Dr. Phil and the Stranger In the Bathroom

Lots of people who come out to LA do so in hopes of celebrity sightings. If they do, it’s usually some young starlet shopping for shoes or a handbag on Rodeo Drive. Or some random “hey look who just drove by in that limo!” For those of us living everyday life here in Hollywood, celeb sightings can take on a downright surreal vibe at times as said celebs go through *their* day to day… just like everyone else.

Dr. Phil

Recently, a friend of mine posted on Facebook of a recent encounter with Dr. Phil, whose long-running talk show shoots at Paramount Studios, smack-dab in the middle of Hollywood. He posted:

Almost ran over Dr. Phil on the Paramount lot today. He leans over to my car window and says “I was trying to play chicken with you”……..

The Stranger in the Bathroom

My multi-talented friend Mike posted recently, after a long day of work at Raleigh Studios – coincidentally right across the street from Paramount:

So I’m exhausted after working all night and accidently walk into the ladies room at Raleigh Studios. I notice and shuffle back into the men’s room to do my business. Upon exiting I find a woman at the sink. Am I losing it? Disoriented. I ask the lady if I’m in the right place when she answers back in a deep voice. Finally I realize it’s Jeff Bridges in drag. Needless to say, lifting a dress to pee didn’t shock me.

My assistant texted me that day, saying “Jeff, check Mike’s Facebook status RIGHT NOW.” It was a beautiful thing. I texted Mike myself congratulating him on such a fantastic story. Mike, who is happily married, replied:

Thanks. WE GOT A DATE. I’m at the studio now. He’s hot.

Since you probably don’t have the privilege of knowing Mike, some of the humor may be lost in translation. Suffice it to say, I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my chair. Because that kind of story is at once so odd, yet oddly normal out here.

ADR, Emmys, and Atomic Bombs

Part 2 of the recent online discussion of ADR and looping took place via Facebook email – on my asking permission to use her name in the Actors in tiny boxes post, Jill D’Aubery sent along some extra details about her experience as an ADR editor. Oh, and by the way, the project which she mentions below earned her an Emmy. Not bad.

Jill D’Aubery: The story behind my Emmy win is quite interesting since it was for The Day After way back in 1984. The TV special was originally 4 hours long, cut to 3.5 hours when it showed. But since over half of it took place after nuclear bombs fell on Kansas City and there was an EMP effect story-wise, and all the dialogue had to be replaced after the bombs fell because we couldn’t use any sort of white sound. The EMP meant that there was no electricity; so no air conditioners, no traffic noise, etc. I worked alone on that one project, no other ADR editors, and lived with those damned bombs for 6 months of my life. And the sound that was concocted for the actual bombing reel was incredible!!! I think, if I remember rightly, that we went out to some 93 reels of sound for that one reel alone…a great deal of which was added ADR.

Jeff’s added comments: Of course at that time, they didn’t have Avids, Pro Tools, Final Cut, any of that… sound was compiled on separate reels of magnetic film stock and eventually played back at the dubbing stage for mixdown on “dubber” machines like the one shown here. So when you see the term “rerecording mixer”, that’s literally what they were doing – the ADR and SFX editors had assembled all the sound elements on separate sound reels that were played back all at once in sync to picture and were literally rerecorded on the mixing stage to the final mixdown tapes. So as Jill mentions above, just imagine 93 dubbers spinning at once in the machine room of the mixing stage. Crazy.