ADR Research

We decided to scan the internet to see some other media tasks where they have replaced the dialogue after the shoot, and we found one which we could particularly learn from. In the above clip it is obvious that the dialogue has been replaced in post through ADR, and there are a few things that make this obvious and detract from the realism. I will examine these to learn what I can!
The first, most obvious mistake is the fact that the dialogue is unnatural. Whenever there is talking unaccompanied by music the clarity of the voice and the microphone quality seems out of place and almost 'too good'. It doesn't have any sense that it was spoken outdoors at all, and sounds very much like it was recorded in some sort of studio. The actor's facial expression and passion does not match the weight and volume of the dialogue. It is almost as if the actors are only going half into the dialogue for the sake of not making too much noise. At points where the actors are meant to be shouting, instead they are just talking normally, and this looks very strange and unrealistic. We can learn from this by making sure that all the dialogue that we record is recorded in roughly the same circumstances as the ones where the dialogue was filmed. In our case this meant going outdoors, where the sound doesn't bounce off the walls so easily. It also means recording the dialogue with the same camera in order to get a sound that matches the picture.
The next mistake that I picked up was the foley in the background. There were too much bird sound effects in the background, which sounded very over the top and almost cliche. In the case of sound mixing cliche isn't always a good thing, as it detracts from the realism, and it just sounds plain bad. The birds in this case are almost like they are there solely to fill the space, when there wasn't much other sound in the scene, like a cover up. Also, on the note of foley, there are very inconsistent footsteps. Sometimes when the mother is walking there are sound effects of her footsteps, but sometimes there aren't. As much as this is only noticeable when you examine it closely, sub-consciously the audience realises that something is slightly off, and it, again, detracts from the realism. It also makes the audience start to wonder what is wrong, and while they are being distracted by this they lose concentration on the action on-screen. From this we can learn to make sure that we add in all the background sound effects that are supposed to be there and not add in any background noise that isn't there. If we disobey either of these rules then it would end up sounding odd, and all the effort put into the composition of the picture would be lost entirely. We are not trying to be creative, we are trying to repair something.
We should be able to download a royalty free sound effect of London from somewhere on the internet, so we'll use it to put in the background, and the perhaps mix in sound sounds of the Trafalgar Square fountains.