Movies shot without sound (dialog dubbed) (1 Viewer)

[John Maher_289910]

I can't remember why, exactly (other than there are lots of exterior scenes), but Bobby Morse's entire performance in THE LOVED ONE is looped.

 

[Paul Penna]

I can't remember why, exactly (other than there are lots of exterior scenes), but Bobby Morse's entire performance in THE LOVED ONE is looped.

I always suspected that someone wasn't satisfied with the way he did his faux Brit accent during the filming.

 

[John Maher_289910]

I always suspected that someone wasn't satisfied with the way he did his faux Brit accent during the filming.

It's not someone else. He did the looping.

 

[Paul Penna]

I always suspected that someone wasn't satisfied with the way he did his faux Brit accent during the filming.

It's not someone else. He did the looping.

I realize that. My speculation involves him coming up with or being coached to do a better accent. If he's consistently the only one looped in scenes that have everyone else recorded live, there has to be something about his performance that someone felt didn't work.

 

[John Maher_289910]

I guess. He actually told me, but I don't recall the reason. I really don't understand why the character had to be British?

 

[Lord Dalek]

Because he's the stand in for Waugh himself?

 

[uncledougie]

I’ve read that Tony Curtis had to have help with his Josephine voice in Some Like It Hot. The Cary Grant imitation may have been all his own doing.

 

[Paul Penna]

I’ve read that Tony Curtis had to have help with his Josephine voice in Some Like It Hot. The Cary Grant imitation may have been all his own doing.

Paul Frees dubbed most if not all of his Josephine voice.

 

[uncledougie]

Paul Frees was a very busy man back in the day. It would be interesting to see a list of his uncredited voice roles, which would be quite extensive.

 

[John Skoda]

It seems to me I read most of the dialogue in CAROUSEL and THE KING AND I was looped because the CinemaScope 55 cameras were so noisy. Since there's so much pre-recorded singing in the movies anyway it isn't so noticeable.

 

[Michael1]

Friedkin's Cruising had to be almost entirely ADR'ed due to protestors chanting and making loud noises near to the set to disrupt production.

Well, it sounds like you're greatly exaggerating the amount, as I'm sure it didn't apply to interior scenes.

 

[Michael1]

It seems to me I read most of the dialogue in CAROUSEL and THE KING AND I was looped because the CinemaScope 55 cameras were so noisy. Since there's so much pre-recorded singing in the movies anyway it isn't so noticeable.

I believe that's true of CAROUSEL but not for the reason you said. Apparently, the sound recording was problematic during some of the location shooting because of wind, etc. THE KING AND I was shot almost entirely indoors, so it wasn't a problem there, and I don't see or hear any noticeable looping in that movie.

 

[mackjay]

Aren't most outdoor scenes in movies dubbed later? I've seen a lot of Westerns lately, shot on locations and the dialog comes thru crystal clear. The Budd Boetticher movies are a great example. I see lots of other films where I assume dialog had to be dubbed and it rarely bothers me (not even in Fellini, it's part of the aesthetic for me)

 

[Worth]

Well, it sounds like you're greatly exaggerating the amount, as I'm sure it didn't apply to interior scenes.

I caught a recent screening of it and it sure sounds like it was all dubbed.

 

[JoshZ]

Well, it sounds like you're greatly exaggerating the amount, as I'm sure it didn't apply to interior scenes.

I'm going by the bonus features on the Arrow Blu-ray, which state as much. The protesters were trying to disrupt production to get the film shut down. They'd blare loud music over concert speakers right outside the buildings being used as sets, for one thing.

Also, when watching the movie, it's very obvious that the dialogue in every scene (including interiors) is ADR. At a certain point, Friedkin decided to lean into it and let the dialogue sound disembodied from the screen, as an alienting device.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Well, at least most such cases in Hollywood filmmaking didn't sound like they're always using just the same 3-4 voices for every film, LOL, unlike in so many Hong Kong films even as recently as maybe 20 years ago, if not more recent than that -- I haven't really seen much, if any, HK films of the past decade, so not sure if that's changed quite that much...

I swear a fair majority of the (at least) Cantonese-speaking HK films (of the past) I know and enjoy seem to be like that (though I don't recall noticing as much when I was mostly just a kid back in the late-70's to late-80's)... and nowadays, even makes me think of anime dubs or maybe even badly English dubbed, Saturday afternoon TV broadcasts of martial arts flix (to some extent, but not quite of course), LOL.

Oddly, my mother supposedly hates dubbing more or less like a "purist" (at least across languages/dialects), but somehow, never seem to be bothered by all that, haha... and also generally refuses to watch anything using subtitles, LOL -- yeah, she ends up missing out on a lot of good films, especially since her English is not that good (beyond just plain, basic, everyday speech), though she was ok enough w/ Mandarin even though she doesn't speak that much of that (though she might understand that a bit better than English likely just because of the underlying written language being essentially same as Cantonese)...

Obviously, I'd much prefer not having to read subtitles either, but yeah, dubs (especially across languages) are usually much worse... though maybe not always I suppose... as I seem to be less bothered by that for lower budget anime, particularly made-for-TV stuff -- maybe I just got so very used to such growing up... and yeah, I do sporadically find the badly English dubbed martial arts flix amusingly enjoyable enough, but only sporadically, LOL...

_Man_

 

[cadavra]

Here's a fun note. Several years ago the American Cinematheque did a major festival of Eurowesterns. And I noticed that beginning around 1968, the lip-synch for the Italian/Spanish actors was much better than in previous years. I soon realized that 1967 was the year the "Dollars" films opened in America, and having discovered this incredible new source of income, the filmmakers clearly instructed actors to speak their lines in English to the best of their ability, not worrying about how it sounded because it would all be dubbed anyway.

 

[white vader]

I'm not sure why there's pushback here on the pervasiveness of dubbing/looping/ADR. It's absolutely common/the norm in most even American films. And has been for decades and right up to now.

Sure, they record the audio on set for reference. But think about how many Hollywood action films you've seen and it's fairly wall to wall dubbing. The second you have any kind of physical effect, or even a fan/wind machine or rainmaker, it's all over. People walking amongst others while talking? Decently choreographed blocking? The size shape and makeup of a set. Hell you can have two people talking but if you have anything more than a stationary camera and couple of lights it can be an issue even for interiors. And the vast majority of the audience never notices or even knows what foley is. Or knows that the footsteps can't be recorded with the voice/as per on stage when the concrete surface of the stage they're walking on is actually painted plywood, hard foam or whatever.

The lengths artists go to to capture on set sound is incredible and way beyond the early days of mics in flower pots (being sewed into costumes, even hair). And digitally the amount that can be done to onset audio beyond room tone is fantastic. But the second that beautiful gown swishes during a line of dialogue, again, it's off to adr no matter how close the boom or hidden mic may be. And getting tied up in percentages sort of misses the point imo. It's an integral part of the process.

I think people assume most dialogue and sound is live/onset because it's literal and it seems like an analogy to real life. But hey, people don't question the 'reality' of syncing thunder with lightning, Kookaburra calls in the deep jungles even in wildlife docos (which has become as much a movie injoke as the "Wilhelm scream"), or on the visual front the challenges of shooting a white and black actor in the same shot, early films where milk was mixed into rain so it would expose properly, white clothes being dyed down so as not to blow out the exposure and on and on ad infinitum. Forget cgi, not much in movies is 'real'.

And this doesn't even start to take into account the creative or psychological aspects of sound. It's funny but I think often onset dialogue quality is much more noticeable/obvious than dubbed due to the realities, when sound is one of the least literal aspects of film. And people notice foreign movies of course, but most English language adr slips right by them. And again, that's not even getting into stuff like reconstructed dialogue edited down to the sub-syllable level.

 

[white vader]

Well, at least most such cases in Hollywood filmmaking didn't sound like they're always using just the same 3-4 voices for every film, LOL, unlike in so many Hong Kong films even as recently as maybe 20 years ago, if not more recent than that -- I haven't really seen much, if any, HK films of the past decade, so not sure if that's changed quite that much...

I swear a fair majority of the (at least) Cantonese-speaking HK films (of the past) I know and enjoy seem to be like that (though I don't recall noticing as much when I was mostly just a kid back in the late-70's to late-80's)... and nowadays, even makes me think of anime dubs or maybe even badly English dubbed, Saturday afternoon TV broadcasts of martial arts flix (to some extent, but not quite of course), LOL.

Oddly, my mother supposedly hates dubbing more or less like a "purist" (at least across languages/dialects), but somehow, never seem to be bothered by all that, haha... and also generally refuses to watch anything using subtitles, LOL -- yeah, she ends up missing out on a lot of good films, especially since her English is not that good (beyond just plain, basic, everyday speech), though she was ok enough w/ Mandarin even though she doesn't speak that much of that (though she might understand that a bit better than English likely just because of the underlying written language being essentially same as Cantonese)...

Obviously, I'd much prefer not having to read subtitles either, but yeah, dubs (especially across languages) are usually much worse... though maybe not always I suppose... as I seem to be less bothered by that for lower budget anime, particularly made-for-TV stuff -- maybe I just got so very used to such growing up... and yeah, I do sporadically find the badly English dubbed martial arts flix amusingly enjoyable enough, but only sporadically, LOL...

_Man_

It's funny, I love martial arts movies, but I've tried watching Kurosawa stuff dubbed and it seems like sacrilege to me, just excruciating! And even in animation I much prefer subs which is strange/not that logical considering Japanese v western animation process. For me I think at least even if you don't speak the original language you retain more of the original intent rather than the generational loss of a new (voice) director directing new actors on top of the language gap/interpretation. As great as the actors are in the dubs for the Miyazaki stuff which is a cut above most anime dubbing, I still prefer the original cast as the voicework is supervised by Miyazaki himself.