How can I record sound in a scene like this?

paulears said:
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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I checked a local rental house, San Diego, CA USA, that I've used in the past for lights, and they have Sennheisers for $45-55 per day. Now, they also have a policy if you take delivery of the equipment Friday evening, you can return it Monday morning for a 1 day rental fee... so you get that down to about 22-27 per day (there's also a 'student' discount as well...)... but still a bit more than McDonald's...
 
Okay thanks, but I can't have a lav right now. I wanna shoot a courtroom scene and like that far angle, from the juries point of view. It doesn't have to be that echoey. We can use blankets on the floor, and out of frame. But I will figure out a way to get the mic in closer. What if we just had a point of view, where the actor was far away like that, but we just gave him less head room, to get the shotgun in closer?
 
In that case you are simply going to have rubbish sound, sorry - but if you can't do it properly, how can we help? Before you even think of using a boom, consider a few points.
How close can you get the mic?
How good is your boom op?
Last question - you DO have the boom mic running to headphones the boom op is wearing?

Last week I took my people for lunch at McDonalds and 4 Big Mac Meals cost me a lot more than the cost of the hire.

What I simply don't understand is why the lav is such a problem? Surely you want to get a good product? All the money time and favours you are using up - wasted if the first thing the viewer hears is an audio mess - like the one in the clip. I just can't understand why you would wish to accept a compromised approach like this? Nobody has yet invented a magic, cheap and simple to use microphone that works well by just being there - and that is what you seem to want us to endorse?

Rather like asking "How can I get good sound, without doing all the things you suggest, but using my own broken approach?" Crazy! I wish you the very best of luck. All your blankets and adjusting (compromising?) your camera shots to allow you to use your flawed audio plan? Just Crazy!
 
No matter how many times you try you simply cannot defy physics... sorry.

I want a ferrari for only $200 bucks too, but that aint gonna happen either.
 
...While this was good audio for 1957, I don't think it would be considered good audio today. My guess is that the footsteps were done as foley.

Wireless lavs and plant mics would be the simplest route if shot today, along with hanging mics and boom mics that could be masked out in post.
 
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Ya canna deny the laws of physics, Captain!
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How close can you get the mic? How good is your boom op? Last question - you DO have the boom mic running to headphones the boom op is wearing?
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He (IronPony) is the production sound person, both boom-op and mixer. How did he get the job? He went out and bought an FR-2LE, an NTG-3 and an AT4053b. Since (so he says) he's the only guy in his area with the gear, he gets the gig - plus the fact that he'll work for nothing.

Our friend IronPony, known as Harmonica on another forum, asks the same questions there, doesn't like the answers, then comes here expecting different answers. No matter what answer you give him his reply is "Okay thanks" followed by a huge (unwritten) "BUT" - because he doesn't want to do it that way, or doesn't want to admit that he doesn't understand, or I don't know what. I think that the biggest issue (aside from the fact that he has no confidence) is that he just doesn't have any "ears," that inherent gift that makes for a good sound person. "Ears" can be somewhat learned, "BUT" IronPony/Harmonica won't do his homework.​
 
The last thing to do is mess with the blocking a little. Maybe in the wide shots the actor's back is facing the camera or he is slightly turned so the camera can't see his mouth that well. This would make it easy to insert a wild track. The next thing would be to put the actor so far away that you can't tell the dialogue is out of sync.

Lastly don't do the wide shot. Come up with something better to accommodate sound. You might find that this shot works better than the super wide shot you originally wanted.
 
Okay I will use the lav, if I can get one. I was just hoping to use a boom since I do not have access to lav right now, but I can save up for one. I know one guy who might lend me his but it just doesn't sound as high quality as the shotgun, and no matter how well i place it I just can't get it to sound as good. But I will use it if the sound it produces, is more acceptable, even though it might not be as sharp.

So why wasn't this good sound for 1957? I actually liked how it had a natural sounding reverb too it. Movies nowadays, just sound too flat compared to older movies, before the 80s. But I guess if it's a requirement for people in the business to have that modern flat sound, I aim for that more.
 
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ironpony said:
Okay I will use the lav, if I can get one. I was just hoping to use a boom since I do not have access to lav right now, but I can save up for one.
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You can rent a wireless lav set-up. Charge it back to the client. Trew Audio is in Toronto and Vancouver, and will ship anywhere in North America.
 
In 1957 it was probably all ADR and Foley with the addition of a reverb plate, I love the sound of a reverb plate in the morning to me it sounds like Victory! :violent5:

The thing is we are probably listening to an optical track as well which by it's very nature is narrow band, you can also hear some of the gating effect that optical also gives.

There is so much foobarr about audio these days with too many people trying to re-invent the wheels and thinking new technology will instantly make it right, you record the sound as clean as possible on location or in the studio and if you can't you ADR it, you then mix it for delivery in the manner that the director want's for his movie, all the rest is just down to how you use the kit but if you use your brain first and if you keep it simple you can get the same or better results than they got 50 years ago but you need to learn the basic principles and use your ears, throwing technology at it that you don't understand is akin to putting a five year old in that Ferrari!
 
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Ironpony - one question you have not answered. Can the person holding the boom hear what comes out of the mic? It's the SINGLE most important technical feature of recording good sound - you cannot see good sound, you need to hear it. If you simply are determined to use the boom mic, then you MUST arrange to hear it - and this could cost more than the lav hire.

Your friend has a lav, and the sound is bad? It is either faulty, or you don't yet have enough audio knowledge to make the decision. Lav sound is different to boom sound. You seem to have a misunderstanding about sound. I'm producing a series of specialist audio products for a client who needs music to be played back in a hard surfaced room with excessive and uncontrolled reverberation. This means the overiding need is to record the material as dry as possible, but we have to put a warning on the CDs so uninformed people realise the sound in a home, or worse, on headphones sounds 'strange'. If you went to the space we are talking about in this topic and did a lecture, you'd find the audience would get tired of listening very quickly, and critically, anyone with hearing in only one ear would be lost - having two ears allows your brain to do the nifty processing that lets you hear detail. This is why the wedding people often have trouble when they record in mono - the vicar's voice is just a mess. The people who were there, could hear it better. The actor in the old clip was pretty submerged in reverb - imagine listening to this in anything other than a dead room. This is why modern technique dictates recording the absolute best audio you can,and then adding reverb in controlled conditions. Don't forget the editing problems you might also create? With dry audio, you can cut to your hearts content - with long reverb tails, the edits are much more tricky to hide.

What I don't understand is the reasons you have for being so stubborn? I realise now that you are determined to use a boom, you won't consider hiring in lavs, and want to compromise the images to avoid having dreadful sound. This just seems so strange I don't understand your work process. Surely, the number one aim is to get the best material that you can edit in the shortest time, that will come together to produce the ultimate result. You are tying one hand behind your back and creating so much restorative work that even if your time is free, your sanity isn't.

Will the boom sound be good? No.
Will it be good enough to pass? Maybe
Will the audience think the sound is good - based on the non-technical yardstick of watching lots of DVDs and TV? Nope - not a snowball's chance in hell!
 
Im starting to think that ironpony's purpose is to stir things up and test the composure of people who are seriously trying to help him out.
 
GaryNattrass said:
You mean like a TROLL ??? surely not! :engel017:
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I've used Ironpony's posts as Gedankenexperiment material. The closes to the current 'how would you do this in a big room', for me, is for weddings... and I think it is pretty much well known that lavs would be the 'correct' and easiest to do for this situation in this modern age.

I do occasionally think about 'what did they do back then', because there was less fancy technology (no wireless, monstrous huge mics, mostly shot in studio, etc...).

I looked but I didn't find any thing on the production details for "Paths of Glory"(1957), because we are talking about Kubrick... the same Kubrick who had a special lens made so he could get 'candle light' for "Barry Lyndon"(1975), and so I would be interested if Kubrick had applied some of his 'use/invent/have-invented' methods that were not typical of the time. (The wiki on Nagra lists 1961 as the earliest model for film work... but who knows...).
 
The most obvious method would have been pure ADR, Foley, and post effects (reverb, etc). Those were the main techniques in use in that era to accomplish this scene, and there is no evidence to the otherwise. I doubt very much that we are hearing ANY production sound from the set.

I agree that modern mixing practices woudn't have made it quite as "wet" for today's audiences. The ubiquity of lavs in modern production has create audiences that expect to hear a very "present" up-close sound virtually everywhere.

There is no better way of dissuading someone from trying to use an inappropriate production method (video, audio, or whatever) than actually TRYING it in Real Life. Forums like this are very valuable, but nothing beats first-hand experience, positive or negative.
 
Okay thanks. Right now I have a boom, shock mount, shotgun mic, field recorder, and headphones. I recently recorded sound for a guy directing his movie, and he wanted a wide shot, where the mic had to be 2 to 3 feet above the actor's head. I listened to the audio later it was not bad. It was less echoey than the Paths of Glory scene but I feel if he would have let me get the mic closer and gave the actors less head room, it would have been better. But since I will be directing mine, I want to be behind the camera and not operating the boom if possible. I will see if I can get lavs, but if not, I will either do ADR, or re-storyboard the scene. It's just a lot of actors suck at ADR and in my experience I have to hire someone else who is better, and the actors don't like that.

As far as sound blankets go, how wide can a shot be before blankets become useless, cause they are too far away? Like their is a signal to noise ratio, when it comes to the mic, and too the room, but is there a 'blanket to noise' ratio?
 
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Actors should do as they are told and directed, if they can't do ADR they should learn their craft, or are they just messing everyone around for their art?
 
I wasn't willing to accept that he's winding us up - but as he's ignoring everything I've said - confirmed by the "I listened to the audio afterwards and it wasn't too bad" I really have changed my mind. Would anybody 'point' a camera and hope that in the edit suite you breath out when the shots looked vaguely like you hoped?

Frankly, blankets if not planned are very inefficient. With a boom, poorly aimed, the blankets just attempt to mop up unwanted reflections.

Ironpony. Please - just do what you want. Ignore the advice, and then when you pop up in a new topic asking how to rescue your project because the sound is bad, we can all just point you back here and say we told you.

There seems little point in trying to guide you. You blunder from one problem to another and seem to learn absolutely nothing. I've been reading your previous posts and there is a commonality to almost every one. You ask questions, you ignore suggestions and then ask more questions.
 
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