My Cart - On A Simple Job

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ptalsky

Veteran
Hey all,

I finally remembered to take pictures of my cart when set up, so I'm posting them below.

This was a really simple job from Saturday - two actors, one scene, little coverage. Usually I post a lessons learned post, but on this shoot, just one lesson learned:

When you get what you think are RF hits on your wireless, check to make sure the actor hasn't partially disconnected his lav from the Tx. Arrggghh! Damned actors! (And I am one, too, just not a damned one).

Well, actually, I'm sure there is a sound guy or two out there that thinks I'm a damned actor, but for a very different reason. On one shoot the sound guy was wiring me up with a lav, and wanted to put on the inside of my collar on a very tight shirt - basically it would have been a throat mic. I stopped him, and ended up wiring myself. I know, bad actor....but I wanted to make sure I was covered correctly. :-)

Anyway, here's two of the same pic...one just the cart and one annotated so you know what everything is...BTW, the cart was a very expensive one. $40 at Home Depot. But, it works pretty well (certainly a great value).

So here's the pics:

1170118833.jpg


1170118923.jpg


Let me know if you have any questions.

Phil
 
LOL on the breath strips. I always have several packs of gum, especially for when I have to wire up talent and have a conversation 6 inch from their face. :)

The price is right on the cart but how do you load that thing? Do you have any mobile power?

Nice pics, thanks for sharing Phil

Cheers
 
Wabbit,

The cart fits in my back seat fully assembled, barely. No mobile power yet, but after the problems I had a few weeks ago with the circuit I was on blew, now I use a plain old UPS to help ensure clean power that doesn't blow out. You can't see it in these pictures.

Matt, my interface into BR is the Alesis FireWire 16 board in the picture. Works very well for me so far.

Phil
 
Phil,
nice looking rig...wish I knew what all that stuff did, but I suspect this is secondary sound...something I'm not ready for yet! I'm still learnig the ABC's. I looked up everything I could on the web to help identify what I'm looking at...and I'm thinking this is Mac...not my PC. I'm just more curious as to what the slate mic does for you and what boom recorder is? The Behringer looks interesting too...Test Tone 1khz? As far as the big Alesis...I dont want to know yet...lol.
 
bwest,

Let me see if I can at least chip away at your questions. Yes, I am running a MacBook with BoomRecorder (BR) running on it. BR is a multi-track recording software program designed specifically for film/television/video production. It enables me to record each track as a separate file so each microphone is completely isolated. The benefit of this is especially important in a wireless environment. On a two track recorder, I record the boom left and all the wireless summed right. Well, if one wireless mic takes an RF hit or has any other problem, the entire wireless track is useless. This way, you no one mic ever effects the other.

The slate mic is there so I can call every scene and take into the recording. This depends somewhat on the set workflow. Sometimes the calling of the scene and take is done by the people actually marking the scene with the slate. I prefer to lay it down directly into the recording. I will also slate in what I call a mixer slate, which has all of the current settings on the board so it can be easily replicated if necessary. And, any time a change comes in, I re-slate the mixer.

The tone generator is also a cable tester, but I am using it here for tone. My mixer does not have a tone generator built in, so this way we can lay down tone on all tracks being recorded.

The Alesis (yes, I know you didn't want to know) is just my mixer. As I have said in other posts, we tend to recommend bag-sized mixers (SD 302, etc.) but when you're doing a job where you can sit and do your mixing, a full board is often preferable. This board has 16 inputs and multiple outputs (for this shoot, I went with firewire out to the Mac, and my main outputs when line-in into the Tascam recorder.)

I hope this makes it a bit more clear. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Phil
 
Oh, and I didn't really annotate it in the picture but clipped to the side of the cart are two of those Eagle travel bags, one with nothing but batteries, the other with headphones for the ListenTech's and tape for lav placement, gaffer tape for audio cables, etc. (Used to hang the tape on my cart, but it kept getting "borrowed" by the grip dept. and not returned. Out of site, out of mind. ;-)

These Eagle bags are great, really sturdy.

Phil
 
Hehe...I said I didnt want to know...but now I have another question! My Idea of mixing is capture to Vegas, duplicate my audio track and assign one channel for my wire/less and the other track for my roller stand boom. [Yes, I'm still one man band, but its a great way to learn] Then I can have control of my two mics in post...raising levels, normalizing, thats about all Ive learned. What controls/mixing are you using during production...I cant imagine myself doing this, running the camera, and fixing the lights, but I bet your audio is 10 times better than mine and if anything sucks in my production.. It better not be my audio!

Thanks for your time Phil
Bruce
 
Jam Slate?

Jam Slate?

So, do you run a smart slate at all? Can you jam a slate with the Tascam? I've been debating getting an Alesis mixer and glad to see one actually being used in a Film/TV production environment. Boom Recorder being under $300 is sweet, too.
 
Amishjim,

You can't jam the slate from the Tascam - you have to jam the Tascam from the slate. The Tascam does not have TC out, which is one of its most severe limitations. I do run a smart slate, and I run it as my TC master (and jam Boom Recorder with it, too).

I had forgotten about this thread - I'm going to add it to the Lessons Learned sticky.

Phil
 
ptalsky said:
Amishjim,

You can't jam the slate from the Tascam - you have to jam the Tascam from the slate. The Tascam does not have TC out, which is one of its most severe limitations. I do run a smart slate, and I run it as my TC master (and jam Boom Recorder with it, too).

I had forgotten about this thread - I'm going to add it to the Lessons Learned sticky.

Phil
Click to expand...

That kind of defeats the purpose of the Tascam unit, huh Phil. Good that you have a smart slate with you.
 
Alan,

Not at all. You can still sync audio in post based on TC. It is just something that you have to know about the recorder, and it is something I've said from the beginning. It is still a TC recorder.

Phil
 
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