Narrative Film -- Lav mic?

Duff

Duff

Well-known member
I'm in the process of reading a lot of the old audio threads here and learning a lot of information. However, I haven't been able to find an answer to this fundamental question, so I apologize if this has already been covered:

In narrative film, other than a wide shot where a boom mic isn't practical, is there any reason to use wireless lavs hidden on the characters instead of a shotgun/hyper on a boom?

Essentially, is the wireless system and lav mic a last-resort kind of thing, if you're unable to boom the shot, or is it just a matter of preference? I'm building my audio kit, and I'm wondering if it's worth it to someone who just makes narrative films and doesn't do documentary stuff (and whose funds are limited) to drop $600+ on a wireless lav system at all.

Another question is would you need one wireless system and mic for every actor in the scene, or do you mic one of them and tweak the levels in post so the person wearing the mic isn't louder than everyone else?

I currently own an AT897, and my next purchase, based on information on this forum, will be the Oktava. After that, I'm going to buy accessories like wind protection and a good shockmount. I'm wondering if after that I should invest in a wireless system like the G2 and the contrymen B3, or if I should upgrade my shotgun to the AT4073. This is my long term purchasing plan, but I was wondering if film makers really even need lav mics.

Thanks for the help.
 
Another question is would you need one wireless system and mic for every actor in the scene, or do you mic one of them and tweak the levels in post so the person wearing the mic isn't louder than everyone else?
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Definitely a mic per person. The sound of a lav mic like the Sennheiser MKE2 is only good as long as it's relatively close to the person talking. Another person standing 1 or more meters away will sound different (more noise) and exponentially worse with every centimeter more distance to the mic.

Depending on your boom mic (is it quality-wise like an MKH 416, or worse?) a lav mic like the MKE2 could be sounding better in indoor environments, especially when people are talking almost simultaneously and the boom operator wouldn't be fast enough.
However the MKE2 are omnidirectional and will pick up a lot of ambient noise - so using them outdoors could prove very difficult.

I guess you should at least first rent a pair of lav mics and try them before you spend a lot of money.
 
Are lav mics required? No. Do they get you out of a lot of sticky scenerios? Yes.

Some recordist keep all their talent wired up constantly, others only use them when neccessary.

A mixer friend of mine who has been doing post since the early 80's relates the fact that the amount of ADR required for films has gone progressively down as wireless lav technology has improved over the last 30s years. So if your goal is to cut down on the amount of ADR needed, wireless lavs are critical in film work.

Cheers
 
On every project, I wire all actors (well, up to 4, that being the number of wireless kits I have right now). Are the lav's my primary audio? No, the boom is, but I turn everything over to post and let them decide where they can get the best coverage. It is usually a mix - especially since, more often than not, I'm working with a novice boom op.

A G2 with a B3 isn't a bad way to start - and you can always get the B3 re-plugged if you go to Lectro or something else later. But, you will certainly want a pair of them.

So, if I were you, in priority order:

1. Wind protection and shockmounts all around (you could have the best shotgun ever made, but if you don't have proper wind protection, it will mostly be useless)
2. Hypercardioid (like the Octava)
3. Wireless

Again, make sure you've got good coverage from the boom, then go wireless. (And, you can always rent wireless until you can afford to buy it).

Phil
 
Thanks for the suggestions; these are exactly the type of answers I was looking for.

If you're having one wireless system per actor, how do you go about capturing the audio? I assume you want to keep the audio tracks separate for post production and don't want to mix on the set, so do you need an audio recorder (could be one of the inputs on the camera) and a mixer for each set of two wireless lavs, recording each mono track to either left or right channel? Or are there any decent dual channel wireless systems? It seems to me that to get two actors on wireless would require at least two G2 systems ($1200) and a mixer (like the mixpre -- $665) for around $1865 (not counting decent lav mics). This would be using the camera's audio, with the mixer into one channel and the boom mic into the other channel. Does that sound about right? Is this the cheapest way to go wireless, or is there another option? With 4 wireless systems and a boom, would you definitely need an external DAR?

Sorry if this has been asked before, but pretty much every thread in the audio forum has the words "wireless", "record", "mixer", etc, so it's hard to find a query that returns pages that are truly relevant to what I'm asking.
 
If you're having one wireless system per actor, how do you go about capturing the audio?
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In ENG people usually use an SQN or similar mobile mixer to do a live mix, but a mobile mixer with >3 inputs is pretty expensive and you need a skilled operator.
If you have no more than 2 mics you can use the two camera channels. I always do that when I record an ENG talk with two people.
 
Duff said:
If you're having one wireless system per actor, how do you go about capturing the audio? I assume you want to keep the audio tracks separate for post production and don't want to mix on the set, so do you need an audio recorder (could be one of the inputs on the camera) and a mixer for each set of two wireless lavs, recording each mono track to either left or right channel? Or are there any decent dual channel wireless systems? It seems to me that to get two actors on wireless would require at least two G2 systems ($1200) and a mixer (like the mixpre -- $665) for around $1865 (not counting decent lav mics). This would be using the camera's audio, with the mixer into one channel and the boom mic into the other channel. Does that sound about right? Is this the cheapest way to go wireless, or is there another option? With 4 wireless systems and a boom, would you definitely need an external DAR?
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If you are just using 2 wireless and a boom, you will need a mixer. It is better to have a 3 channel mixer and plug all the mics in to that. You then send the boom to the left and output that to channel 1 of the camera and mix the 2 wireless together and pan them right on the mixer and output that to channel 2 of the camera.
You should always avoid mixing wireless signal with a boom signal. One reason being if you take an RF hit on one of the lavs, then it will also ruin your boom signal and you wont have a clean track. Another reason is phasing.
If you are going with 4 wireless and a boom you would need a 5 channel mixer, or in a pich you could get by with channels and plugging the boom straight into camera. The only downside to that is the camera operator will have to monitor audio for the boom as well.
 
So is standard practice to mix all the wireless lavs onto one channel, and keep the boom mic on the other channel?
 
Duff said:
So is standard practice to mix all the wireless lavs onto one channel, and keep the boom mic on the other channel?
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Yep. If there's drop outs on the wireless, you'll have the clean boom. If you mix (on location) the lav and the boom, you'll piss the post folks off (like me) and have phase issues.
 
A lot of professionals recommended the DPA mics and the Audio Limited kit for wireless. Do anybody here used them I never did myself but I am looking forward to.
 
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another important thing to keep in mind is that a sound of a room cannont change around if you if have a scene in their thats boom then you cant use lav for someone else in the room cuz its going to sound like poop. either one or the other. sure its nice to have the back up but keep in mind in the end only one will be used either lav or boom not both... so dont think of it as "well i this situation is hard to boom so i will lav for this shot" cuz i gaurntee in the edit that wont fly. their is always a way to do it right.
 
I used the Audio Limited in the past on some BBC shoots but am not familiar with any of their newer models. The previous models were on par with Lectros at the time (2001 or 02 last time I used one). I haven't heard much about them recently as the US has become very Lectro-centric. People across the pond probably have a better sense of where Audio Limited stands presently.

Cheers
 
these are vhf units , better look for uhf
look for audio 2000 non diversity or diversity
few things
these are 2 channel only units so you need check if the fq in your eria do not ocupid
the diversity receiver works with litum batteries only - very expensive
the non diversity works on 9v like the tx

if you power it from outside , check you have less then 14 v not to damage the receiver if not make sure you have cable with internal step down converter
they could work from anything that 7v till the +14
audio wise they bit **** from anything that doesn't call lectro 200 and up
i had allot of these units - very reliable ( failure in 6 years)
remember that audio stopped to produce the 2000 in 2001 so they are not so new , the service is good but it have to go to England , forget about local distributor .
if you need another reciever you can use sennheiser g-2 without pilot - it works
 
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