Dialogue Editing

Dialogue editing is the technical and creative process of preparing recorded dialogue for the mix, organizing all production sound and ADR into a clean, intelligible track ready for mixing. The dialogue editor's tasks include: cleaning recordings (removing clicks, pops, plosives, microphone bumps, breath noise where appropriate), smoothing edits (cuts between angles in the same scene should not change the room tone perceptibly), spotting and processing ADR (deciding which lines need replacement, integrating ADR with production audio), de-noising (using tools like iZotope RX to suppress background noise while preserving voice quality), removing wild dialogue (room tone-only recordings between takes), and conforming dialogue to picture (a cut from medium to close-up should not cause noticeable audio shift). The dialogue editor works primarily in Pro Tools, with iZotope RX as the essential cleanup tool, and specialized tools like Synchro Arts Revoice Pro for matching ADR to production. The output is a 'dialogue stem' — typically multiple tracks of dialogue (production, ADR, group ADR, walla) organized for the dialogue mixer to balance and process. Dialogue editing is one of the most invisible crafts of sound post: viewers do not notice excellent dialogue editing, but immediately notice when it is bad (popping consonants, room tone changes, hum buzz). Modern dialogue editors handle thousands of edits per feature. Reference: Purcell, 'Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures.'