Best way to shoot Audio in a car?

We used to clip a couple of lav mic's on the sunshades for in-car recording, it then keeps them out of sight but reasonably close to each of the actors.
 
FilmBoy77 said:
ahh that seems clever guys.

What do you mean by "car on a process trailer" though? Sorry I don't follow you.
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A process trailer is used for driving shots. It's a large, flat-bed trailer that sits low on the road, towed by a truck. The picture car is strapped to the trailer. Using a process trailer has several benefits, not the least of which are sound and safety.

The trailer means the car isn't running, so engine noise isn't a problem inside the car.

It's dangerous to rely on your actors to perform and drive at the same time, so use of the trailer means they can focus on their acting without having to watch the road.

Regarding the lavs in the visors, the cables can be tucked into the trim work on the edges of the windshield. It takes a few minutes, and a light touch so as not to destroy the cable, but it isn't terribly difficult to dress them so the camera cannot see them.
 
FilmBoy77 said:
ahh that seems clever guys.

What do you mean by "car on a process trailer" though? Sorry I don't follow you.
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The car isn't actually driven under its own power during the take. It's mounted on a trailer that is pulled by a camera truck so you don't pick up internal engine noises etc in the car along with the dialog. Googleing "process trailer" will turn up numerous illustrations of the technique.
 
ok sweet, thanks. My two actors will just be sitting in a parked car though like in the link above. Still good info to know for the future though.
 
In the scene you link to they may have shot it in a sound stage. Not really an option for you probably. But if you break down the sequence it is edited from two setups. Since your car isn't moving and your not going to see the whole cab you could also have a mic on a boom through the camera-side window.

I would though recommend you really search out a VERY quiet location to shoot it. You can always dress up the BG, that won't really be in focus anyway, to make it fit with whatever establishing shot you have.

Again in the clip you linked. They establish the car as being just about under the elevated trains, and in a very urban environment. That location would almost certainly very hard to get any decent sound in because of the noise.

However when they cut back and forth notice the fence with plants on it. Shooting at the driver it's about right since on that side it's fairly close and the greenery goes high up the fence. But the revers shot is not from that location. The fence in the establishing shot has greenery that does not go very high on the fence and you would probably also see more buildings, and it's all the way across the street where in the shot it looks much closer.

If they didn't do the shot on a sound stage then they did it in another location.

So the best way to shoot a car scene is to completely story board it and shoot the pieces where they work the best and realize that when you put it together nobody but you and the editor is going to know that some shots were in different locations.

You do need to pay some attention to keeping your shot swaps plausible. If they had done the above clip and all you saw was bricks on either side that would have made many in the audience wonder what happened, but they were close enough that unless you really break it down you don't notice.
 
I recorded two people talking in a stationary car for the Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Contest. Skip to 5:00 for the in-car stuff.
http://vimeo.com/68636759
I miced her through the driver's window and miced him through the passenger door with a Rode NTG2. I think it turned out ok. If I were to do it again, I would have put lavs on the visors AND miced them with a shotgun or hyper.

I've also recorded in the back of a non-stretch limo by laying on the floor in the back using a hyper while the camera shot from the front passenger. Only one person was talking in that scene.
 
My apologies for this inane question in advance, but why is sticking the lavs to the actors themselves not an option?

Reading the above comments made me realize that I've been approaching my car scenes wrong all these times! Lol! Good thing I don't shoot a lot of them.
 
Not an inane question at all - you can use lavs the "normal" way too. Sometimes the safety belts can be a real problem though, and since many prefer the sound of a boom or plant mic before lavs they like to have other options.

If the actors chest isn't visible, for instance if the camera is in the back seat, or it's a close up, you can mount a lav directly onto the safety belt.

Another way that can sound quite good is to have a plant mic pointing up from the gear box (often two of them, one directed at the driver and the other the front passenger).
 
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Jema said:
Sometimes the safety belts can be a real problem though, and since many prefer the sound of a boom or plant mic before lavs they like to have other options.
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Ah! I see now. I didn't realize immediately that they had to put the seat belts on when the car is moving! Lol!

That was really helpful!

Thanks everyone!
 
Tokpaler said:
My apologies for this inane question in advance, but why is sticking the lavs to the actors themselves not an option?
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The other (than the ones people have listed) issue is that a car scene is all done in pretty tight shots so to use a lav on an actor it would have to be really well hidden. Lavs are more common when you are farther away and they are relatively easy to hide. So if you can good placement for them go for it, but in a lot of cases mics on visors are going to be in a better position than where you could place a lav on an actor.
 
Hxd Ped said:
I recorded two people talking in a stationary car for the Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Contest. Skip to 5:00 for the in-car stuff.
http://vimeo.com/68636759
I miced her through the driver's window and miced him through the passenger door with a Rode NTG2. I think it turned out ok. If I were to do it again, I would have put lavs on the visors AND miced them with a shotgun or hyper.

I've also recorded in the back of a non-stretch limo by laying on the floor in the back using a hyper while the camera shot from the front passenger. Only one person was talking in that scene.
Click to expand...

Sounded good man. We pretty much set it up the same way with a Rode NTG2.



Noiz2 said:
In the scene you link to they may have shot it in a sound stage. Not really an option for you probably. But if you break down the sequence it is edited from two setups. Since your car isn't moving and your not going to see the whole cab you could also have a mic on a boom through the camera-side window.

I would though recommend you really search out a VERY quiet location to shoot it. You can always dress up the BG, that won't really be in focus anyway, to make it fit with whatever establishing shot you have.

Again in the clip you linked. They establish the car as being just about under the elevated trains, and in a very urban environment. That location would almost certainly very hard to get any decent sound in because of the noise.

However when they cut back and forth notice the fence with plants on it. Shooting at the driver it's about right since on that side it's fairly close and the greenery goes high up the fence. But the revers shot is not from that location. The fence in the establishing shot has greenery that does not go very high on the fence and you would probably also see more buildings, and it's all the way across the street where in the shot it looks much closer.

If they didn't do the shot on a sound stage then they did it in another location.

So the best way to shoot a car scene is to completely story board it and shoot the pieces where they work the best and realize that when you put it together nobody but you and the editor is going to know that some shots were in different locations.

You do need to pay some attention to keeping your shot swaps plausible. If they had done the above clip and all you saw was bricks on either side that would have made many in the audience wonder what happened, but they were close enough that unless you really break it down you don't notice.
Click to expand...

VERY GOOD OBSERVATION. I will take that approach on the next shoot. I am just getting back to the past several comments and we have shot the scene.....we ended up using a shotgun and a hyper cardioid placed inside the car between the two seats out of the camera shot. Audio between the actors was good but we got a lot of noise I never noticed was there before (trucks going by so far in the distance you can barely see them, a train constantly going by almost 5 miles away, birds chirping loud as hell, etc).

We were in an open field I thought I'd be in a perfect spot but looks like I will have to do some moderate to heavy audio post production now.
 
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