Dialogue is usually the first thing we work on because if the audience is struggling to understand what’s being said, everything else becomes secondary.

We clean production dialogue using tools such as iZotope RX and CEDAR to reduce things like clothing rustle, wind, hum, mouth clicks, mic bumps, broadband noise and other unwanted sounds picked up during filming. We’ll also balance dialogue between takes and scenes so voices feel natural rather than heavily processed.

There are limits though. A recording made directly next to a generator, badly clipped audio, heavy digital crackling or dialogue buried under another loud source can sometimes be improved massively, but pushing restoration too far starts taking parts of the voice away with it. We’d rather leave a little natural background than give you dialogue that sounds metallic and over-processed.

Where something genuinely can’t be repaired, ADR is another option. That can be anything from replacing a single damaged word to rebuilding an entire scene, then matching the new recording back into the location so it doesn’t suddenly sound like somebody stepped into a vocal booth halfway through the film.

We’ll always try to preserve the original performance first.