What is ADR or Automated Dialogue Replacement? ADR is a film industry term where the audio in a film is recorded seperatly from the video. This is often done in a sound studio. The process allows for replacing dialog.

There are usually two reasons for replacing the dialog in a film. The first is by choice of the filmmakers. They might do this for the whole film, preferring to record all the audio in the studio. The second is to replace portions of the dialog. This is usually done if there is a problem with the audio that was recorded on site. This can be background noises such as traffic. This can also be due to a failure of the recording equipment that wasn’t found until after the shoot completed.

 

To find out more about why and when it is a good idea to ADR a film, check out this interview we did with Maruthi Nambi. He made a short film called Hostage, doing the whole film with Automated Dialogue Replacement.