Post Production at the Museum of the Moving Image

Located in Astoria, Queens, NYC, The Museum of the Moving Image is a treasure and worth the trek. We had a lovely guide, Lauren, with big red hair and funky vintage frames, who gave us an hour and a half tour of the museum (minus the special exhibitions). One of the most memorable moments was when we got to the Automated Dialogue Replacement booth. Actors often have to re-record their sound if the original sound was not initially recorded well, if say there was background noise, or if the audio got messed up for any other reason. They have to get back into character and in the right emotional state (which can be challenging depending on the scene), and then while watching the original footage, they try to recreate their voice in a sound booth to get a high quality sound byte. So at this demo, three volunteers were needed, and I held up my hand not knowing what I was getting into. There were about 15 of us crammed into a soundproof booth and the task at hand was to record audio for a scene in a movie. I picked Eddie Murphy's lines in 'Coming to America', not knowing how fast he spoke! I had the first line. First I listened to it, then I rehearsed and tried to keep up, and then the recording moment! I wore headphones and spoke into a mic. I was way off! It was really hard to keep up, get all the dialogue out of my mouth without blurring my words together; I tried to annunciate, but it wasn't happening. It all happened in less than a minute, and then the mic and headphones were passed to the next person to deliver the next set of lines. Granted, if I was Eddie Murphy, I would probably be able to keep up with my speech rate, but still! It made me realize how much goes into post-production and is so seamlessly weaved into the final film so that the viewer has absolutely no idea.