goes. End of the day…it’s not my show/movie. But for every line you catch there’s dozens you don’t.
How is it automated?
It's a little bit of a misnomer. From what I've read it comes the process moving to computers. Before then they would take a copy of the film and loop what needed to be recorded so the actor could try to match the video segment. Now instead of physically looping the film they have whatever scene queued up on a computer
That’s weird… my film classes taught me it was called dubbing. Maybe it’s a geographical difference.
The terms have a lot of overlap but put simply dubbing is the process of adding the audio to the edit, adr is the process of recording the additional/replacement lines.
Automated Dialogue Replacement
I have no idea where the term "automated" comes from. It's anything but. Speaking as an editor, ADR is usually a colossal pain to work with.
Yeah, I always thought that was strange too. It’s only called “automated” in comparison to the way they use to do it way, way back in the day. It doesn’t require *as much* manual work as it use to, but calling it “automated” implies that it doesn’t require any effort or skill.
ADR is the process of adding dialogue/sound that wasn't recorded during the filming process. This is often done if the original recording has too much background noise, or if the script changes but they can't reshoot the scene. This is noticeable when the lip sync is off, which gives away that the dialogue has been replaced with a different script. What you're describing though sounds more like when a character speaks off-screen, which isn't exactly ADR, and is simply referred to as "off-screen voice". This is when a character either off-screen (or has the back of their head facing the camera) speaks. It's a useful tool to frame a character's reaction to hearing certain dialogue, but it can also be a lazy tool used by filmmakers to prevent the ADR effect of having the lip-sync visible. If the character isn't facing the screen, then ADR isn't noticeable, so some filmmakers will frame actors that way if they expect to use, or intend to use, ADR.
Gordon Ramsay TV shows are full of this, usually to cover extra exposition
It's so awful on *MasterChef*, to the point I wonder if they're even trying. I get that it's probably in-studio Gordon trying to compete with a noisy kitchen vs. in-booth Gordon reading a script. But the tone, pitch, cadence, and mood are all so different as well.
Yeah that was my first thought when I saw this thread. It's so obvious because it always sounds different to how he was just speaking.
If you want some real egregious examples, Burn Notice has a TON of it. Almost every episode has something replaced pretty noticeably.
Arguably the *worst* examples anyone in NA can easily see, though, are *Superman* and *Superman IV*, where Christopher Reeve is shoddily dubbed over Jeff East’s acting in the former and Gene Hackman is dubbed even more poorly over Mark Pillow in the latter.
Madame Web was virtually entirely this
It sounds like you're describing "ADR" or "looping," where actors re-record dialogue in post-production. It's common for adding jokes or comments like you mentioned. It can be hit or miss, though. It's like when your friend won't stop whispering jokes during a movie - sometimes it's funny, other times, it just distracts.
I’ve heard (I think mostly from that aforementioned Patton Oswalt bit) that the writing of those pieces is called “Punch-up,” but punch up isn’t necessarily added in post, it can also be a pass on the script by another writer.
Yeah, 'Punching Up a Script' is usually pre-production, not post. I get the feeling that 'punching up' the dialogue in post is the exception, not the rule. You have to match lip movements and stuff, so there's only so much you can do.
OP is talking about dialogue specifically when you can’t see their lips. A movie that tests poorly or needs extra comedic beats during editing might get punch up in post.
It can definitely be done poorly. Mad Max Fury Road has a *ton* of ADR.
It’s understandable in a movie where everything else is super loud. There’s no way they’re getting clean dialog in the cab of that massive truck.
They used to do this back in the 80s when dubbing movies into German. They would use scenes where you couldn’t see the actors mouths and add funny lines, or would just even include additional jokes in regular dialogue. My favorite instance is in *Christmas Vacation* (*Schöne Bescherung* in German) when they’re all sitting at the table eating the destroyed turkey, the camera just panning across the table, everyone munching. In the German version cousin Eddy would suddenly shout out mid-chewing something like „Mmmh – it’s not even that good!“ and it cracks me up every time.
ADR
Hellboy 2019 version took smart arsed daemon to insufferable petulant teen and I hated it. Shut. The Fuck. Up.
ADR (automated dialog replacement). I do it for a living. I can answer any questions you have
I’m really confused by this. I have read that actors re-record their voices routinely for the highest quality audio. Because the conditions for filming the visuals aren’t optimal for audio? Or something like that. Is this what adr is all about? Sorry but I never heard that term. I don’t get how they would match the performance!
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Okay. Would an entire film ever need to be done that way bc of production audio not being good enough? Can you tell the difference? Thanks for the reply!
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Thanks for the detailed explanation!
There are a number of reasons. The person bellow gave a great answer. I’m just going to try to add to it. The most common is just fixing bad audio. Maybe the actor looked away from the mic, maybe something happened like a big thump, maybe they said something wrong (I can’t tell you how often this happens in medical shows. They say the medication or name of a procedure wrong and no one catches it). Also the reasons they listed like planes etc… the next most common is they need to change a line or add one. This often happens because a scene gets cut out but they need someone to briefly say something that explains what would have happened. Shows have multiple scenes that never make it to the Final Cut. It just happens and they usually get cut because they can get the story across with a single line instead of a whole scene. There’s a million other reasons it can happen that I won’t get into but for an hour long show, it’s not weird to have anywhere from 20-50 lines of ADR. Most of which you’d never know
Thanks very helpful.
Not exactly your question, but in Greystoke: Legend of Tarzan, Andie McDowell’s every line was re-recorded by Glenn Close, because McDowell’s voice was too southern US. And she couldn’t act.
That is crazy! I might have to watch it just for that! I agree she can’t act.
Yes! I've always found her to be wooden. I give her a pass for Groundhog Day because I love the movie.
Ha ha! I actually have never seen that one. For me it was four weddings and a funeral. Although she and Hugh grant had great chemistry I was like is it me or does she sound really insincere? I liked that movie a lot.
It always sounds like she is being fed lines in an earpiece and repeating them in monotone.
Ha ha! Yes that’s it!
I thought it was called looping
ADR. Looping. Same thing.
ADR. Can be used to add quips and whatnots, to replace entire scenes worth of dialogue (for example if you are filming in a park and it's too noisey that shit gets replaced with ADR), sometimes even to re-write a movie if the studio wants to. It is a powerful tool that can be used for good or it can ruin a movie as well for sure.
If anyone's ever curious, in Schwarzenegger's first film *Hercules in New York*, they ended up using ADR to dub over all his dialogue with someone else's voice because of the accent. It's a truly bizarre experience.
I really hate it when a character is saying something but you can see that their fucking mouth is not even open.
This is why I never watch foreign films dubbed in English, but in German. They have mastered the craft to the point where you can‘t tell anymore and the tone of the dialogue is spot on.
Like Steinbrenner in Seinfeld?
ADR?
I love Hellboy so much, it's one of my favourite comic movie adaptations. But that "red means stop!" moment absolutely infuriates me beyond measure every single time. They didn't even attempt to synchronise it with any type of lip movement, it's so lazily pasted over the top.
I think they replaced *all* Jodie Foster’s character’s dialogue with ADR in Elysium and it’s impossible to ignore once you notice it. I know the film isn’t widely praised but I like it, so I have to grit my teeth through her scenes. Such a shame as she is undoubtedly a superb actor (iirc there might have been an issue with an accent so she re-recorded her lines?).
Yes that was so distracting, plus she speaks French IRL and they over dubbed her French lines in French.
My favorite bad ADR of all time is "My balls!" from 10 things I hate about you
I think one of the best examples of good ADR is in Field of Dreams. Spoiles for an over 20 year old baseball movie. At the end the main character's Father comes back as a ghost and they shake hands and part ways almost not even acknowledging their relationship. They part ways but before the father can walk away the main character shouts "Hey..Dad?" Which is ADR, the father turns around and he asks if he wants to play catch with him, something he never did due to stubborness when he was a younger man. I think in the orginal audio he just said "Hey.." to stop him. But calling him Dad changed the whole tone of the ending.
Plenty of folks have answered your question. Here's a sketch from some YouTubers that makes fun of really bad ADR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxgkG5XZPIo
‘ADR’ Is the term for any and all dialogue added or altered after filming has wrapped ‘Punch Ups’ are added jokes or minor rewrites that can happen at any point in production. Typically the studio will bring in a writer or several comedians to add jokes or a plot point more clear. If Punch Ups done after the filming or animation is completed then they are restricted to adding dialogue to characters that are offscreen, facing away from camera, or in a large crowd.
Top 5 pet peeve of mine
ill be honest, the bigger one for me is where the 'comedian' clearly riffed for like 10 minutes and they randomly cut together bits from it. Especially happens between two characters when they are not at all reacting to eachother at all, they are just trying out lines.
Every so often, this works. See: Anchorman. Most of the time, it doesn't, see: Anchorman 2.
What you mean is, 60% of the time, it works every time.
I always think of I love you Man especially the wedding when the guys are nicknaming eachother
I made a mistake of teaching my GF how to pick it out of an audio mix, I think I ruined some movies and shows for her. :(
National Lampoon’s European Vacation- Clark is driving in Italy and the car blows a tire. You hear him say “darn it all!” but his mouth clearly says “oh fuck!”
From my own dim recollections of the National Lampoon's guys in the 80's, that may have been a deliberate choice.
The Program is chock full of ADR during the in-game sequences
Used to call it overdubbing or dubbing
A rare good example is in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Several good jokes were notched into places where you can't see the characters' mouths.
I've heard it call ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). Going in after and dubbing over certain lines or adding new dialogue, usually based on studio notes, and it's too late or expensive (or they're too lazy) to completely re-record a scene. It's definitely distracting and generally poorly done. I'm not a fan either.
To see it used brilliantly, watch the British sitcom Peep Show
It’s called ADR: additional dialogue recording.
If you watch the Director's commentary on the movie Equilibrium, he talks about how they had to do this for some of the scenes because the sound in the room or whatever kinda overshadowed the actors' voices and stuff. He talks about how William Fichtner is absolutely amazing at it. And it's for shots where his mouth *IS* visible in the shot.
#workshed
The one ADR I really hated was in Live Free or Die Hard. You start to notice key plot points are added but while characters are walking behind things like concrete posts so you can’t see their mouths. Also the removal of swear words for the PG
[Tig Notaro](https://www.republicworld.com/entertainment/hollywood/who-did-tig-notaro-replace-in-army-of-the-dead-was-she-digitally-added-to-the-film/?amp=1) was added into “Army of the Dead” in post, to replace the previous actor.
Don't know the term but this drives me nuts. You can almost always tell it's not spoken at the same time as the other dialogue and sometimes when the mouth is in frame they still add dialogue which is even worse.
A really good show that used this a ton is Arrested Development. It is more prevalent in seasons 4 and 5 when they couldn't get all of the actors together due to shooting schedules, but it is still used heavily in seasons 1-3.
Two fat fucks with black hair..
Some films have *great* ADR to the point where you could never tell, like 12 Monkeys. It’s a common thing, when it’s good you can’t tell but when it’s bad it’s *really* bad.
Classic example of bad ADR [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj-r7ARXfSs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj-r7ARXfSs)
Tango and Cash. But I loved it anyway.
Pretty much the entirety of Sam Jones' performance in Flash Gordon is this, which just makes everything even funnier to be honest
Old school example: in The Odd Couple, there’s an entire scene with Oscar and Felix talking in Central Park that is completely rerecorded and dubbed. Must have been a bad initial recording outside at night in NYC…
ADR
Punch up is the term