Pros and cons of recording sound wild?

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ejdge

Well-known member
I'm intrigued how Robert Rodriguez seemed like he used a cheap sound setup (for El Mariachi) to achieve good results. Is this a product of recording wild or theatrical release?

I have yet to purchase any sound equipment and I was wondering if I could save some money on equipment if I recorded the sound wild.

Has technology advanced so much that this method is useless? Is synching that much of a pain in the ass?
 
He was shooting with film and it is always somewhat of a process to re-synch that to the seperate source anyway. You have a recorder built into your dvx100 (or hvx200) so you should take advantage of it (you will save lots of time). There are shots where getting a mic in there isn't practical (possible) and wild sound can be good.

The first thing you should do before you do anything else is get Jay Rose's book
"Producing Great Sound for Digital Video"

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=91167

See the advice above!!
 
Thanks for the quick reply, but one question still lingers: Would it still be possible to get high quality sound with cheap equipment? In his ten minute film school, RR talks about using a cheap ass radioshack mic for his sound.

I've been recommended $200+ mics for audio, so it would be greaaat if I could get high quality audio with cheap equipment, even if it requires a lot of work in post. Then again, if that book answers this question, I'll be right on it!
 
ejdge said:
Thanks for the quick reply, but one question still lingers: Would it still be possible to get high quality sound with cheap equipment?
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No.

ejdge said:
In his ten minute film school, RR talks about using a cheap ass radioshack mic for his sound.
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He had to because he couldn't afford anything else. He also talked about the many weeks that it took to sync up the sound in post and how he had to creatively cut away every time one of his actors failed to lip sync. It happened to work for him, would it work for you? Maybe, but I wouldn't recommend it.

ejdge said:
I've been recommended $200+ mics for audio, so it would be greaaat if I could get high quality audio with cheap equipment, even if it requires a lot of work in post.
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Bottom line is that you get what you pay for. Using a cheap mic will just result in poor sound that is impossible to fix. Dubbing it in is even more difficult and will require hours and hours of expensive studio time. If you want to try doing it yourself then you'll need expensive audio equipments and a sound-treated environment, which cost money. Record the sound correctly the first time and save yourself the hassle.
 
Keep in mind Columbia Pictures did something in the six figure range worth of audio post on the version of El Mariachi you heard. RR also got his film viewed this at a time when everybody and their grandmother wasn't running around trying to sell their indy feature. So getting his videotape viewed by a talent agency and then by the major studios was not as difficult as it is today. For anyone looking to work the festival circuit clean sound is essential. Bad sound/sync will most likely keep you out of the major festivals and certainly have anyone seriously considering buying your film walking out in the first 5 minutes.

Reading how someone else did something will not answer if it something you can or want to do. Give the wild sound concept a try with a short 4 to 5 minute piece and see if you are happy with the process and results.

ejdge said:
Is synching that much of a pain in the ass?
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YES! :)

If you are just doing stuff for fun then experiment and knock yourself out.

good luck
 
If you want to save money on equipment, hire a sound mixer who has his own gear
:dankk2:

Personally, i buy quality( ie expensive) equipment. As someone already stated, in pro audio, you get what you pay for. However, although incredibly important, I will say equipment is secondary to the operator. A knowlegeable experienced mixer can get good results with crap gear. Ask Oleg about his "chiniz mics" :nads:

As for wild line, don't consider it a "fix all" for all bad sound situations. Consider it another usefull tool to put in your toolbox.
 
The biggest regret I have about the shorts I have done is not putting enough time and money into capturing quality sound on set. I'll just say, don't try and cheap out on the sound, you will be disappointed.
 
As stated before thee was a LOT of work done on the sound after the film got picked up. But your also i bit off on the costs. The guy who did the original tracks did it on an 8track cass system with a synchronizer. I had this set up back around the same time and used it for some short films. The recorder with sync ran about $2500 new, I bought my recorder used for $1,100 in 1991 and $500+ for the sync. So RR did what I keep recommending. He hired someone (though probably not for much cash*). That way he didn't have to buy all the junk needed to do sound.

But if you really want to go that rout I still have the equipment and would be glad to make you a very nice deal on it.


* hire doesn't nec require the exchange of $$$. It's trading some work for something of value. It could be as low as a credit, but is usually a combo of a number of things. I know a deal that was done for credit and a few hard-drives and CD media (that was gotten for free from one of the producers who ran a computer store) and a few points. That deal got post editorial a mix on a stage and a few hours of ADR on a real ADR stage. Work the deals, it's what this business runs on.
 
It irritates me no end to see: " I have $24.95 to do all the audio! Why does it cost so much?"

I'm kind of sick of people thinking audio is something you get at the drive through w/ a side order of fries and should cost about the same, or worse cost about as much as the free MP3's they've ripped today.

Audio is half the picture (see signature at bottom) and should cost a lot - a whole helluva lot, like a good doctor or lawyer or dentist.

Jesus, I’ll GIVE you the $200 to buy yourself a good mic cable.

OK, OK, so I'm grouchy :Drogar-Angry(DBG): , so no offense, ejdge. Best thing you can do is to hire a sound guy/company to make your excellent videography skills really shine!


Silicon Audio Labs
Great sound is half the picture!
- -- ~~<((( d(-_-)b )))>~~ -- -
 
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SiliconAudioLabs said:
It irritates me no end to see: " I have $24.95 to do all the audio! Why does it cost so much?"

Audio is half the picture (see signature at bottom) and should cost a lot - a whole helluva lot, like a good doctor or lawyer or dentist.
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Sound is usually 5% - 10% of the budget. On really expensive films this number gets smaller and on lower budgeted films it gets larger. This is for films that actually did a budget - realistic budgets. Some how on micro budget films the budget is what gets left in the dust first. So they spend it all on cameras wrap parties etc and then go were finished. Oh damn I forgot the post. Picture editors are more and more getting into the same problem as sound. Hell iMovie will work with HD so who need's an editor?

If your post sound budget is less that 5% you should probably just shoot the person who made the budget in the first place. Just think of the rash of low budget filmmaker suicides that would cause ...
 
Noiz2 said:
Sound is usually 5% - 10% of the budget. On really expensive films this number gets smaller and on lower budgeted films it gets larger.
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I suspect this percentage might be so low on 'really expensive films' because of the exaggerated cost of the salaries of A-list actors. Take extremely highly paid actors out of the equation and what does the budget percentage for sound come out to?
 
Don't know but on a budget under 150 mill or so Sound post is usually around 5%. I've seen it as high as 20% on micro budgets that knew what they were doing.
 
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