Advice for location sound in office building

M

marquee

Active member
Short film, highrise office building interior only. Doing a favor for a friend who is in desperate need, this morning. I have not been to the location and will not have a chance to beforehand. Shoot on Canon XLH1 HDV

Any tips, possible problems ie noise/RF, advice anyone can give.

Will not do double system, but may bring tascam recorder just in case.

TIA
 
the single biggest thing i can think of is A/C

can you possibly get access to the controls so you can shut off the fan/blower during takes?

if you can that will really help. you can gaff tape the ducts and that has worked for me in a pinch.

also bring blankets. i always have 2 or 3 u-haul moving blankets in my car. they are wonderful to cut down on reflections etc.

a great thing to have in any misc grip kit are those thingies that hook onto the strips in a suspended ceiling that has the spud like a standard light stand.

i've used those for everything from hanging a mic over the actors to using it to hang a moving blanket to block reflections from a huge window.

matthew
 
Marquee,

A few other things to think about:

1. Computers. I had a location where we were shooting in a cube across from the server closet. The closet did not have air conditioning on weekends, and so had to be kept open. Noisy computers, and we closed the door during takes, but it was still noisy. Also, computers on desks. Make sure you can turn them off.

2. Boom positioning. If you're in cubes with a high ceiling, not too bad, but if you're crammed into a small office it will be hard to get the boom in. Also, watch out for the flourescent lights...they tend to be noisy.

3. I second the idea of bringing sound blankets with you. If you don't already own some, get some of the larger clamps (they're not called C47's....those are clothes pins...I can't remember the name of them now, but they are the bigger clamps like that). These will enable you to easily hang blankets from the drop down ceiling.

4. Also, if you don't already own one, get a cantellini (sp?) clamp. This will let you hang the boom off a standard C stand with a grip head.

5. Watch where your XLR cables run. If you're in a cube farm, there is a lot of electricity running around the base of cubes. Go up and over when possible.

6. Along with computers, watch out for other office equipment, like copiers and fax machines. When possible, turn them off. Also, if this is a smaller company, they may have an answering machine. Turn the volume all the way down on it.

Finally, to make sure no one gets in trouble, I highly suggest that either as a part of the sound log or separately, keep track of everything you've changed, moved, turned off, etc so you can make sure to reset everything the way is was on strike. Usually everyone is in such a hurry to get out once the shooting is complete that inevitably something gets forgotten (always remember to turn the refrigerator back on/plug it back in).

Phil

P.S. BTW, very good question and not one I remember seeing here. I always love to respond to questions I haven't answered several times over. ;-)
 
goto home depot and get their big spring clips. they are really cheap. i have like 10 in my kit and sometimes i use them all.

b&h carries a boom mate. that and a grip head on top of a c-stand is a great boom holder.

i hate seeing people who have a boom operator stand there take after take when its just stationary actors. no need for that.

hang the boom off of a c stand and let the boom operator take a break.

most of the noise stuff is common sense. tell everyone to shut up and listen through your headphones and see what noise you hear.

if you hear noise shut stuff off till the noises are gone.

what you can't shut off you can often mask with moving blankets!

just remember that hard surfaces are generally bad. i've done stuff in small bathrooms where everything that wasn't in the shot was covered with moving blankets, sleeping bags, towels etc.

ended up with a sweet sounding room that wasn't the slightest bit boomy.

matthew
 
Thank you all for the advice, although it was a little late. just kidding. Wednesday morning was really tough. There was no way to control the AC since the whole building is centrally controlled. Amazing stuff you would pick up. Lights flickering, computer fans turning on, pipes, the damn server room.

Anyway, I just mixed and had a boom op and boom asst/PA do all the work. But it took us a good portion of the morning solving noise problems. I didnt have enough blankets and had to run to uhaul for a ton more.

All in all it was good. Phil and Matt, thanks for the help. What you guys said was dead on. The only thing I could not control was the computer server room. Too loud, A/C running all the time. Why they wanted to film near there, i have no idea. So we took room tone, and after listening to playback, seems like they will have to do ADR for that part. But it was good experience.

I have another short coming up that is 50% in a bathroom, so I will take your advice.

Thanks
 
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