I'm Post Producer for Season 2 of "Tokyo Vice" for Max. We managed to film all our content in Tokyo with pages written before the May 1st deadline, including a recent 6-day shoot in Toronto that finished shooting Wednesday, the last day of the extended SAG-AFTRA contract. Made it just under the wire for Production, but in truth, even with these advantages, we won't be able to completely finish our episodes because we can't bring in our Union actors for ADR or Loop Group. Final Mix reviews will have to wait. Fortunately, I can keep my Post team working by focusing on Picture Locking episodes, turning over to Sound Editorial, Picture Finish and VFX. We can keep working with our composers, clearing music licenses, prepping credits for titling. We can mix Dialogue, SFX and Music. We can do everything up to the final Mix Review days. At which point, we'll need to pause those episodes until the strike ends. Depending on how many weeks or months this goes on, we'll plan time for scheduling and recording Loop Group and ADR with our principals,. Then our sound team will need time cut in all that material before we can regroup to review and note the final mixes. It's going to be yet another scheduling challenge on top of a shoot schedule that had already been logistically challenging. On an up note: Our team should be able to weather this storm together. For those who got caught in between shows or find their current shows shutting down indefinitely, this perhaps becomes a time to focus on networking. Many of us will find ourselves with unexpected time on our hands this Summer. Let's make the most of it. When the storm clears, there's going to be a tsunami of activity in order to get that content pipeline moving again!
Post-Production : From inside the Post Production Trenches - Day 1 of the SAG-AFTRA Strike by Brad Carpenter
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Thank you for sharing these insights, Brad Carpenter! I'm glad that you and your team will be able to weather the storm together.
You're absolutely right that it's a great time to network! How we all utilize this time to learn and grow will make all the difference when it comes to an end.
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This is an excellent perspective from inside the post production workings during these strikes - in fact, of the whole process. Thank you for sharing, Brad Carpenter!
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You're right, Brad Carpenter. Now's the time to network (and get what we can done like you and your team are doing). What's ADR and Loop Group? And shout-out to whoever came up with the term Loop Group.
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I know, I love the name Loop Group! It's a pool of 6-12 Union actors that we use for each episode to voice the background actors. It's a blast to watch, because they prepare according to time period and context, then they improvise conversations based on the visual interactions we see on screen. When you record sound on a set, it is ideally just to get clean recordings of principal dialogue. We then build out the reality of that dialogue to recreate reality. Getting good background dialogue is key to that process. ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. We use it to replace dialogue for technical reasons, subtle changes in performance, or to add additional over-the-shoulder dialogue that conveys new story information. One of the sticking points the SAG-AFTRA negotiations is to keep these tasks from being done with AI. It's already technically possible to load in an actor's vocal performance, then have them say whatever you need them to. Aside from the extensive creative issues this creates, it would also rob actors of the income they would normally get for doing their episodic ADR sessions.
Oh, that's cool, Brad Carpenter. Thanks for explaining. "When you record sound on a set, it is ideally just to get clean recordings of principal dialogue. We then build out the reality of that dialogue to recreate reality." I thought all of the dialogue was taken care of on set.
I've heard about SAG-AFTRA's issue with AI. "It's already technically possible to load in an actor's vocal performance, then have them say whatever you need them to." What if studios and companies used an actor's voice to say something the actor wouldn't approve of? That has to be a concern for actors.