An inexpensive way to treat large rooms for sound?

SpringShoeFilms

SpringShoeFilms

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Hey... I've got an important issue that needs to be taken care of soon. I'll be shooting a movie starting June First that requires many shots on a blue screen set.

We have access to a local college that has a great set up. Large blue screen. Lighting grids and other lights all around. Everything looks great.

But the room is large and then walls are BRICK. The floor is flat and smooth. There is ECHO! And we've got to key them into various locations, including outdoors, which clearly the echo would be horrible on!

I'm desperate for a way to deaden the echo inexpensively, but still have a good result. Are there any tips people can give... or even full ideas or reccomendations as to how to do it? Shooting starts in a little less than a month!
 
Moving blankets. Hang em everywhere you can. You have to figure, since you are shooting on a blue stage, you are going to loop pretty much everything anyway. Blue and green stages are always noisy, and don't sound good. Every movie you've seen (Sin City, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Star Wars) that has shot mainly on blue or green stages are heavily looped.

-Dave
 
Yup. Blue and Green are the worse possible colors for sound.
They create uneven ordered harmonics that just sound awful.

Don't do it, man!
 
Thanks for the responses. Another question though... what exactly do you mean by "looping" the audio?

(you'll have to forgive me... I'm a video person... but not much of an AUDIO person.)
 
"looping" is a term that comes from film; I've heard it described as when they would take a print of a scene and splice it together so it made a loop. That way they could project it continuously, and the actors could watch it over and over to mimic the lines and repeat them, in a closed/contained environment, guaranteeing clear audio.
 
Shag carpet the floor.
Hang cloth panels everywhere to absorb the sound that will be bouncing around.
Don't use a shotgun mic, bad for reverberation. Use a hyper cardioid. Get it very close, even in the shot. You can cut it out with a matte in post as long as it doesn't overlap the subject.
 
If you doing an outdoor scene. Get a 10 by 10 (larger if you need it) green key drop. Hang it off some c-stands outside in a quite area. Use some daylight lights to even out the light on drop and illuminate the subjects. You are good to go. This will be much cheaper and less time consuming then ADR later.

Good luck
 
Anything you can do to break up large volumes of space or large flat surfaces (including the floor) makes a big difference. I've used sheets of plywood sticking out partway down a wall, a vehicle, furniture blankets on C stands or scrunched up on the floor, carpeting, foam rubber and human beings. You're trying to confuse the sound (some sort of baffling), or muffle it (blankets or carpet). You're going to need a lot of stuff for that large space. Make a mess.
 
thisiswells said:
Yup. Blue and Green are the worse possible colors for sound.
They create uneven ordered harmonics that just sound awful.

Don't do it, man!
Click to expand...

hahaha I hope you're joking about the color thing. That's just not true.

I consider myself pretty well versed in acoustics. If you have some flutter echoes going on you could correct that with blankets and other dampening. Focus on density and creating a diffused acoustic environment. The lower the frequencies get the more power they have at the same amplitude. Bring in couches, chairs, bookshelves and fill them with books, a beached whale, anything big that can diffuse the sound field. Blankets will dampen the top end but the lower frequencies will pierce right through like it's not even there. I hope you don't have the bigger problem of standing waves.

What's the shape of your studio? Could you draw me a rough picture in MS Paint? I could tell you where to strategically place objects and blankets in the studio if you want. I could at least get a better idea of your problem.

-Aaron
 
Sometimes Abuse of Power Can Be a Good Thing

Sometimes Abuse of Power Can Be a Good Thing

Noct said:
hahaha I hope you're joking about the color thing. That's just not true.
Click to expand...
After so many posts, it's sometimes fun to throw something out like that for laughs.
Makes up for all the useful answers I provide here. Hope this helps. :thumbsup:
 
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