Background music in coverage

[Lynos]

Hi Guys

Not sure if this belongs here or in the audio board, but here goes:

I need to shoot in a coffee shop while the place is open for business. Now, there's music in the background there.

When I shoot a dialogue scene from different angles that means the music in the background will change each time when I cut from CU to two-shot and so on.

Normally we solve these kinds of issues with Room Tone pasted on the original audio, but here we're talking music. Is there any way to address that in post, or do I have to go the owners and ask them to shut the music off for a few hours?

Thanks

 

[Cheesesailor77]

2 options:

ask them to turn off the music (but you're still going to deal with other customers, traffic noise, etc)

dub the lines in post

neither is a great idea. I'd ask the owner if you can use the shop after it closes or before it opens.

 

[David W. Richardson]

My concern would be copyright issues involved with the music itself being heard in your film.

Wonder if you could put lavs on your actors, cutting out as much of the background sound as possible -- then add SFX in post?

 

[Lynos]

My concern would be copyright issues involved with the music itself being heard in your film.

Wonder if you could put lavs on your actors, cutting out as much of the background sound as possible -- then add SFX in post?

Yes, I thought about that too. Just another headache on top of the previous one.

As for lavs, everybody tells me to stay away from them since they're crap. So I don't know.

 

[Lynos]

2 options:

ask them to turn off the music (but you're still going to deal with other customers, traffic noise, etc)

dub the lines in post

neither is a great idea. I'd ask the owner if you can use the shop after it closes or before it opens.

I really don't want to do any kind of ADR. It's a long dialogue scene. It would sound terrible.

I can't use the shop while it's closed. That's the offer I got and I took it, and this is after long searches. There were places where they offered to close it up for the shoot for money, wanting between a few hundreds to a few thousands dollars.

I don't mind people sitting there while we're shooting and talking. I can just record that talk later as a room tone. I'm actually looking for that feel of a busy diner.
But the music is the problem. I mean, I can ask them to turn it off, but if they refuse, what's my back up options? Should I just record an original song or piece of music, to avoid copyright issues (or find something royalty free), and paste it on top of the room music next to the dialogue?

 

[David W. Richardson]

I really don't want to do any kind of ADR. It's a long dialogue scene. It would sound terrible.

I can't use the shop while it's closed. That's the offer I got and I took it, and this is after long searches. There were places where they offered to close it up for the shoot for money, wanting between a few hundreds to a few thousands dollars.

I don't mind people sitting there while we're shooting and talking. I can just record that talk later as a room tone. I'm actually looking for that feel of a busy diner.
But the music is the problem. I mean, I can ask them to turn it off, but if they refuse, what's my back up options? Should I just record an original song or piece of music, to avoid copyright issues (or find something royalty free), and paste it on top of the room music next to the dialogue?

I think in a noisy environment like you're talking about, good quality lavs might give you better results than a boom mic -- insofar as they would significantly reduce not only the background music, but also the hustle and bustle of activity and the buzz of conversation from the other patrons. I've used wired lavs on interview subjects with excellent results.

Trying to dub a completely different song into the mix in the hope of drowning out the background music is probably going to give extremely undesirable results. And if it does, what's your recourse?

Best scenario? Use a boom mic AND lavs, then choose which audio tracks work best when you get to post. You probably only have one shot at this, so do your best to cover every option.

Good luck!

 

[David W. Richardson]

I don't mind people sitting there while we're shooting and talking. I can just record that talk later as a room tone. I'm actually looking for that feel of a busy diner.

But what you'll have trouble with is the volume level of their talk. It may be too loud, too distracting, too discernable, etc. If you get into post and find the background noise too loud, you'll have very few options -- and might end up having to ADR all of the dialogue. It's risky.

 

[filmman]

Shoot the whole scene in one take. This will be your master. Hide the mics so the dialogue will be much better and the music in the background will be so faint, you don't have to worry about copyrights.

Then do your close ups and whatever else coverage you want, but use the sound only as reference to synch up your original master take sound.

That's what I do and it works fine. It's like you're doing your ADR live

 

[Lynos]

I think in a noisy environment like you're talking about, good quality lavs might give you better results than a boom mic -- insofar as they would significantly reduce not only the background music, but also the hustle and bustle of activity and the buzz of conversation from the other patrons. I've used wired lavs on interview subjects with excellent results.

Trying to dub a completely different song into the mix in the hope of drowning out the background music is probably going to give extremely undesirable results. And if it does, what's your recourse?

Best scenario? Use a boom mic AND lavs, then choose which audio tracks work best when you get to post. You probably only have one shot at this, so do your best to cover every option.

Good luck!

Hopefully, it won't be as noisy as that. I'm shooting at a certain time when the place is not supposed to be packed. Of course, one never knows. But we're not shooting at lunch time or on a weekend or something like that.

As for lavs, it's not really practical at this point, especially if I'm not sure I'm gonna use them.

I can always just use the one take if anything else fails. Of course, that's not really desirable.

Thank you.

 

[Lynos]

But what you'll have trouble with is the volume level of their talk. It may be too loud, too distracting, too discernable, etc. If you get into post and find the background noise too loud, you'll have very few options -- and might end up having to ADR all of the dialogue. It's risky.

Yes, I'm aware of that. If someone sits right next to us... Well, it's a risk I'll have to take.

 

[Lynos]

Shoot the whole scene in one take. This will be your master. Hide the mics so the dialogue will be much better and the music in the background will be so faint, you don't have to worry about copyrights.

Then do your close ups and whatever else coverage you want, but use the sound only as reference to synch up your original master take sound.

That's what I do and it works fine. It's like you're doing your ADR live

I have to admit I didn't really get that second part. Use the sound as reference?

 

[chris f]

He means use the dialog audio from the master take and try to sync up the close ups so the audio matches, but don't use the audio from the close ups (because the background music will be different).

You might want to also consider re-writing the scene to take place somewhere else. Maybe the characters walk in to a crowded restaurant, see that it's going to be a long wait and then the next thing we see is the two characters eating fast food in their car and then the long dialog takes place in a controlled environment. Don't know if that will work for you movie, but you might try to think along that line.

 

[David W. Richardson]

Shoot the whole scene in one take. This will be your master. Hide the mics so the dialogue will be much better and the music in the background will be so faint, you don't have to worry about copyrights.

Then do your close ups and whatever else coverage you want, but use the sound only as reference to synch up your original master take sound.

That's what I do and it works fine. It's like you're doing your ADR live

The audio from multiple takes will only sync up if the actors deliver their lines exactly the same way every time.

But what you COULD do is have several cameras running at the same time -- one for the master take as filmman suggests, and others setup for various closeups, two-shots, etc. Pull all cuts from the same take, and lip sync won't be a problem. That's still assuming you can plant a mic that will minimize the background sound, including music, sufficiently.

It's a challenge. Best of luck with it.

 

[David W. Richardson]

He means use the dialog audio from the master take and try to sync up the close ups so the audio matches, but don't use the audio from the close ups (because the background music will be different).

You might want to also consider re-writing the scene to take place somewhere else. Maybe the characters walk in to a crowded restaurant, see that it's going to be a long wait and then the next thing we see is the two characters eating fast food in their car and then the long dialog takes place in a controlled environment. Don't know if that will work for you movie, but you might try to think along that line.

Good thinking!