How can I record sound in a scene like this?

I

ironpony

Carbonite Member
I want to shoot a scene similar to some of the shots in this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHp5HfA5hIA

As you can see, it's a big open room, with a hard floor. So their is not much room to set up blankets, since the camera is moving all around. Should I just record as is, in a room like that, with those moving camera shots, or would that just be too much reverb to be acceptable for pro standards? I am looking to aim for film festival quality. How did this movie do it, did they do all ADR?
 
How about a long boom and a skilled operator? (Note that the example has lots of reverb and post-processing - some noise gating to reduce reverb and room tone, footsteps are probably dubbed or enhanced, etc.)


Jim
 
Wire them good, use a boom for perspective, and be prepared to do wild lines or ADR if it doesn't work.
 
There is no reason why a boom couldn't record what I just saw in that example.
The voice has enough volume/strength to be picked up just fine.
Considering the example is from 1957 I'm sure that's probably exactly what was done.
Coming from a different era though they had the benefit of the actor knowing he had to project
in order to hit the mic.

Your biggest problems trying to reproduce this scene these days using just a boom are,
1- Your actor not projecting in a way that allows the boom to be that far..
2- what happens if you decide to go to even wider focal lens?
3- Who's going to be swinging the pole for you? In that example most likely they were using a Fisher boom.
4- options in post.

While I personally would love to record a scene like that with just a boom you would be making a mistake
if you don't cover yourself with a wireless lav as well. I would play the boom as well (or at least give it a shot)
and decide later, but without the actor projecting it isn't going to work great.
This shot however is so wide there is a good opportunity to ADR/wild line it as well and
lip sync it easily.
 
I suspect it was all done in post but? It appears that they actually shot on location and not on a sound stage (appearances are often wrong though). Most of his dialog is fairly distant so it's possible that it is actual production sound, though I'm pretty sure the reverb was added in post. This is a major budget Hollywood film so there are a few things to keep in mind.

First the camera isn't moving all the time it's being cut to different positions and has a couple of dolly moves. Given the year it was probably a single camera and multiple takes.
And every time the dolly moves behind a back you have a chance to switch takes and play with your sync.

Despite my saying it looks like it might have been shot on location it's also entirely possible it was on a stage and had a boom mic floating over his head. mat painting was a high art and the boom would have been hidden by the mat. For an example in Gone With the Wind a LOT of the "set" was mat painting. None of the rooms had ceilings though we often see ceilings. Tara, doesn't exist at all the entire "house" is a painting.

A low budget film can do something similar by shooting a "clean plate" at the camera positions and using that to erase the boom. If the camera is moving a lot then there are plugins that can remove objects, given some limitations.

Second you only see one part of the room, the rest of it might well be covered in padding, remember they had the equivalent of millions to make the film.

Doing ADR for the distant shots would not be a huge deal (for them) since sync can be a bit soft (remember this was cut on magnetic film so the finest resolution you can get is 1/4 of a frame). The close up shows so little of the room that it could easily be done on a stage with a projection behind him (another common technique).

You need to get as dry a sound as you can because reverb in the room will kill you when you try to edit. In post you add the reverb and it will act like a glue and hold everything together.
 
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Another option I didn't mention is he is walking back and forth in front of a table with lots of places to have plant mics. You could have two or three PZM's on that table and have very good coverage.

But you should also maybe think like a Hollywood director here. If you can't get what you want rethink the scene. They certainly had plenty of "cuts to the radiator" in that sequence. That was somewhat motivated but I suspect that a lot of them were to ease transitions from different takes and such.

Unless you doing this just to see if you can pull it off, there are probably more effective ways to shoot that scene.
 
So this is a real location - from IMDB (and a few other places)
"Although the story takes place on France's western front, Stanley Kubrick chose to shoot the film in and around Munich, Germany. Most interior scenes were filmed at Bavaria's Geiselgasteig Studios, and the court-martial scenes were shot in nearby Schleissheim Castle, an 18th-century structure then serving as a national museum. Just beyond this location is the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial."
 
Noiz2 said:
I suspect it was all done in post but? It appears that they actually shot on location and not on a sound stage (appearances are often wrong though).
Click to expand...

I'm pretty convinced that the scenes of the court in the hall are 'location' shots.

Here's a shot from the film:

32.jpg


Here's a shot from the hall of Schloss Schleissheim of recent vintage:

tumblr_mep6f9RLAC1r8cvy1o1_500.jpg


This Schloss was also used for the exteriors of "Last Year in Marienbad"(1961) as well...

It is near Munich, which did have a film making infrastructure before the war, and had some of that rebuilt by 1957, but I don't think they had the ability to make 'grand sets' ala Cinecitta in Rome...
 
Okay thanks. Right now I only have a shotgun and hypercardioid though, I don't have lavs. As for doing ADR, I am kind of hoping to avoid that cause in my experience, most actors are not good at it. In Hollywood they have really talented actors who can pull off, but I take what I can get. Which ranges from not bad, to pretty good, but they still are not good at ADR.

Noiz2 said:
You need to get as dry a sound as you can because reverb in the room will kill you when you try to edit. In post you add the reverb and it will act like a glue and hold everything together.
Click to expand...

As for getting the dry sound, I think it might be okay to record the room with reverb, just so long as you keep the wide shots, and the close ups separate and don't mix dialogue from different shots. Like in that clip, at 1:23 in, Kirk Douglas's close up starts, and from them on, his dialogue is close up. As long as I keep the dialogue from the wide shots, with the wide shots, and the dialogue from the close ups, together with the close ups, it should be fine to have dialogue of two different reverbs in the scene, as long as I plan ahead, and know how I will cut it in post. What do you think?
 
I think you taking a huge risk, if you can't afford wireless mikes what about a zoom or tascam recorder or something similar with a mike - you should be able to do that for around $150. Okay it's mroe work syncing in post but at least you've got some clean audio. There some cheap wireless systems for around the same money
 
Using the set "reverb" only works if you do the whole scene in one take. You have long reverb "tails" and if you cut them it will be very obvious and sond choppy, it's also VERY hard to smooth out in post so you will most likely be stuck with it.
 
They did build sets for the film at a studio but the court scene was filmed at the palace. But if you do mat work you don't need to either film in the palace or build the full set. You only need what is seen behind the actors from a little above head level to as far as they walk on the floor. As I mentioned, and there is a great making of about this, Gone With the Wind did a huge amount of the big set work with mat painting.

Until recently this was still pretty common, now it's pretty much all digital. If you take a peak at the VFX videos for the series "John Adams" they show some very impressive mat work.

At Ironponys budget/ experience level it's probably not practical with a moving camera unless he can find a talented VFX guy who wants to help out and can consult before the shoot.

The key to pulling these things off (like most things) is planning it all out ahead of time.
 
What they did in the 50s has no relevance to this discussion, as they had technical limitations of their own, and our modern solution - as in radios and lavs just couldn't be done then. The decision is so simple I don't see why we're complicating it. The shoot is going to cost money - hopefully someone else's, but even worse if it is your own. You want the best possible audio - so that dictates a close in position, to minimise room sound. Anything recorded in a room like this is going to sound messy, so record with mics as close to the lips as you can, and then treat it all afterwards to make it sound 'right'. The cost of hiring radios, and possibly somebody to mind them is money that is well spent!
 
Noiz2 said:
As I mentioned, and there is a great making of about this, Gone With the Wind did a huge amount of the big set work with mat painting.
Click to expand...

For static shots, 'painting' out a boom in a shot, given a clean plate work with, is pretty easy... well with After Effects, or similar... Match moving and CGI created scenery... quite a bit more effort, but still 'doable' for some set of problems that a nolo budget filmmaker may face... just takes time to do it... and the patience and planning...
 
Okay thanks. I was hoping to do a similar scene with just a FR2-LE recorder, and an NTG-3 mic. I got the boom mic, cause I was told that booms work better than lavs. Right now I don't have the budget to get lavs. Will I need them, should I wait?

And I have painted out booms before, but I really hate doing it, as in their is already so much post work to be done on a microbudget. As for the audio reverb having tails, can't I just crossfade the tails, using the constant power crossfade, to try to get them to match, when putting dialogue together?
 
ironpony said:
Okay thanks. I was hoping to do a similar scene with just a FR2-LE recorder, and an NTG-3 mic. I got the boom mic, cause I was told that booms work better than lavs. Right now I don't have the budget to get lavs. Will I need them, should I wait?

And I have painted out booms before, but I really hate doing it, as in their is already so much post work to be done on a microbudget. As for the audio reverb having tails, can't I just crossfade the tails, using the constant power crossfade, to try to get them to match, when putting dialogue together?
Click to expand...

Again with the "told". If you take one thing away from all your threads it should be that there is not a single answer for all situations. A room like the one in the film is exactly the kind of space that most shotguns will not work well in.

And no you can't crossfade the tails. If everyone takes a long pause after their line you could probably fade the tails? The tails go over the next line usually in a space like that. If you cut them off not only will the shortened end of the reverb sound "wrong" but the tail that bleeds over the next line will be wrong. So you will have serious problems cutting the footage and not having it sound all chopped up.
 
I'm usually the ones who promotes the use of shotguns indoors - in NORMAL circumstances, but this kind of shot and location is just silly. I also cannot see where the time spent painting out a boom (which is still going to be trouble) can't be offset against the price of a radio hire. A trip to MacDonalds costs more than a radio hire for the day! Do it right, don't have to do it twice, because you need a mic in close - and a cheap lav into almost any recorder or radio system is going to sound better than the most expensive boom too far away!
 
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