How can I record sound in a scene like this?

GaryNattrass said:
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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.

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Actually if your not listening to 5.1 or SDDS, you are almost certainly listening to an optical track.

In 57 it was probably a mono optical and that was pre Dolby and such so yes small bandwidth and pretty noisy.

Today it would be "stereo" (generally "Dolby stereo" which is a matrixed 4.0 mix) and Dolby SR encoded and really pretty close to full bandwidth and very little noise.
 
No you're right. I will do as you say. I will get lavs first. I was just hoping not to use them. I have had problems in the past matching the lavs with the dialogue from the other scenes. It's just the lavs make the movie sound like a completely different movie, with different sound altogether, that cannot be matched with the dialogue from other scenes. But I will do my best.
 
ironpony said:
No you're right. I will do as you say. I will get lavs first. I was just hoping not to use them. I have had problems in the past matching the lavs with the dialogue from the other scenes. It's just the lavs make the movie sound like a completely different movie, with different sound altogether, that cannot be matched with the dialogue from other scenes. But I will do my best.
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Voices sound different in different environments. You would expect the timbre to change as you go from one scene to another. Cutting between different mics on the same character in the SAME scene is more of a problem - a voice should have the same tonality in a close shot as it does in a medium so if you do one shot with a boom and the other with a lav and then try to cut back and forth between them in the edited scene you'll have more of a headache.
 
The thing about sound is that if it's clean, with as little room sound as possible, then you have a HUGE range of things you can do to it. You can make it sound close/far small and intimate, massive and huge, or difficult to understand and tricky to listen to (just like the original clip) The only snag is that if you have far too live sound from your other scenes, they, not this one, will be the 'normal' sound for the project. In real life, this is the kind of location sound that dictates spending large amounts of money on ADR to bring things back under control.
 
Okay thanks. But what I meant was, even if I do a scene that is all a lav mic, and then I do a scene that is all a shotgun, you can still tell a difference, as it goes from scene to scene. Not in the room reverb or pickup pattern persay but just in the mic itself. Like for example, for one scene, the dialogue could sound like a mic that was used in Avatar. Where as the next scene, the dialogue can sound like a mic used in El Mariachi. It just sounds like a whole different movie when switching scenes. But maybe it's just me and audiences will not notice?
 
ironpony said:
Okay thanks. But what I meant was, even if I do a scene that is all a lav mic, and then I do a scene that is all a shotgun, you can still tell a difference, as it goes from scene to scene. Not in the room reverb or pickup pattern persay but just in the mic itself. Like for example, for one scene, the dialogue could sound like a mic that was used in Avatar. Where as the next scene, the dialogue can sound like a mic used in El Mariachi. It just sounds like a whole different movie when switching scenes. But maybe it's just me and audiences will not notice?
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Put a hot sex scene in there and no one is going to worry about slight differences in the mic used to record production sound.

On a more serious note... yes, if you listen really closely to real(tm) professional finished audio for many films you will here 'differences' between actors in the 'same' scene because 1) they are shot at different times, or even reshot months later. 2) ADR was used, for one reason or another. 3) The mic was pointed in one direction for one actor and pointed in the other direction for the other actor, in a scene with two actors speaking, etc.

However, the point is, you have to listen 'real close' to here these differences... now it so happens that the Wife is hard of hearing, and in order for her to hear even big sound effects, I have to turn the volume up, and so perhaps I'm' becoming more aware of these sorts of things. Definitely in most of my 'entertainment' viewing in theaters, I'm usually unaware of real subtle differences... unless they are glaring.

This is equivalent to a colorist matching a film 'look' across shots in the same 'scene', or across cuts, or across the whole movie.

But back to use of sex as a distraction for all ills that your film contains...

Even if you don't show actual sex, or even the actors having sex under heavy bedding, you can always add bouncing spring noises and oooh's and aah's, or if the actors are not really doing any sex, those sounds can come from beyond the walls of were your action is taking place, which will eliminate most subtle shadings of your actors voices across edits and across different types of mics.

And if 'sex' is not particularly appropriate, sirens and gun shots in the distance will work just as well and keep your film in PG territory.

And if the action takes place in a forest or similar 'desolate' place... add in a wolf howl between dialog edits, and the viewer's ears will autmagically 'adjust' and not notice the difference in timbre or even if it's the same actor's voice.
 
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yes it's all called the art of film re-recording or dubbing and sadly too many people are forgetting this important process and thinking that all you need to do is record sound on location!

Once again too many people re inventing the wheels and cutting corners in the hope that all of this is just so easy!

You also need to learn how to edit and layer multi track sound that matches but more importantly makes your visuals flow and there are no fast track short cuts to learning that even if you have all the kit to shoot and record in the world!
 
GaryNattrass said:
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Once again too many people re inventing the wheels and cutting corners in the hope that all of this is just so easy!
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Amen to that! Just because the hardware is orders of magnitude cheaper doesn`t mean the skills required to use it properly are correspondingly easier to master.
 
How many edit suites have great quality visuals and really terrible audio? FAR TOO MANY. I have an audio room and video room - and flip flop the work to the most suitable one. Sometimes I am lazy, and make audio decisions in the video room - mostly the audio in there is good enough and no major snags, but just completed a project and rather liked some of the music - so as the rooms are all networked, I grabbed the audio on my macbook and stuck it onto my ipod. I went to bed, and stuck in the ear buds. Horrible - the sub end of the audio was huge! Never noticed on the edit suite speakers - they totally ignored the stuff at the bottom. Bringing it into the audio room it was so evident.

What strikes me is this common practice that the presence of audio on a meter, or a quick check in the headphones means it's good audio. The difference between a good boom op and a bad one is that a good one can hear on the headphones the beginning of the 'thinning' out of the mic audio as it's aim drifts from the optimum location, and they can counteract it almost immediately. They have their ears tuned to what the mic is producing and can move the mic - a constant process. They know what they are capturing, and can add sensible notes to the media to indictate in advance to the editor where potential problems might be that will prevent the audio working in the edit. I love it when there's a note that mentions a distant motorcycle went past, or aeroplane noise, or perhaps even the noise of somebodies cellphone on vibrate. Other people provide a track, and when you hear it the audio perspective constantly changes, they didn't notice the mic angle was wrong and apart from the voice they also got the HVAC panel whiring away. We expect the cameraman to provide good technical quality images, framed and focused in appropriate ways, we expect them to shout when a shot is ruined and needs reshooting. Why do we just expect sound to be simply there? If the only sound being recorded is coming from a boom - then if the op messes up, or hears other people mess up - they MUST be able to inform the director and suggest a reshoot - far too many topics detail finding problems in the edit suit, yet they should have been noticed when they were recorded.

Fix it in the mix is the most stupid phrase I hear. Repair in the mix maybe. I know a great rock and roll audio guy. He got introduced to video and booming and was able to use his listening skills to do a great job - Giving the boom job to whoever is left, like being the last person to be picked for the football team is such a stupid idea!
 
You are so right Paul. Recording good sound on location is one of the most important yet most often neglected aspects. I was hired for a shoot a few months back (as lighting camera). On set it very quickly became apparent that the producer had not hired a sound person, and expected me to set up and operate lights, camera, boom all at once. When I asked who the boom operator was, I got blank looks and a suggestion that I could just 'put in on top of the camera'. I pointed out that this could cause issues, and ended up giving the PA a crash course in sound recording!
 
swopiv said:
You are so right Paul. Recording good sound on location is one of the most important yet most often neglected aspects. I was hired for a shoot a few months back (as lighting camera). On set it very quickly became apparent that the producer had not hired a sound person, and expected me to set up and operate lights, camera, boom all at once. When I asked who the boom operator was, I got blank looks and a suggestion that I could just 'put in on top of the camera'. I pointed out that this could cause issues, and ended up giving the PA a crash course in sound recording!
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The same thing happened on a shoot I was on, funny thing. Which is why I always get a boom op.
 
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