Aaron Marcus got a call to re-record his lines for an NBC show and explains why actors panic about ADR. It's almost always a sound problem, not your performance. He walks through what happens in the studio: headphones, timing beeps, syncing to video.
Hey, so I'm still traveling right now, not feeling great, but I really want to get this quick tip video out to you. So I don't know if you've ever felt actor's anxiety, especially after you shot something and they're asking you to re-record your lines. That's what happened to me. And if you watch this video to the end, I also have a great bonus video for you. It's shockingly easy to misinterpret a text from your agent. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus. Welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel on the Actor Career Center. So this was a number of years ago. I shot a television show in New York, and it was a few days later, got a phone call from production, and they said they needed me to re-record my lines. So my actor's anxiety kicked in. I started thinking, uh-oh, what, what did I do? What I didn't do? I assumed if they didn't like what I did, they would have asked me to redo it while we're shooting. You know, if I don't get this thing right, are they going to just replace me? They also said it was going to be ADR work. Which I didn't, I didn't really know. Additional dialogue replacement— there are— or actually, it's additional dialogue recording. There are 2 other names for it that I wasn't familiar with. I wrote it down so I can share it with you. ADR can also mean automated dialogue replacement or automatic dialogue replacement. Essentially Here's what I had to do. And what also made me anxious was that I'd never done this before. This is a big hit television show on NBC. I'm going to their production facilities, being asked to do ADR work, and I didn't know how to do it. So just like with a lot of things in my life, I've said yes and did it. So go to the studio, and here's the scene. There's a huge screen on the wall. I was given headphones, and you're going to hear 2 beeps. It's beep, beep, and then you start. You have to wait that 3rd beep, just hear that timing in your head, and then you start your dialogue. And you can actually see yourself talking. There's no— of course, there's no sound because I'm— We're Replacing what I did. The nice thing was I was very familiar with my performance, so honestly, I wasn't even really watching my lips or anything. It just felt right, and I was able to, to do it. We did it in a couple takes, and it went really well. And I asked them afterwards, I just said, you know, I'm just kind of curious, you know, why did you need me to come back and Do the lines again. It had nothing to do with my performance. What happened was there were 2 extras in the scene and they were in front of me and apparently they were talking and the sound person was not able to completely get rid of their noise, their talking, and keep my lines really clean. So It had nothing to do with performance. It was just a technical sound issue, and they had me do it again. And I've done ADR a couple other times since then. Hey, if you haven't done this yet, I just wanted to let you know I have a new website, howtoactandmodel.com, and if you go there, you can sign up to be on my special email list. And when you do that, You're going to get a great bonus video. It's 6 Secrets for Mastering Home Auditions, which is great. And also, if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when I upload a new video. And that way you'll always be able to see the new videos. And the last thing before I share the quick tip video or the bonus for the quick tip video, have you ever experienced having to redo your lines? Has anything happened on the set that made you feel anxious? Please share it with us so we can learn from your experience. You know, the more we hear from others about their experiences, the easier it's going to be for us, and I'd really appreciate you doing that. If you look up here, you're going to see the link for this quick tip video. It's— yeah, it's all about how it's shockingly easy to misinterpret a text from your agent. I hope this was really helpful to you. I hope I feel better really soon, which I think I will, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
