Can we focus on technique? like lavalier placement tips?

M

matthewd5

Veteran
it seems all we keep talking about it gear.

can't we get some of the super experienced people on here to give us technique tips on things like lavalier placement, or boom operating tips?

we can just say shotgun mic or lavalier or hypercardioid.

the person can just learn the technique with their me-66 or their 416 etc.

technique and knowledge/experience are what the experts are telling us is the most important thing, more than what brand of mic etc.

those of us who don't get to record 5 days a week need to try hard to better our technique and to learn from others experiences.

matthew
 
Put the lav in the center of the chest... basically inbetween the meat of each side or breasts as the case may be. Yesterday we used the PSC mic in a vampire mount so that the mic "face" was pointed back at the mount... it looks like you have the mic in backwards... so that when you look at it from either side you see smooth plastic... but the little mount holds the screen/face of the mic just a little away from the mount... so that "slot" is where the sound went in... depending on the situation I may face the screen out away from the mount, but it actually worked REALLY good to fight clothing noise on this occasion. Also you'll notice that the PSC mics have a pretty high treble bump... which is desireable if you plant to put a mic under clothes. We were able to use this mic under a shirt that wasn't too far from a sweatshirt even, and it still sounded surprisingly open. The sweatshirt had a horizontal stripe around it that was sewn in... so from the inside I vampired that seam... so you couldn't even detect where the lav was from the outside... this strip was slightly low on the chest, but it was either that or have a "bunchy" section of fabric... so I opted for slightly worse placement. Anyway, I normally use Countryman and I'd never have thought I could get away with putting a lav under a fairly thick shirt and have it still sound good... yesterday that's how I did it and it did sound good.

As is normally the case on anything I shoot... double mics. The overhead shotgun was a CS3... in one location we had a large interior with about a 16'-18' ceiling... the room had hardwood floors but several couches and a thick oriental rug covering 50% of the floor area... in this room the CS3 sounded great, even though it was an interior... I was totally happy with the sound, and yes, that was a shotgun. I was running it through an SD 442 mixer with variable bass cut... and I trimmed the bass off at about 100hz to be sure there was no emphasis from the room. You probably could have used several other high end shotguns in this same room and been okay with them... a 416, mkh60, neumann 81, or even my AKG ck69 short... but the ability to cut bass, either on the mic itself or via a mixer, would have been pretty important... otherwise you get this roomy sound from the standing waves.

Our actor was a professional guy and I don't often get this luxury. Man is that ever money well spent! I feel bad that I can't remember this guy's last name right now... but he was good. He was supposed to be a comedian/actor and I totally believe it. It gave me goosebumps... he was so right on the money all the time... and his voice projected VERY well. This is a good thing MOST of the time... but next location...

Really nice house... small room, much lower ceiling... maybe 16' x 18' room with 9' ceiling... this was an old house and the ceiling was broken up with recessed panels and frames... like crown molding that criss-crossed the ceiling, but the furniture in this room was all solid wood and the floors were bare hardwood. This room SUCKED... the worst part was that the bit was for this guy to be trying to get tickets downloaded from the net and he has to say, in a geeky voice, "I thought cable was supposed to be faster then U-Verse!" (U-Verse is an ATT product that's due out and most of the country won't know what it is... it's fully packaged everything, net, phone, etc. WE kept joking, even the actor... about this line, because nobody knows what it is yet... so we did the line a few different ways to see if somebody further up the production chain will see the light on that one.)

Anyway... in this small room, even with the CS3... the sound was killing me... it wasn't BAD, but it wasn't up to my standards. The lav was worthless because the guy was wearing a seersucker style jacket and he's to pull it off like superman... so it was non-stop clothing rustle... I mean NON-STOP... totally pointless to even TRY the lav. So there we are with the CS3... and what really sucks is I had my own pole and the T.H.E. hyper right on the cart, but the guy producing this thing didn't want to jack with it... he shoots stuff for Discovery, Travel, History, features, commercials... all that... all the time... and he said they almost always use the CS3 and everybody's been happy. This bummed me out a little bit because I actually brought my own hyper anticipating the opportunity to show this cameraman, who I really like, just what he's been missing... but I sure didn't want to argue when they told me to stick with the Sanken... because the sound would have changed a lot all of a sudden, and then people would have complained about the rest of the soundtrack versus hearing it all equally.

That's a little something I call, "swinging the monkey"... everybody in my whole family uses this phrase because I've said it so many times since about 8 years ago. There was a lady on Discovery being interviewed with this little monkey... it's sitting on a swing and the monkey is having a great time as she's pushing him... at one point in the interview she stops pushing the chimp so she can use both hands to gesture, and the monkey jumps down from the swing and bites her! So the moral of the story is that if you don't want to get bit then you should never start swinging the monkey... meaning if everybody's happy don't show them how they can be happier and then stop doing that thing. So the next time I shoot with this guy I'm just going to insist that he let me use MY mics from the start... rather then halfway through the day say we should switch to my mics... It's a bummer because I think I could have got an instant snowballing reputation for location sound yesterday... but halfway through the day was not the time to do it.

Well you've read it a thousand times by now, but hypers indoors, shotguns outdoors... as you can see, and I've said before, there are guns that can do interiors... SOME interiors. The CS3 is more interior capable then any other gun... and still, this one interior was really bumming me out. I should have insisted on the hyper in the first large interior, even though the CS3 handled that one... if I'd have cracked that nut early, rather then saying how good it sounded in the previous interior, it wouldn't have been so hard to convince the guys that the CS3 shouldn't be used in the second interior.

The other thing I can tell you about bigger budget stuff, is that it's all HMI... the only thing that isn't HMI is the edge/rim/hairlight stuff which is usually like an ARRI 300... the smaller budget stuff can be flos or hotlights, with the 300 Arri or 150 Arri for edge/rim/hairlight. HMI's rock... they still have to be used like standard hotlights, but they rock. Also we used the hell out of the dimmers... like the Harbor Freight Router Control which works great as a dimmer? We used those all day... constantly changing and dialing practicals down so they could be on cam. But that's lighting stuff...

Oh and you guys who are still using any Lectros from 190-195 on down... (sub-200series)... have you played around with a G2 set yet? Think the G2 is a toy? Friday ATT shoot, 195s, yesterday ATT shoot, 190s, hits pops sizzles and drops... I was wishing I had my G2 set the entire day. There's a reason why these mid-to-lower end Lectros are still getting a lot of use by professionals... it's because that's what they all use and nobody has gotten in their face about the G2 set... 200 series Lectro is different... that's something else, but the 195 on down... man in my experience, you should just get some G2s instead.

Well sorry for the long post, but how's that for some current experience? This commercial will be before movies... maybe just the midwest, but I don't know. If you see it and the sound sucks when the guy turns into a superhero then remember that you can't use any gun in a small, live room.

The most important factor of successful location sound is the location, meaing acoustics of the space and control of unwanted sounds, AC, traffic, and any other unwanted sound... next is mic to mouth distance... keep it as short as possible, except in lav placement... lavs should be on the center of the chest or else the actor's voice will project over the mic, blocked by the chin... sometimes this isn't an issue, and I'll lav up on the collar, but not too often because the person turns to one side and the track changes, and the mic response can sound odd when they're "speaking past the mic". Fianally, be sure to know the gear you're using! Don't get a brand new bit of kit and decide to learn it while you're getting paid.

I'm pissed at myself for not being insistent about the hyper at the beginning of the day... I normally shoot varicam with this guy and he's got a lot of top level kit... so he kind of sees me as a lower-level buddy then a professional sound engineer, but I'm gonna' have to pop that perception sooner or later and now that I know the limits of the CS3 I'll be a lot more outspoken the next time. I'd seriously rather have an Oktava hyper indoors if I had my choice... so this question, which has come up in several threads, will be a lot easier for me to answer next time.
 
Great story Matt.

I have learned with experience to never let the producers say, "Oh this is fine" when you have an audio issue like which mic to use. They have short memories and when the audio sounds bad in post the blame falls on you, not them.

You can only take the fight so far, so much of the job is political, but it is our jobs to get the audio right, not theirs. Something they suddenly remember when things go bad.

Look forward to maybe seeing your commercial. :)

Cheers
 
Damn monkeys! Great post Matt. Most of it was above my knowledge level. But I will read it a few times and research the products you mentioned. So far my sound equipment consists of one mic, a Rode NT-G2. My plan is to get a lav next and then the Oktava. When the filmmaking is paying for itself, then comes the light kit. And don't worry, I won't post the "Which mic should I get?" thread. I'll just read up and check out in person at B&H.

Thanks,
Alex

EDIT: And if you don't have a production company name, Swinging the Monkey Productions is a great name!
 
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