Double System Sound for Documentary Project

S

sgg211

New member
Hello all -
I have a question about the system i am planning to take on a
documentary film shoot in Guinea, West Africa in October. The film
itself will be a lot of interviews, landscapes, group shots, and a LOT
of music and arts, cultural ceremony / ritual practices. The "crew"
will consist of two main members - one for video and one for audio. We
will have two other people along who will be able to help with simple
things, but for the most part, the two of us are responsible. We will
be shooting with the Panasonic DVX-100. The shoot will be 30 days for
roughly 2-4 hours a day/

As I am handling the audio portion of the project, I have so far
purchased a few mics (Sennheiser EW-112 Wireless Lav kit, Sennheiser
MKE-44P Stereo Cardioid, Audio Technica AT-4073 Shotgun) as well as
the Tascam HD-P2 recorder. The audio quality is very important to us,
especially as music figures to play a very prominent role in the
film.

After running some tests and getting all our equipment together, I've
come to the realization that the Tascam cannot generate timecode, nor
can the DVX-100 output timecode. This is looking like it's going to be
a problem for us in post, to put it mildly. Originally, the idea with
the recorder was that I would be given greater latitude to roam freely
recording audio without having to be constantly tethered to the
camera. However, if i am going to be sacrificing the timecode in
editing, it's definitely not worth it to me. I know i can get a slate or
possibly a small horita generator that will generate timecode and jam sync it to the camera, but that puts our budget up a bit and makes me think i probably should have
just bought a Sound Devices module in the first place. Now I'm
thinking i should maybe just ditch the idea of a recorder at all, and
run from a mixer straight to the camera. Will this make my audio
suffer that much? If this is the way to go, any mixer models that the
cognoscenti here would recommend unconditionally?

Any recommendations are very appreciated, and my apologies for the
seemingly elementary questions. I am still learning my way around
sound production for video.

- Simon
 
One thing you can do is set camera and recorder to free run the time of day as time code and get at least kinda close and then just match the peaks of the onboard (crappy sounding but synced) audio with that from the HDP2. That would still allow you to roam free although syncing it in post wont be easy. Actually if you have a spare wireless kit I would send it back to the cam wirelessly so you have a pretty good track (wont need to be perfect) to edit with and lock picture, then when you go to mess with the sound (after locking picture) you can sync the clean recorded audio from the tascam and go from there. Anyone else with thoughts on this way of doing it? I'll soon be doing a similiar project.

Jeff
 
These are just thoughts, as I have been struggling with this issue too.

It might make sense to physically link the audio recorder, monitor output, as a line input to either the A or B channel of the DVX 100. That way, there will be a synchronized sound track on the tape and later in post, matching peaks with your HDP2 signal will be facilitated.

Even if you had the SD recorder, with a tc generator, there is no way to jam the code into the DVX in real time. Having the code in post might be of some help, even if they were not the same number, because the interval of the code can be lined up. This however would require the purchase of a different, and expensive recorder.

-- james
 
Last edited:
haha thanks oleg - i did get some good response from ramps, but thought i'd test the waters here too... many thanks
 
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