Documentary Audio Kit + Settings Question

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DevonH

Well-known member
Hey All,
I posted a few weeks ago about a documentary I'm about to begin shooting and about the kit I'm building for it, and ggrantly was very helpful in suggesting some items for me. I wanted to double check in this section of the forums on a couple of the items and if I can skip them in my situation.

This is my first film (a political activism piece that I chose to do a bit out of the blue), so while I've done a lot of research, I've yet to dive much into the audio side of things. My doc consists mainly of interviews in controlled environments (1 hour+ setup time), with a few "action shots". I will not be including my questions in the audio.

Grant suggested a AT 4053b small condenser plus a NTG-2 plus a lav kit, as well as a Sound Devices MixPreD mixer. My question is...

Do I need to have 2 shotguns and a lav for this type of setup, or could I roll with just the NTG-2 and the lav and drop the mixer?

I also have a setup question.

I will be using a Panasonic 150, with 1 mic running to the XLR on the camera, with the other running to a Zoom h4n. Will this be pretty much plug in and go (aside from ensuring my db levels are correct), or will there be any certain setup needed to make sure that they'll work together in post?

Thanks,
Devon

Edit: After reading this post I understand the need for the AT I believe.
 
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First, the 4053b isn't a shotgun, it's a hyper-cardioid. General rule of thumb is hypers indoors, shotguns (like NTG-2) outdoors.
If you're mostly doing indoor shots, I would rather have the 4053b than the NTG-2, and I would definitely recommend keeping the MixPre-D. That'll give you a solid preamp, and make it easy to send both lav and hyper audio to both camera and H4n. Running each to a different recorder is asking for problems.
 
Thanks for the rep. And for sure, that was a quick and dirty list to get you in the ballpark for a versatile and generalized kit within your budget. +1 to what Gohanto suggested, except I think most every kit deserves a shotgun, thus the modestly priced NTG-2 suggestion. If you will never be outside, scratch it off.

Although you can get by in controlled interview environments without a mixer, you will never regret having one. When I do locked down shots on a tripod, I will mount a mixer on a arm, clamped to a tripod leg. I believe the new mix-pre can be mounted to the tripod screw on your camera base if you prefer.

You might want to post the original request. You'll get more advice than you want. Everyone loves to spend someone else's money.

Grant

Edit: the link you gave from a year ago didn't specify as much as your most recent post. At that time, the new mixpre wasn't available, thus the 302 recommendation. And your newer reference to shooting indoors certainly would have and did change my thinking on the hyper question.
 
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Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. Since I plan on doing some outdoor shots I'll keep the shotgun.

I admit the issue with the mixer was my fear of learning how to use it, but that's going to be part of it so I'll start reading up on it tomorrow. If you have any useful resources I'd appreciate links.

I'm doing a lot of digging to find a good video tutorial that takes me through the entire setup (x plugs into y for z reason). Once I know how things fit together the learning process is pretty straightforward for me.


So in essence the mixer allows me to take my audio channels, run them through one device, then output that to my zoom and 150, ensuring solid, in sync audio?
 
Hi Devon... I asked pretty much the same question some time ago, and I think the recommendations were pretty much the same as mentioned here (big surprise ;P ). I myself am looking at the NTG-3 kit, simply because of the items I can get in it for a decent price.
After all the advice and some "Iwonderhowthiswillturnout" thoughts, I decided to get the following for a docu / interview setup:
MixPre-D
NTG-3 kit
AT 4053b
stand etc for the AT
Sennheiser G3 (adding addiontional kit at some point for two person setup with 2 Rode lavs)
Fostex FR-2LE for recording
and then a Rode stereo video mic for recording ambience to put as a low base under the general audio. (that's the "iwonder..." part :D )

But since you're probably going to get something off the ground before me, I'd love to hear how the first runs turn out? Both workflow wise and audio wise.
 
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