Dual mic recording for feature

T

tomflint

Member
I'm in the middle of shooting a feature and had a few questions about sound recording...

My sound package is pretty minimal, and I'm only equipped with a Rode NTG-2 boom mic, and an Oktava hypercardioid. I'm using a Canon XHA1, which has two XLR inputs, and was wondering in what situations to use each of the mics. Someone told me to just use the shotgun for all of the exteriors, and the hypercardioid for all of the interiors, regardless of whether or not I was recording ambient sound or dialogue, but it seems to me that there's more to it than that.

What I had in mind was to use both mics simultaneously when shooting exteriors. When recording ambient sound (with the actor walking around outside and city noises etc.) I thought I could mount the Oktava on the camera to pick up the ambient city sounds, and put the Rode on the boom pole to get closer to the actor for footsteps and those kind of sounds. When shooting dialogue scenes outdoors, I could do the same kind of thing where I record the dialogue with the Rode on the boompole, and pick up ambient with the Oktava mounted on the camera. This seems like a more practical idea to me than just going with the shotgun alone.

For interiors, my impression is that shotguns don't do much good unless the location is a wide-open space, so I was thinking to record both ambient sounds and dialogue with just the Oktava and keep the Rode in it's case. Not too sure though...

Any suggestions or tips about this would be great, cheers!

Tom
 
Ambience is never recorded alongside dialog. That's recorded completely separately, no actors present, and added in post. And lots of the little noises of the actor's movement (footsteps, clothing, doors/windows, handling of small items) are also added in post with either FX (pre-recorded sound effects from an FX library) or Foley (studio-recorded sound effects, created live-to-picture).

Your job with dialog is to get it as clean as possible. Use your shotgun outdoors, your hyper indoors, and come back later with a stereo mic/recorder to grab ambient sounds.
 
tomflint said:
...
For interiors, my impression is that shotguns don't do much good unless the location is a wide-open space, so I was thinking to record both ambient sounds and dialogue with just the Oktava and keep the Rode in it's case. Not too sure though...

Any suggestions or tips about this would be great, cheers!

Tom
Click to expand...

Recording dialog with the mic close is also going to give very strange effects when mixed with the mic on the camera. There is an about 1 millisecond delay for each foot of distance difference in the mic's distance to the subjrct. His voice will be picked up by both mics, leading to a strange reverb in the sound.
 
Good points, I hadn't thought about both mics picking up the dialogue. Going to try and find some sfx CDs and do separate foley sounds for each of the scenes. For interiors, I know I should be using the hypercardioid for ambient sound, but when recording ambients for exteriors (street noises etc.), would you recommend using the Oktava (hyper) or the Rode (shotgun)?

Also, I have a lot of dialogue scenes where it'll be tough to get the mic really close to the actors for picking up the sound (walking two shots, establishing shots etc). I was thinking it might make sense to shoot the scene regularly, getting as close as I can to the actors with the mic as I normally would. Then, after all the angles have been shot, shoot the scene again with the mics much closer to the actors mouths regardless of whether or not the mic appears in the frame. Just for the sound. That way, I could use the footage from the scenes I had shot previously, and just put the sound from the last shot over all of it. Of course, the timing of the actors' speech may be a little off, but it can be edited in post. I guess it would be similar to doing ADR on the set, without having to pay the money for a studio.

Any thoughts?
 
tomflint said:
Good points, I hadn't thought about both mics picking up the dialogue. Going to try and find some sfx CDs and do separate foley sounds for each of the scenes. For interiors, I know I should be using the hypercardioid for ambient sound, but when recording ambients for exteriors (street noises etc.), would you recommend using the Oktava (hyper) or the Rode (shotgun)?
Click to expand...

I'd record ambient sound in stereo if at all possible. You can even use a little handheld recorder like a Zoom H4 for that. Remember, ambient sound is just a sound bed that adds a subtle "reality" behind the dialog. The choices of interior/hyper and exterior/shotgun really have to do with dialog. Once you get into ambience, you're looking at a whole different mentality of recording.

tomflint said:
Also, I have a lot of dialogue scenes where it'll be tough to get the mic really close to the actors for picking up the sound (walking two shots, establishing shots etc). I was thinking it might make sense to shoot the scene regularly, getting as close as I can to the actors with the mic as I normally would. Then, after all the angles have been shot, shoot the scene again with the mics much closer to the actors mouths regardless of whether or not the mic appears in the frame. Just for the sound. That way, I could use the footage from the scenes I had shot previously, and just put the sound from the last shot over all of it. Of course, the timing of the actors' speech may be a little off, but it can be edited in post. I guess it would be similar to doing ADR on the set, without having to pay the money for a studio.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Well, if you record the entire conversation (or the entire beginning of the dialog for the scene) in each take, you can use audio from an alternate take under the wide establishing shot. This success kind of depends on the framing of the establishing shot.

You can also grab wild lines... lines of dialog recorded without critical picture, that can be laid in later over the shot.

Or, save yourself the headache and rent a couple wireless mics for the day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top