Welles working methods in reference to recording dialogue

[WellesFan]

I know that Welles dubbed many of his films in post. As a general rule, did he also record the actor's performances on location? For Arkardin, it seems (in at least some scenes) that he did. For Chimes at Midnight, I'm not quite sure. As a a general rule, what did he do?

[Roger Ryan]

Due to shooting in Europe with smaller budgets, Welles didn't often have access to the necessary equipment to record proper audio on location. However, Welles enjoyed the opportunity to guide a "voice performance" later in a recording studio and, perhaps, enhance it. This is especially true of his own performances which I'm sure he felt he could improve after seeing the rushes. I'm not certain if you're asking if the dubbing tracks were recorded on-location or if you're asking about footage that had live audio recorded during the takes. For Chimes at Midnight, I believe Gielgud's soliloquy by the castle window has live audio recorded during the actual take as does Rutherford's soliloquy near Falstaff's casket; the rest of the dialog was dubbed in post-production.

As a general rule, Welles dubbed actors' lines during post-production fairly regularly after Kane. A significant amount of dialog from Ambersons was recorded later (all exterior scenes, plus the last ball scene; even that long kitchen scene between George and Fanny). This is not as noticeable as Welles' later European productions, because RKO had excellent technicians and equipment to recreate the dialog tracks.

[WellesFan]

Thanks for the response and the information. To clarify, I was asking if he recorded live audio during takes. I knew he felt that he could improve performances and tweak dialogue in post. And, of course, dubbing dialogue in post is common practice for many films. Sometimes it's to pick up portions of dialogue in any given scene and sometimes it's more extensive. However, I didn't realize how much dialogue was dubbed in Ambersons. I'm glad you brought up Gielgud in Chimes. It seems like it's one thing for Welles to dub his daughter in the movie but it would seem unfortunate to have to dub Gielgud. Gielgud is, of course a skilled actor who could recreate his performance later but I imagine the performance he gave on set, had a little more magic. I was watching Lady from Shanghai last night and it felt like much of that film was dubbed in post. Maybe it's just because I've been thinking about this sound question, but I'm not sure I really noticed that before.

[Roger Ryan]

...I was watching Lady from Shanghai last night and it felt like much of that film was dubbed in post. Maybe it's just because I've been thinking about this sound question, but I'm not sure I really noticed that before.

I think my earlier post might have been a bit misleading. The amount of dubbed dialog vs. live synchronized dialog definitely increased in Welles' films after Kane, but much of this was due to technical limitations and/or choices Welles made to speed up the shooting process or achieve a difficult shot. Since it was standard for many European-produced films from the 30s through the 70s to have dialog post-synced (due to a combination of equipment limitations, the tradition of creating multiple soundtracks for export, and industry work habits), Welles followed suit for the (small-budgeted) films he made there. His Hollywood-produced films often had enough technical support to allow on-set dialog to be recorded, but specific circumstances prevented this from happening all the time.

Using Lady from Shanghai as an example, most of the dialog which was dubbed later was due to not being able to get clean audio for the exteriors (which is a common problem with all films from the sound era), but some of the dialog (the opening New York horse carriage scenes are an example) ended up being changed to fix continuity problems once the film started being re-edited (note that O'Hara's narration was not part of Welles' original intention). Specifically, I can point to that exclamation of "Elsa!" dubbed in to the shot of Elsa leaving her husband's table at the restaurant in Acapulco as an awkward attempt to suggest an argument had taken place (since the full dinner scene that proceeded this moment was cut).

With Ambersons, Welles wanted to do complex dolly shots through the mansion (the "Last Ball" scene for example), but the old wooden floors of RKO's Culver City soundstages would audibly creak every time the dolly was moved. Not wanting to compromise the elaborate camera moves (and to increase the speed of production), Welles elected to not bother with recording audio, but dub in all the dialog later. I'm sure a similar choice was made for Macbeth - even though virtually all of the footage was shot on a soundstage, it was deemed faster to shoot some scenes silent and dub in the dialog during post-production.

Sometimes, a line needs to be changed after it was shot. Kane has a prime example of this during the early newsroom scene when Bernstein begins to read the cable: "Girls delightful in Cuba. Stop." is clearly a dubbed in line (it sounds noticeably different than the rest of Bernstein's speech). The original scripted line appears to have been "Senoritas delightful in Cuba"; perhaps, someone decided the term "Senoritas" was inappropriate and the line needed to be changed.

[WellesFan]

Thanks for your very detailed and very knowledgeable reply. I understand that Leone worked in a similar fashion. Probably for some of the similar reasons that you described (budget, locations, etc) but also because he was working with an international cast.

I found your amplification to be very helpful and somewhat of a relief, particularly in regard to Ambersons. It would make sense that Welles would sacrifice good sound for a virtuoso camera move. I would also think that Welles would want to protect/preserve an actor's on-set performance for a scene that was particularly dramatic, like some of the monologues that you made reference to.

I recall reading an interview with Robert Wise who said that Welles experimented with having prerecorded all of actor's performances. The idea was that they would lip sync their performances on set and Welles could focus his attention on the camera. It's a similar to how they would shoot a musical. However, Wise indicated that the approach was quickly abandoned.

I knew that Shanghai, like many of his films had significant cuts. I knew some of the particulars for the cuts to the climax but not to the body of the film. While watching it last night, I tried to guess where the others might be. I thought that conversation between Rita Hayworth and her husband might be a likely candidate but I wasn't sure.

All of your interesting examples are further proof that Welles was always trying to shape and reshape the material. Sometimes by his own choice. Sometimes at the assistance of the studio.

[Roger Ryan]

...I recall reading an interview with Robert Wise who said that Welles experimented with having prerecorded all of actor's performances. The idea was that they would lip sync their performances on set and Welles could focus his attention on the camera. It's a similar to how they would shoot a musical. However, Wise indicated that the approach was quickly abandoned.

Yes, Welles tried this with Ambersons with the belief that he could perfect the delivery of the dialogue beforehand, thus saving
time during the actual shoot. In reality the opposite proved true: the actors became overly self-conscious trying to match their mouth movements to the audio playback causing numerous bad takes. While some of Welles' inexperience in filmmaking resulted in inadvertent innovation, this idea was never going to turn into anything worthwhile. For some reason, Welles tried prerecording the dialogue again on Macbeth - I don't think the results were anymore successful.

...I knew that Shanghai, like many of his films had significant cuts. I knew some of the particulars for the cuts to the climax but not to the body of the film. While watching it last night, I tried to guess where the others might be. I thought that conversation between Rita Hayworth and her husband might be a likely candidate but I wasn't sure.

Shanghai might be the most butchered of all of Welles' films. Significant cuts are made throughout with a lot of studio reshoots against a process screen to cover deleted location footage. Welles, as the lead actor, was obligated to do the reshoots and elected to add the first-person narration in an attempt to provide some much needed continuity. Once the film settles down in San Francisco, it's closer to Welles' original cut, but there are still lost sequences including a more elaborate fun house scene prior to the mirror maze shoot-out.