Lessons Learned and Report on My First BoomRecorder Shoot

P

ptalsky

Veteran
Hi All,

Just finished a 3 day shoot on a project and got the chance to shake out my BoomRecorder (henceforth refered to as BR ) setup so I thought I would share my experiences.

Here's the setup:

Most of the film was interiors (at a mortuary, no less, and somewhere there is a picture of me and my cart in the casket room...I'm hoping to get a copy of it for my Web site). Scenes were pretty straight forward, with no more than 4 actors in any given scene. We were shooting on the HVX200, with a solid DP and grip/gaffer. I was working with a novice boom op, though.

Here's my setup:

-BR running on a new MacBook
-Alesis MultiMix Firewire 16 channels
-Tascam HD-P2
-3 Sennheiser G2's with CountryMan B6's
-1 Shure wireless (don't even remember the model - desperation mode) with a B3
-ListenTech monitoring
-Interiors: Rode NT5
-Exteriors: 4073a (again, remember, novice boom op)
-Denecke TS2-SB slate

So, I setup up my usual mix, sending boom left and everything else R. Took the main outs to the Tascam, and went FW into BR. I generated 6 channels of audio in BR, resulting in 6 files per take. For mounting the lav's, I used the Rycote stickies for the first time and really like them (coupled with the Dr. Scholls corn pads, little or no clothing noise). I set the Tascam up as if BR wasn't there so I still had what would have been my standard mix. The slate was the master for TC, jammed into the Tascam and BR. I also sent control room L to the camera for triple redundancy and dailies.

Overall, things went well. I turned in over 22 GB of sound (both from BR and the Tascam.)

Here's some of my insights:

- I had a few panic moments at the begining of the shoot when the file sizes on the BR files weren't matching up. Turns out it's a refresh problem in Finder - if you close finder and come back, every track recorded is the same size.
- If you aren't using a cart, you must get one. My current cart came from Home Depot and cost me $39.95. It's one of those wire racks with the adjustable shelves. It made moving between setups a breeze. (As usual, I forgot to take any pictures, but a couple were taken and have been promised to me).
- Be an absolute stickler for getting cell phones turned off (not just on silent). With the wireless, everything ran great (no hits or dropouts) until this morning, when one helpless person thought that all cell phones off didn't apply to her (of course I made sure she was thoroughly embarrassed - she was just the videographer for the behind the scenes).
- BR is amazing. Once I figured it out, it was incredible. Easy to use, lightweight, I can't say enough. And, it's really cool that with the new MacBooks you can start it and stop it with the remote control (conveniently velcroed to the front of my cart so all I had to do was push the remote and the record on the Tascam and go).
- One downside to BR that I have found (I need to research more on this) is that because the notes write when you stop recording, there were a few takes where I recorded lots of extra because I was a bit behind in my notes. I think this is just a workflow issue for me that I need to work on.
- When you have a DP that yells at the boom op for getting the boom in the shot, be sure to praise him/her in front of the rest of the crew, gently. It really helped my boom op a lot when I told him that if he wasn't dropping into the shot occasionally, that he wasn't doing his job right. The DP had scared him to the point where he was aiming about 6 feet above the frameline.
- I need more 50' cables. Now that I have my cart, I'm sitting further away from the action and 4-50 footers would have been a big help. Matt - price quote? ;-)
- It is really nice to have an extra set of hands on set. On Friday, I had to leave the set for a couple of hours, so I brought in a substitute (Scott Koue/Noiz-thank you for the recommendation. Ian was GREAT!) This is the first time I had someone on set that knew anything about sound besides me, and he showed me some great little things, especially in setting up my cart, that I am going to use going forward.
- My sound blankets still have not arrived, but fortunately I didn't need them for this shoot. The one echoy room (the room where the bodies are prepared) was shot MOS, fortunately.
- Am I the only one that wishes that actors would use the mute button on their Tx's before they go to the bathroom. Nothing worse than putting my headphones back on and hearing grunting and splashes.
-I used my Portabrace hard cases for the first time on this shoot, and they are every bit as good as the Pelican's (and I do like the blue color better than the grey).
- Not sure if this is a California thing or a national thing, but battery disposal rules changed here and now they have to be treated as hazardous waste. I made sure my agreement included a clause that the producer was responsible for proper disposal (we went through more than 100 AA batteries).
- One incident early on with BR caused another scare. The TC would not stay in sync. This started right after a circuit blew and I lost power to the mixer. Quitting BR and restarting it solved the problem, but I scrambled for a bit before deciding to try that.
- Do not forget to take your headphones off before jamming through the mixer. Ouch.
- The Denecke slate does not like phantom power. ;-)
- Burning data DVD's on the Mac is painful. I think in the future I am going to recommend that the director bring a hard drive and I will dump all the files direct to the hard drive. It took me an extra 30 minutes or so to burn the final DVD today (the Mac burn data DVD software is painfully slow... the verification of the burn takes longer than the burn itself. Maybe someone can suggest better software or a setting I missed).
- The pre-fader/post-fader issue Jeff Wexler reported with the Alesis was not a problem on this shoot. The board worked great for me.
- The lead actor (the director's father) among other things is a very famous plate spinner/juggler from India (he was also in "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks). Let me tell you, those plates are loud and unpredictable. Lots of blow outs. I finally just throttled back one channel heavily, and it came out okay. (And, I do have to admit, I did leave the board on one take so I could watch his routine...and he is amazing even at the age of 88).
- Something I did not know: The HVX can send NTSC signal to a monitor - it does not require an HD monitor. I did not bring my monitor because of this, and wish I had. I always feel like I'm much more effective when I can see what's going on.
- A dog drinking soup out of a bowl ranks right up there with listening to two people kissing as one of the more disgusting aspects of being a sound mixer. ;-)

That's about all I can think of right now...I'm tired. I'll add to this thread later if I think of anything.

Phil
 
Wow Phil! Thanks so much for posting this. I read every bit, very informative. I wish more guys on this board who do sound mixing (you know who you are) would follow your lead and do posts like this.
 
How did you manage to keep your Mac alive and running for the entire production day? Also, how did the Tascam HD P2 hold up? How well does it run in sync with time code? Do you have to rejam it when replacing batteries?
 
Thanks for the post Phil. Since your previous post about BR I was thinking about using that instead of directly into ProTools... nice to hear it holds up in the field. Post those pics when you get them.

The battery issue is definitely a CA thing. We tried disposing of ours with a local hazardous waste collector, and they wouldn't take them: they said to just toss'm in the trash.
 
Thanks for this posting.... So informative and helpful.

One question.. would you recommend using the boom recorder as your primary record tool? Im shooting a documentary and having to do it all by myself. Im currently trying to figure out how to handle it, and when i read you post i was intrigued at what possibilites the boom recorder could offer. Would this be a viable option for me or do I need to fork out some serious dough on a digital multitrack recorder?

thanks so much:)
 
Cool narrative, Phil - many thanks. I appreciated your backup plans. EJShin, I'm guessing Phil must have had power for the Mac, since the Alesis Mixer requires 117 vac. Regarding cutting audio to a DVD, I'd be afraid of skipped data unless recording at a slooooow speed. USB and Firewire drives are cheap enough to provide the Director as a loaner. Not on will you have a fast transfer, but you'll sleep better knowing the media has data integrity.

Thanks again, Michael
 
Cheers for this phil,

- i really relate to when you said about having someone on board who also knows about sound. Its a real pleasure when i'm given a really experienced boom op and I can learn off him about other methods and other recordists and we can plan scenes collaboratively.. all too often i am teaching, or just doing it all myself.

-I need a cart. I have a picnic table. thing is it just fits so well into my car! :)

-in UK we have battery disposal laws, I don't know how to dispose of them though, so I have them all stacked up in my house until I find out how to do it properly. I think anyone who is in a battery consuming industry should be responsible about their disposal. cos we go through more of them than anyone.

-I have always made it clear to producers that if they want rushes at the end of the day then they have to bring a laptop and a harddrive. otherwise they'll have to wait for them. (because I use a 744, not a computer) ...how aobut arranging a hard drive for your producer and invoicing for it?

22Gig seems a lot for 3 days. On the average 6day tape shoot 16/48 files, and 2-4 files per take I would be delivering about 4-8 Gigs. you must've been doing a lot of takes! Just thinking out loud here; 22Gigs is about 66hours of 16/48. so 6 channels on BR and 2 channels on tascam 8 channels altogether per take is 8.25 hours shot. about 3 hours shot per day.. ah yep.

[ I've just done a 6 day shoot and am only delivering 1.3 Gigs, but thats because we only had 500ft of film per day.. so pretty well worked off a 1:1 ratio most of the time. Hardly any of the set-ups went to a second take! just nailed eveything in rehearsals.]

-I too would like to see one of the sound reports from BR.

-what happened to the slate when you phantomed it?

- disgusting sounds recorded? .. god theres been a few. A few I couldn't even bring myself to put in writing here.
Foley work can be like that.. find yourself working out the best vomit noises (I find soggy cheerios dumped down the toilet work very well!:zombie_smiley: ;) ) and doing lip noises for certain unsavoury wanking scenes


I once recorded a dead cat being blown up with fireworks. That shoot was not for the faint hearted.

When you said about the dog lapping water it reminded me something funny. Doing a scene where a mother was shaking up a bottle of milk for her baby, continuously, and it sounded all sloshy etc etc. couldn't see the scene, so just had my head down to my mixer. when I looked up the DP was furiously chewing his chewing gum, concentrating on the monitor, and he was doing it perfectly in sync with the sloshing in my ears. It was so funny, I had to stifle my laughing till cut.
 
Cool report Phil. I plan to one day make the Mac transition (despite those funny but obnoxious "I'm a Mac" commercials) and BR is first on my list to give a test run to.

ptalsky said:
- Be an absolute stickler for getting cell phones turned off (not just on silent). With the wireless, everything ran great (no hits or dropouts) until this morning, when one helpless person thought that all cell phones off didn't apply to her (of course I made sure she was thoroughly embarrassed - she was just the videographer for the behind the scenes).
Click to expand...

Man I am with you on this. Even guys with some serious milage under their belt seem to think this doesn't apply to them. I bite my tongue and remain friendly to keep things comfortable on set but the people that ignore this really should be required to buy all the rounds that day.
ptalsky said:
- When you have a DP that yells at the boom op for getting the boom in the shot, be sure to praise him/her in front of the rest of the crew, gently. It really helped my boom op a lot when I told him that if he wasn't dropping into the shot occasionally, that he wasn't doing his job right. The DP had scared him to the point where he was aiming about 6 feet above the frameline.
Click to expand...

Very good advice for working with novice boom ops. If the DP gets too mouthy I have descretely and politely explained to him that my guy is doing his job and unless he can claim every dolly move, pan, tilt, focus pull, or lighting set-up is dead on everytime, he needs to back off and handle the BIS with some discretion and professionalism.
ptalsky said:
- Am I the only one that wishes that actors would use the mute button on their Tx's before they go to the bathroom. Nothing worse than putting my headphones back on and hearing grunting and splashes.
Click to expand...

LOL, been there. I simple ask that anytime an actor is leaving set they come see me or the boom op to get the unit muted or turned off. To that end, I try to keep the actual functionings of the unit a mystery to them. Once they know how to work it they tend to turn it off constantly and I am left running to turn on and/or adjust the pack because of their tom-foolery.
ptalsky said:
- Not sure if this is a California thing or a national thing, but battery disposal rules changed here and now they have to be treated as hazardous waste. I made sure my agreement included a clause that the producer was responsible for proper disposal (we went through more than 100 AA batteries).
Click to expand...

You gotta get these new NiMh rechargables. They last a lot longer, cheaper in the long run, and are not classified as hazardous for disposal.
ptalsky said:
- Burning data DVD's on the Mac is painful. I think in the future I am going to recommend that the director bring a hard drive and I will dump all the files direct to the hard drive. It took me an extra 30 minutes or so to burn the final DVD today (the Mac burn data DVD software is painfully slow... the verification of the burn takes longer than the burn itself. Maybe someone can suggest better software or a setting I missed).
Click to expand...

Not sure if you are already doing this but I find burning the first half of the day at lunch saves me a ton of time. Since most of my days are under 2 gigs I can even burn CD instead of DVD and save a few pennies. Of course I am never going over 4 tracks so you have a bit more to handle there.
ptalsky said:
- The lead actor (the director's father) among other things is a very famous plate spinner/juggler from India (he was also in "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks). Let me tell you, those plates are loud and unpredictable. Lots of blow outs. I finally just throttled back one channel heavily, and it came out okay. (And, I do have to admit, I did leave the board on one take so I could watch his routine...and he is amazing even at the age of 88).
Click to expand...

Sounds like a fun shoot. Getting paid to watch what others pay an admission fee for is always cool. :)
ptalsky said:
- A dog drinking soup out of a bowl ranks right up there with listening to two people kissing as one of the more disgusting aspects of being a sound mixer. ;-)
Click to expand...

I feel your pain. Not the dog part but the people kissing. Nothing is worse then some hammy actor who thinks the kiss has to be all visual and slobbery. I have actually physically winced a couple times. Of course it only gets worse in post. My wife complains when I leave the door opening while working on a particularly messy love scene. Ironic considering she is my goto hand smocher for kissing foley :kiss:

Very entertaining and informative post. Please keep us up to date with any technical issue that might pop up in the future. I look forward to seeing the BR sound reports too.

Cheers
 
Let's see...I'm going to try to answer everyone's questions in one post:

EJShin: I had power throughout the shoot, though I did have my BDS and NP-1's on stand-bye. Had I been forced to go no power I would have pulled out my bag, loaded up the 302 and the Tascam and told the director she was SOL for running 3-4 wireless and ISO recording (my agreement with her stated that power was to be supplied by her throughout the shoot). The Tascam for me is a workhorse - I've used it on about 8 shoots so far, and never a problem. I've never actually replaced the batteries without having it on power of some sort, so I don't know if you need to rejam in that situation, but re-jamming is so simple and fast that I wouldn't worry about it. When I'm in my bag, I just leave the jam cable connected.

Transmission: BoomRecorder only works for sit and mix situations and it requires some sort of a mixer interface (lots of folks use the Motu Traveler between a mixing board and their Mac, I went with a FW board). You should probably look at the Tascam as a viable recording option.

Moonlite: I'm still struggling with the way I want to transfer to the director. My policy, since getting burned once, is no sound until I get paid. And when sending to the camera for dailies, I will either run it a bit hot or soft - still great for rough edits and dailies, but not good enough for final picture. (This policy stemmed from me not getting paid for a 2 week shoot, where I turned over sound every day. Clearly this will not be appropriate on some sets, and for larger production companies, but when I work with small budget projects this is my firm policy, stated up front.)

Alan: I will try to get one posted today and let everyone know - sorry I didn't call you to come out to the set - it just didn't feel like they would welcome a visitor. I'll keep you posted on the next project.

Scooby: My cart barely fits into my back seat. I want to get one of those rock and roller carts - but so far I have not found any one that has the shelves in stock. As far as amount of sound - I always ran an even number of tracks because I remember reading that Avid has a problem with an odd number of tracks - this is not a BR issue, but an Avid issue. I am not sure all of the details, so I figured better safe than sorry. Also, even when certain mics weren't used, I kept the number of tracks the same throughout. Not sure if this is the best workflow or not (gonna ask some more experienced multi-trackers how they do it). And, we shot a huge amount of coverage - 33 different shots on one scene alone. When I had phantom on and jammed, the slate just got kind of wacky and lost time code (best way I can describe it).

Wabbit: I gave up on rechargeable batteries - harder to bill for them, and yet another thing I had to keep track of (keeping them charged). And, now I've gone AA for everything, so that keeps the cost down some for production. As far as burning half the day at lunch, not sure it would have worked. We only took 30 minutes for lunch, and the burns were running just about that long. I will try it again and see how long it really goes.

Phil
 
Thanks Phil,

BTW - earlier I forgot to mention that many are clueless that a cellular phone actually turns on it's transmitter for a moment every few minutes. The MTSO base station needs the cellular phone to regularly transmit a handshake signal from time to time to determine if the signal strength is too low; if so, a closer MTSO base station picks up the cellphone for possible future calls.

So even though the talent thinks they're safe putting their cell phone in vibrate mode, when their cellphone handshake signal automatically keys the transmitter every few minutes, the signal can get induced into recording gear (particularly a lavalier tranmitter). Anyone who's heard the telltale triple buzz-buzz-buzzit in a recording knows exactly the source of the interference - BUSTED. Bottom line - audio engineers need to lecture WHY talent with a wireless needs to turn off the friggen cellphone <wink>

Regards, Michael
 
Copy of the sound report for day one generated by BR is now available for those that wanted to see it:

http://www.bwgproductions.com/examples/sound_report.pdf

The actual report is generated in XML - I converted it to PDF. There is a way to change it - it has a bit too much detail in its current form for most of the projects I'm on. BTW, don't print it - it is 76 pages. ;-)

The cool thing is that the links are live when the audio files are present - so an editor/director can quickly get the file they're looking for via the sound report.

I did customize the file names to scene-take-date-f#.wav.

You will note that each channel is named too generically for my taste - next time I'll be very specific (i.e. boom on 1, joe on 2, mary on 3, etc.) rather than wireless1, wireless2, etc.

Phil
 
It's the shorthand I use - + means over dialog, 0 means not over dialog (i.e. can be removed in post). I doubt this is standard notation, since I just made it up. ;-)

Phil
 
It's not unusual to end up with 22gigs of information. On my last shoot, I ended up with about 60gig. I was so scared that my stream drive was filling up quickly.

The file report looked very simple and easy to use. It wasn't as detailed as I hoped, but it's very organized.
 
Phil,
As to DVD burns. Toast is the Mac software that is standard. The burning function built into the OS sucks. It makes a vertual disk and then burns that, takes forever and I have no idea why. You may also have a slow burner? I can burn a full DVD (single layer) on an 12x burner in about 3.5 minutes and about the same for verification.

You might consider using the rechargeables and still charging the AA price. I get about twice the life out of the NiMH's than I get out of Alkaline's, and now there are 2700mAh ones out there! And at the risck of sounding too Californian the Alkilines are really bad news in land fill's. I still carry them as back up and use them sometimes but the NiMH's are great. Now if we can get Li rechargeable AA's I would be in heaven. I have a drill that uses a Li batt pack and wow, light powerful and they hold a charge for ~6 months. Glad Ian worked out, I know he had a great time.
 
I was just thinking about the notation you've used there phil, its a good one

I got thinking about how every sound guy has thier own way of shorthanding notes, and due to the fact that there is never more than one sound guy on a shoot, none of these methods are ever discussed, and therefore never standardised.

I think we, here, should come up with a notation system and call it our modern standard. It'll catch on, and become global!




Thousands will proclaim across the land near and far, the community of soundmen who one day wisely clarified the chaotic pre-standardised reports of old.
 
Phil

Question on the ListenTechs. Are you using the LT-700 and the LR-500 or LR-400 units or something else entirely. I searched your posts and there were no model numbers, this is the best I can come up with from their site.
 
Cryo,

I'm using the LT-700 Tx and the LR-400 Rx models. I may eventually get more of a base-station Tx, but this one is working well for me right now.

Since the connector cable is the antenna for the Tx, I'm using a 6' cable...as I said, it is working well.

Phil
 
I hadn't looked at this thread in a while, and I need to add an update to it.

I found out from Take Vos (the guy that created BR), that you can record to multiple location simultaneously, so I'm going to record to an DVD-RW and the hard disk at the same time on my next shoot (this Sunday) and see how that works. It's a really simple shoot, so even if it fails, I will still have the HD-P2 with full sound. Of course, I'm going to test the heck out of it this week in my office, but that is never quite the same as actually working on set.

Since I quoted this job way before I ever thought about Boom Recorder, I'm not too worried. They don't even have to know it's there.

Phil
 
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