Dialogue Editing and Playlists

[antonis]

Just a query on workflow:

When you guys dialogue edit to you use playlists at all for alt takes, cues, ADR or do you only use work and junk tracks?

[Ray JB]

Work tracks only.

Too easy to conform the session and forget to spill the playlists into view before the conform. Then you end up with a mess.

I wish there was a visual indication of a track with playlists, or is there a workaround?

[lexaudio]

NEVER!

Conform and forget. Bad.

Work on one playlist and then move to another and forget. Not half the work si on one playlist, then another.

I avoid playlists in Post altogether.

[antonis]

Thanks for the advice.

Never used them really. I was just thinking of applying some audiosuite effects on some regions and I thought it might be handy if I kept all my editing intact, make a temp mixdown for the director, with some quick processing (as requested/ advised) and then revert to the original playlists.

But I thought I'd check here first ; )

I wish there was a visual indication of a track with playlists, or is there a workaround?

That's a great idea Ray JB.

[minister]

If I have to audiosuite audio -- almost always for Noise Reduction -- then I always use playlists. I edit my dialogue, then create a new playlist. Then go to the top one and work on that. To revert, I go to .1 or later.

If you have to conform, it can be a problem. For TV and films I know are locked, I always make new playlists first thing.

[Vedat]

I use playlists only for ADR and foley. Keep all the takes there. Bring them in to the main mix if necessary for last minute stuff. All the good stuff sit in work tracks muted.

[lexaudio]

I just don't like playlists.

I always keep a copy of my original unprocessed tracks below and muted.
Switching playlists when you want to compare track A to track B is a waste of time in my opinion.

I've gotten burned on playlists before. you get beyond 2 and which one had which.

Considering the track counts available, and need for quick access with your clients, switching playlists, forgetting to switch back.

If your dubbing, you want your ADR right there. Take 1, Take 2, take 3. Not Take 1, hang on let me switch. Take 2.
Let me hear take one again.

Clients use to a dubbing environment are use to fader down, fader up switching, not mousing around.

I know the theory. Same EQ compression ect from one take to another. Copy all automation does the same and is faster.

To each his own though. Maybe it works for some. I find it faster and more effceint to just dup a track and make it inactive, drag and copy back into the active tracks.

Its kind of like having your guide track from V1 and V2 on a playlist. How are you suppose to see what is going on if it isn't there and both can't be there at the same time.

Try it both ways.

[garnoil]

Never, I use junk tracks (which I keep inactive so they don't use resources).

[lode]

Previously I would always just make a bunch of deactivated tracks and drag alternate tracks down there. I make notes on the region names and everything is visible. Typically I get ten to twenty disabled tracks with alternatives and one active with the selected take.

Sort of a caveman style of working. Simple system and I see the material I have to work with.

However I´ve just finished a extremely complex Dia and ADR job on a feature. The method was fine during Dia editing and ADR tracking, but the Director needed all alternatives from all characters available (not an unreasonable request of course) I had to combine all the sessions into one huge monstersession, and butted up against Protools max track limit.
Extremely annoying.

I´ve since wondered if the alternate tracks approach is better for this situation.
Would this give me more tracks to play with?

Thoughts?

[garnoil]

Originally Posted by lode

P
the Director needed all alternatives from all characters available (not an unreasonable request of course) I had to combine all the sessions into one huge monstersession, and butted up against Protools max track limit.
Extremely annoying.

Thoughts?

I think it is very unreasonable for the director to ask you to put up all the alt takes on your session. Most of the alt takes are not even synchronized to picture as they were never ingested in the video edit suite. These takes did not come to you as part of the OMF. Alt takes exist as raw -un-synchronized audio somewhere on a hard drive. The 'alternative takes' are all the dialogue (all of the audio recoding that was captured during the entire film shoot that on an indie film is about 20 days of recording) and that were discarded by the director during video edit. These "alt audio", can and should be used 'during dialogue editing "if needed and if it works" to correct or improve dialogue editing. These are NOT takes for the director to 're-choose what audio you have to magically re-synchronize to match video that originally had different sound'. This is done only to correct dialogue during dialogue editing. This to me simply says that this director does not trust the dialogue editor.