ADR 

    ADR stand for "Automated" or "Automatic" Dialog Replacement. 

    Dialog that cannot be salvaged from production tracks must be 
    rerecorded in a process called looping or ADR.  

    Looping originally involved recording an actor who spoke lines in 
    sync to "loops" of the image which were played over and over along 
    with matching lengths of recording tape. ADR, though faster, is still 
    painstaking work.  

    An actor watches the image repeatedly while listening to the original production track on headphones as a guide. The actor then reperforms each line to match the wording and lip movements. Actors vary in their ability to achieve sync and to recapture the emotional tone of their performance.  

    Marion Brando likes to loop because he doesn't like to 
    freeze a performance until he knows its final context. 
    (People have said that one reason he mumbles is to make the production sound 
    unusable so that he can make adjustments in looping.) 

    ADR is usually considered a necessary evil but there are moments when looping can be used not just for technical reasons but to add new character or interpretation to a shot. Just by altering a few key words or phrases an actor can change the emotional bent on a scene. 

    edited excerpts 
    Sync tanks 

    to Film Sound Theory 
     
     
      


      

    Ambience 


    Ambience pertains to the pervading atmosphere of a place. (More of a psychological, rather than technical description)

    Ambient sound consists of noises present i the enviroment. 
     
    In Silence of the Lambs, when Agent Starling (Jodie Foster) is down with Lecter in the dungeon,  there were animal screams and noises built into the ambience.  (One element of the ambience is a guy screaming in pain.  The screaming was processed, slowed down and played in reverse)  

    Subjective Ambience:
    In the trial scene of Philadelpia -  instead of using reverb to a voice as the konvention says for hallucinating  -  sound designer Ron Bochar used subjective ambience. He dropped the previous room tone and shifted the ambient sound.  He also changed the spatial placement of the ambient sound -  from left, right, and center speakers to surround speakers.  


    source: 
    Margareta Weis: Creating sounds for Demme 

    R. L. Mott: Sound effects radio, TV, and film p 202 

    To FILM SOUND THEORY