Am I missing something? (gear question)

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dreallen

Active member
I made this little video of my gear to see if I can get some feedback about whether I am prepared to shoot my indie feature or if I am missing some things I need before I start. Please keep in mind I did not list my Atomos Ninja2, my Lowel 4 light tungsten kit, or my lenses which are a Sigma 50mm, Noktor 25mm, and the old tried and true Lumix 14-140mm! Please watch and any guidance you can give me would be HUGELY appreciated. Also be kind because everything I have learned so far has been from watching all of you! lol. Thanks so much.

WATCH HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMgQO...ature=youtu.be

Dre
 
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something you need is a black foil, and a lee filters pack. not expensive at all, just google them and see the use of it

Lee filters are color gels you put on your light to change the color temperature, you might need that since its only tungsten you have, not sufficient if sometime you think its too warm

black foil acts like a eliminator of light, you can use that to block window lights, or cut holes on it to create some fab/creative lighting if you wish. or simply as the barndoors for your lights


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for your len set, I think you need a macro lens for extreme close ups (Its indie, so you will likely to use lots of closeups just to save budget)

and yeah , 3 people to help you for shooting, one focus puller (you can eliminate this guy if you have time to do lots of takes), one boom guy ( audio is a huge part), and someone to pull your dolly.

I think you have 80% of the gears to get things going, big thing missing here is the crew to help you do it, if its one man show then you need actors that have lots of patience.
 
That's the big final question in my mind. I don't have a budget for an external sound mixer. So I am going live to the internal XLR inputs for sound and having my co producer boom the audio. I have to make due with what I have. Most of the stuff I need audio wise I am looking to provide in post/foley. We will just have to concentrate on audio, boom placement, & get as creative as we can internally. I have a remote sennheiser rig and obviously 25 foot XLR cord for the boom process. Deal breaker?
 
The mindset amongst sound pros is that you must have an external mixer and not use the camera for sound recording, and that's fine for them, but for those of us with tiny budgets direct in is a viable option. It worked well for me, using an AF100, quality XLR cables, a 4053 and 4073, and a KTek boom with KSSR shockmount. My feature just got national distribution and not one of the 5 distributors interested complained about the sound. There were 30 hours of audio post work done.
 
I've done many indie features where crew has been limited with just a boom OP and the mic an AT875r going straight into the back of my camera an HPX371.

Just make sure you are listening to what is going on and in time a mixer and more kit will be more flexible but keeping it simple can still get good results.
 
If it is all you got then it is all you got. I think you just need to do your best to soundproof the set (i.e. turn off the fridge, etc) if you can hear anything. The biggest thing will be monitoring the sound and trying to correct the best you can if there are external factors impacting sound. Just make sure to record a lot of room tone so that it can be used in post to clean up any audio.

I imagine you have clamps and tape? Comes in handy.

Figured out your data storage situation? I was told to have 3 copies of the same file (that is a lot of data!)

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
 
"I was told to have 3 copies of the same file"
-Yes, and at least one at a different location. The 'cloud' is arguably the most secure against physical destruction. ie, fire, theft.. drunks, meteorites, ect.
 
Well since none of the "audio guys" have really chimed in here...

The "do you have enough" question is putting the horse before the cart. You have to decide what you want to do first. There are plenty of folks who will tell you storys about how awful their sound is and people didn't care. Some of that is true. You can in fact make a really awful movie and make money. However it's much more likely that a "good" film will be better received than one with problems.

You can not "fix it in post", really you can't. You can do triage and improve it a lot in post but there is a saying with post people about trying to "polish a turd", it doesn't matter how hard you rub it's still a turd.

That does NOT mean you have to spend a fortune or even have the best equipment, but you have to realistically assess what you have and what you will need for the film you want to make.

If this film is to learn and you don't really care if it has much of a future, maybe it's best to just not wory much about sound. If it's an action film then there are going to be big patched where the sound is going to be all post anyway. If you are going to do a drama with a lot of intimate talking scenes, well you better spend some time on the production sound.

Far more low budget films are hurt by poor sound than make it in spite of bad sound.

So first. 25 feet of XLR is not enough. You need at least another 25 foot run.
I personally would HIGHLY recommend a Sound Devices preamp with a limiter. That may be the MixPre (not sure if any of the Mono units have a limiter).

The reason is simple. If you are going direct to camera and you blow the level you are screwed. With a preamp that the sound person (your boom op it sounds like) controls, you can set up the camera ins and the limiter to make it "clip proof". At that point the boom op can push the levels with less fear of destroying your take. Also the boom op NEEDs to be able to hear the mic, and the Mix Pre lets them listen with out having to run a long headset extension back to the camera.

BTW you never want to try and get anything but dialog. You sound like you were under the assumption that IF you had a full rig you would be getting other sounds from the set. You don't want to. Part of what lots of good equipment in experienced hands will get you is less "other" sounds from the set. All of the non dialog sounds (SFX and Foley (always capitalized BTW)) should be added in post.

I would do some searches here for post and you will find a slew of good info on how that all works.

The MixPre you might be able to pick up for $300- $400 used. You don't need the new one with digital outs. You might even be able to rent one locally? They are built like tanks so not too much of a risk used, but you might still want to check places like TREW audio where therre is some assurance.

Personally I also won't do a show with out using an external recorder I can make a safety recording on. It is way too easy for the camera people to bump a setting and trash the audio. On a short maybe you can get away with it but if I had the $$$ of a feature riding on the shoot...

If I agree to do a shoot even on a no budget short where I'm not getting any rental I bring my recorder to make a safety. I was on a shoot where there were two cameras so a "built in safety". They did the whole morning before they realized that neither camera was getting usable sound.
One camera was on a crane so not easy to check and the other the cameraman was listening to??? But the recordings were totally blow out because they had switched to MIC in. That was in the day of tape when they really didn't want to rewind and "check" till the tape was done. still ...
 
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