Audio for a feature using the dvx100a

Alternative_3

Alternative_3

Active member
Two questions-1)Is a field mixer a necessity when shooting a feature? I plan on using a boom and a lav. I wouldn't mind having a shotgun handy too. If you agree a mixer is the way to go, any good packages you can recommend? (keep in mind budget is a big concern)

2)Or is it just as reasonable and effective to bypass the mixer and run a lav and boom from the dvx100a? This is a very low budget feature, yet I do believe in clear and quality sound.

Any recommendations would be much appreciated.
 
I just wanted to add that I did read the sticky above, and that I do understand most of what was said. I am just looking for personal preferences for low budget filmmaking, and the pros and cons.
 
My answer to question 1 is "yes, but I wouldn't want to have to go through that again." A production mixer is optional in the same way that a video tripod is optional: you can get the job done without one, but having a good one on set will significantly enhance the overall quality of the footage and the speed at which it is shot.

Matching a boom mic with a lav' often takes a fair bit of fader riding, which becomes rather inconvenient if the sound recordist has to paw at the side of the camera every time they want to adjust the levels.

See if your local rental houses can give you a deal on an old Shure FP-33 or -32. There's a lot of them out there, and they can be a more cost-effective alternative to newer mixers like the Sound Devices 302. They are heavy little brutes, though.
 
"having a shotgun handy" - whats gonna go on the end of the boom?

if you're doing a feature, the bare minimum is a mixer of some kind, a hypercardioid for interiors, and a shotgun for exteriors (all with proper wind protection).. its completely pointless to shoot a long format film without considering how to pull of the sound in a way that wont bring the film down and make it look cheap.

good luck.
 
timapter said:
"having a shotgun handy" - whats gonna go on the end of the boom?

if you're doing a feature, the bare minimum is a mixer of some kind, a hypercardioid for interiors, and a shotgun for exteriors (all with proper wind protection).. its completely pointless to shoot a long format film without considering how to pull of the sound in a way that wont bring the film down and make it look cheap.

good luck.
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Oops, that was supposed to read 'boom/shotgun handy'.

At any rate, I agree with you. But after reading the sticky I became engrossed with the idea of capturing my audio with a lav and a shotgun off the camera.

But yeah, I had previously been shopping for a mixer. Any suggestions on a nice package for below $1000? The movie is going to be mostly interiors with about 3-4 scenes being exteriors.
 
Bit of an answer and a bit of a rant.

The Rant...
I can not tell you how many times I have heard "sound is really important to me". Show me the money! Or to be more specific Directors/ producers are usually telling me this after having spent the better part of a year on a short where they had a friend who didn't know one end of a mic from the other do the booming and did a bunch of shots MOS because it saved time and now they want it all cleaned up and sounding like TERMINATOR 2 by the end of the week because you know we have to make that Sundance deadline. If sound IS important to you stop asking how you can do it cheap and start asking how you can do it well.

OK Rant is over and it wasn't aimed at you but on a common misconception. Sound doesn't start after shooting it starts way before shooting.

So , there are two kinds of mixers. You were asking about the box SMUIR was talking about the person. You want the person, they will probably have the box. There are mixed opinions about going streight to camera with out a recorder back up. Personally I would never do a feature with out an audio recorder as a backup, but there are plenty of folks who think it's a waste. Get a mixer (person) and work out with them how to get what you want at whatever your budget is. You should also be talking to whoever is going to do post sound so that you are getting what they will need.

I was talking to someone the other day and we hit on something that I think is very true. A film needs to be planned backward. Start with what you want to end up with and work your way back to the shoot. Too often (low budget) films are planed the other way around and they get to post and can't get what they want because they planned from front to back and didn't know they were going to need X.
 
If sound IS important to you stop asking how you can do it cheap and start asking how you can do it well.
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Well, are the two mutually exclusive? Obviously my question is meant to find the best balance between cost and quality. I don't have tons of money. I am looking for a sound guy, so hopefully this will all be a moot point, but until I have one locked down, I think it's in my best interest to investigate every avenue available and to study audio even more than I have already. I do have hands on experience with mixers when I worked on films in film school. So it's not as though I'm asking for a Fisher price solution for a Warner Brothers production. I'm asking for the thoughts of people who know more than I.
 
I wasn't intending to pick on you. No they are not mutually exclusive. But it's better to approach it from a quality stand point not a cost stand point. For instance you didn't get the DVX100 because it was the cheapest video camera out there. Cost was part of the equation but quality was probably a pretty big factor. And you are asking at the right time not "I just finished my feature with terrible sound now how do I fix it", so you get points.

I personally would not go direct into the camera with out a mixer for anything but the quickest run and gun documentary. I would not shoot a feature with out a dedicated sound person for both production and post. For the same reasons I would not shoot a film with out a DP or a director or an editor or a script. What it's possible to end up with in the end can be so heavily compromised by not having any one of those that it just would stop me. But that's me. People make films all the time missing some or all of those elements.
 
And you happened to get the reaction but it does happen all the time. I'm working on a short that I talked to the director almost two months ago. Sound was VERY important to her. I got a partial final edit today, in theory the whole final edit Mon. and she needs to have it finished by Wen night. It's very short but still. She will be going to 35mm but as producer/didector had done zero research on what the work flow for that would be. I still don't know if they will be shooting an optical negative, makes a BIG difference in the mix. We were originally talking about doing a Dolby surround mix but she never got around to getting a license and of course there is NO time to go to a stage anyway. This is a very stupid way to approach post, they have been working on this short for two years and the sound is supposed to get done in less than a week. And they shot it all MOS. There is no dialog but there is a ton of Foley that could have bee recorded that wasn't.
So sorry that you got the brunt of it but your lead in sounded like you were heading down the same path.
Cheers
 
So sorry that you got the brunt of it but your lead in sounded like you were heading down the same path.
Cheers
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Ah, it's no biggie. I guess my question comes more from not knowing a ton about the DVX and it's limitations moreso than my lack of wanting great sound.

But I appreciate the rant too. :)
 
Noiz2 said:
. And you are asking at the right time not "I just finished my feature with terrible sound now how do I fix it", so you get points.
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A quick anecdote. Some guys here in Seattle just made an amazing middle ages picture. Gorgeous shots of the Cascades, great costumes, huge battle scenes, production value all over the place. They shot the whole thing with an on camera mic...

They are now having to ADR the whole thing. They have called every audio house in Seattle trying to get this done for cheap. Suffice it to say they are screwed. Truly a shame when you look at the footage. They are either gonna have to cough up some serious cash (way more then a sound guy would have cost) or have some piss poor ADR on their beautiful picture. Even good ADR will leave this movie wanting.

Learn the lesson and don't let this be you. Good sound doesn't have to cost a lot but it does take attention and work.

BTW Alternative, invest $35 in this: http://www.dplay.com/book/pgs2e/index.html if you really want to learn about sound for video.

Cheers
 
I noticed no one had answered the initial question yet: Can I get a mixer for less than $1000.

The answer is yes, but there are only a couple worth looking at:

Bottom: Sound Devices MixPre. Two channels, very few features, but good quality.

Middle: Wendt X3. Never used one, but the price is about $1000, and Im told they are pretty good by the likes of Oleg.

Top: Sound Devices 302 (new or second hand - new is a bit above the budget). Some great features, great sound, small size.

Over the Top (for you): Sound Devices 442. You dont have the budget, but this is what people dream of when they decide to buy a great pro mixer. LOADS of professionals use these, and there is a reason - they rock.


So I would imagine those are your options, and i would STRONGLY suggest trying to afford or find a SD302. Great mixer.


And cool story Wabbit... Poor guys. (Well, it was actually pretty stupid of them, but I still feel sorry).
 
Thanks for the story wabbit. That's exactly what keeps me up at night. Even last night I was having nightmares, and your story is bound to cause more.

timapter-I'm looking into the first three you mentioned. Thanks.
 
there is much better one - the rodriguez one - he ended his low budget almost m.o.s , sold the film and these who bought it invested 500000$( 80s$ :)) to make the dialog and the mix be usable for cinema reliese .
 
As I have said repeatedly, look out for good used equipment deals. I got my 302 for $850 plus $20 shipping to SD to get it checked out and all is good (I just finished using it for two recordings today already, and it's only 5pm.) ;-)

Everything does not have to be new to be good and effective. Half of two of my wireless kits (G2's) are used (very bizarre eBay story...he had two sets available, sent me two Tx and someone else two Rx and then expected us to fix his problem. You get what you pay for and I got two great G2 Tx for $150 total. ;-)

Okay, at the risk of offending Yankee and Oleg, I'm a good shopper. It's sort of been bred into me. ;-)

Phil
 
The Rodreguez audio on Mariachi is often overlooked when people look at his $4000 or whatever budget (he edited it using two vcr's of the telecine). Another one is the budget for Blair Witch Project which, if I remember the figure right, cost $500,000 to get the audio up to theatrical distribution. Ironic considering they clearly had the proper equipment.

Don't get too freak out by the horror stories, if you give audio the attention it deserves it should be fine. The biggest thing is to practice how to get the audio before you attempt the mission critical stuff.

Just had a situation last month where I was told by the producer we couldn't get the HVAC turned off at our location where we were shooting for a week. I talked with the custodian who intially refused but after much discussion he came around. The 20 minutes I took to do that just saved the production many hours in post.

The issue always comes down to a philosophy tha audio is the one dept that can be "fixed" it post. People shooting their first movie hear this and just assume it all can be done later. The production day has a million little problems so they figure sound is the dept that can easily absorb the time hit.

If you include ADR, everything audio can be fixed in post but it will cost you x20 the time and a ton more cash then getting it right during production. It also rarly feels as good as the production track.

Remember this and things should be fine. Fast, cheap, and good...since you get only two and you want it good but can't spend a lot of dough, you need to give it the extra time and attention it will take to get it right.

Good luck
 
ExileOnTheMainStreet said:
there is much better one - the rodriguez one - he ended his low budget almost m.o.s , sold the film and these who bought it invested 500000$( 80s$ :)) to make the dialog and the mix be usable for cinema reliese .
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To be fair, I think he did all he could do. And the studio picked up the tab because they loved the film. So I don't fault any of these filmmakers who kind of get discovered in the midst of making a straight to mexican tv movie, as Rodriguez was resigned to doing. To me, that's a success story and does not accurately point out the great audio debacle some are prone to. If anything, that story gives filmmakers an inclination to fudge their audio because Rodriguesz did, and so did the Blair Witch guys.
 
Sure, really stupid filmmakers with tons of cash to throw at post...

That kind of stuff is NOT the norm, its the exception, which is why there ARE professional sound mixers on large features!
 
He shot MOS partly because of money but also because none of the actors spoke english. He shot it across the boarder to same $. But it was a student film and he did have a sound post guy and the film as it hit the festivals did have a sound track. As I understand it the story doesn't quite fall in to the classic disaster mold because he knew he wouldn't record sound and the film was planned with that in mind. He had a friend with an multi track cass machine and they did sound locked to picture. I have one of those with the synchronizer if any one wants to work that way, I did a few films (shorts) with that setup. THe film was picked up with a sound track and then a small fortune was spent bringing it up to release standards. The story I heard was closer to $1M but it involved multiple remixes as the film worked it's way up the food chain. Rodriguesz is a very organized guy who plans things to a great extent, so even though it was a student film I suspect it was pretty well planned out. The sad part is that his story becomes the poster boy for seat of your pants success and I don't think it was the case at all. And I believe the $4K that is always quoted was the film in the can cost. I think all he ended up with for that was a bunch of video dailies and a lot of negative in the vault.

As to mixers under 1K. If your not getting the guy (mixer) then you probably can't handle too much because of the logistics of the situation, and your going streight into the camera so mostly you need good preamps and a good limiter and that would fit well with the MixPre. You can see them every once in a while on eBay for under $500 (saw one go for $350) and new you can find for around $650. As has been stated before it's not so much a mixer as a pair of great preamps with some routing and good extras.



Alternative_3 said:
To be fair, I think he did all he could do. And the studio picked up the tab because they loved the film. So I don't fault any of these filmmakers who kind of get discovered in the midst of making a straight to mexican tv movie, as Rodriguez was resigned to doing. To me, that's a success story and does not accurately point out the great audio debacle some are prone to. If anything, that story gives filmmakers an inclination to fudge their audio because Rodriguesz did, and so did the Blair Witch guys.
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