Dialogue Cleaning & Matching: What Early Mistakes Did You Make?

Hey everyone,

I'm Isabella, a Line Producer, and I've been wrestling with post-production audio more than usual lately. We just wrapped a short film shot primarily on a V-RAPTOR XL with a MixPre-6 II for audio, and while the 4017 mic captured some great stuff, there are definitely inconsistencies. I've been trying my best to flag takes with room tone issues or varying levels during dialogue heavy scenes, but it's a constant battle to get things to sound seamless.

Thinking back to when you were starting out, what were some of the most common mistakes you made, particularly concerning 'Cleaning' and 'Matching' dialogue? And, if you could offer one piece of advice to a beginner trying to avoid those early pitfalls, what would it be?