How would you approach this audio situation (short film)?

Y

yophoto91

Active member
Hi all,

Scenario for you guys:

Let's say I need to record dialogue, on set, outdoors in the woods or on open land. Noise pollution, hopefully, should not be an issue (I will scout the area first). The actor will be looking right into the lens and will be speaking into it for about 5 minutes. What makes this a bit complicated is 2 things. Firstly, this shot I described will have no cuts whatsoever and it will be a rather wide shot so if one were to boom a shotgun mic, it would be at least 5 feet from the actor's mouth. My knowledge of recording sound is very limited, but I'm guessing 5 feet is just too much to record decent sound. Secondly, chances are a lav mic will be out of the question, because this actor will not be wearing a shirt.

My audio gear (RODE NTG-2 and Zoom H4N) is limited as is my knowledge so if necessary I will try to get a pro to do it, but I'm still interested in how you guys would pull this off. I'm looking for crisp clean dialogue with minimal background ambiance. I'm guessing booming a shotgun mic is the only solution, but I'm interested in any techniques you can share to make the most of the situation.

Your time and advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks and take care,

Mark
 
You could try booming from below but only if it wouldn't be in the shot. Also you could consider him being next to a large prop of some sort and "planting" a lav mic on that prop.
 
You may have a wide shot but are you saying there's 5 feet of air ABOVE the actor's head??? That's awkward framing for even a wide shot. With most compositions the upper frame line is still going to be relatively close to the top os his head. If you position the mic about 2 feet closer the the camera than the actor, directly above the sight-line from the camera's lens to his face and angled towards his mouth, you should be able to boom it to within a couple of feet of his mouth while keeping clear of the frame even on such a shot. Allowing this mic position without the boom operator intruding into the shot from the side is why booms used in features are often as much as 20 feet or even more in length.

If you do have a lot of air over his head, then a plant mic on the set, a wireless lav hidden on the talent, or ADR is about you only other options.
 
jaredgiese said:
You could try booming from below but only if it wouldn't be in the shot. Also you could consider him being next to a large prop of some sort and "planting" a lav mic on that prop.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help. Booming from below probably won't work and I can't really have the actor next to a prop. However, the actor will be sitting in a rather large chair, so I'm trying to think if it would be possible to mount a lav mic on the chair, inconspicuously, close to his mouth.

Richard Crowley said:
Unless the actor is bald, you can plant a "hair mic"

http://www.brightandloud.com/microphone-placement
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help. The actor will indeed be bald, however, he will most likely be wearing a beanie over his head. The beanie is rather thick in material so I don't think I could plant a mic in it.

Steve House said:
You may have a wide shot but are you saying there's 5 feet of air ABOVE the actor's head??? That's awkward framing for even a wide shot. With most compositions the upper frame line is still going to be relatively close to the top os his head. If you position the mic about 2 feet closer the the camera than the actor, directly above the sight-line from the camera's lens to his face and angled towards his mouth, you should be able to boom it to within a couple of feet of his mouth while keeping clear of the frame even on such a shot. Allowing this mic position without the boom operator intruding into the shot from the side is why booms used in features are often as much as 20 feet or even more in length.

If you do have a lot of air over his head, then a plant mic on the set, a wireless lav hidden on the talent, or ADR is about you only other options.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help. I'm guessing this is only the solution so I'm going to try and reevaluate the shot and see if I can get the mic closer. As a general rule, what would you say is the absolute farthest a shotgun mic should be from the talent's mouth if you are looking to get excellent sound? From what I understand it should be no more than 3 feet. Does that sound about right?

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Also a question to anyone else: If I can't find someone more experienced to do this for me for a reasonable cost and end up having to do this myself, what equipment would you suggest. As mentioned, I already have a Zoom H4N and the Rode NTG-2, but I'd be willing to upgrade if it would make a noticeable difference in quality for this particular short film. For the record, I'm trying to rent out a Red One for this, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to feed the sound to both the H4N (or another recorder) and to the Red One as well.

I apologize for the additional questions.

Thanks again for your help.

Mark
 
yophoto91 said:
Thanks for your help. Booming from below probably won't work and I can't really have the actor next to a prop. However, the actor will be sitting in a rather large chair, so I'm trying to think if it would be possible to mount a lav mic on the chair, inconspicuously, close to his mouth.
...
Thanks for your help. The actor will indeed be bald, however, he will most likely be wearing a beanie over his head. The beanie is rather thick in material so I don't think I could plant a mic in it.
...
Thanks for your help. I'm guessing this is only the solution so I'm going to try and reevaluate the shot and see if I can get the mic closer. As a general rule, what would you say is the absolute farthest a shotgun mic should be from the talent's mouth if you are looking to get excellent sound? From what I understand it should be no more than 3 feet. Does that sound about right?
...
Thanks again for your help.

Mark
Click to expand...

If he will be wearing glasses, small lavs like the Countryman B6 can actually be fastened to the inside of the earpiece close to the hinge with the cable leading behind his ear and down his back. Little mini lavs like the B6 or Sennheiser MKE Platinum can be hidden in all sorts of places, poked through a buttonhole in his shirt for example.

Distance for a shotgun depends somewhat on the mic. A hypercardioid used indoors should be about 18-22 inches, a short shotgun outdoors about 22-30 inches or so.
 
I agree with all of the other suggestions.
Just to add, would it destroy your shot if you had a small table next to the chair
that you could hide a microphone in a prop?

I think also the beanie idea works. The shot is so wide that
you can just peek the mic out on the side.

Ive done this dozens of times.
 
Rippie said:
I agree with all of the other suggestions.
Just to add, would it destroy your shot if you had a small table next to the chair
that you could hide a microphone in a prop?

I think also the beanie idea works. The shot is so wide that
you can just peek the mic out on the side.

Ive done this dozens of times.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. There can be no props of any kind. I think I may have overstated just how wide this shot is in my initial post. The shot will definitely be wide, but the camera will be only a few feet from the actor (with a 28mm lens), creating quite a bit of depth, so details will be discernible. I'll play around with this beanie idea and see if I can change up the shot a bit, to get a shotgun mic closer.

Take care,

Mark
 
Have absolutely no experience with them, but wonder what kind of results you might get with one of the parabolic type mics birders use??
 
Well, is the shot locked off?

If so, you might be able to just toss a boom mic directly in the shot, and then composite out later (just record a blank version as well so you have something to replace the mic with).

And be sure to test this beforehand.
 
Gohanto said:
Well, is the shot locked off?

If so, you might be able to just toss a boom mic directly in the shot, and then composite out later (just record a blank version as well so you have something to replace the mic with).

And be sure to test this beforehand.
Click to expand...

It isn't locked off, but thanks for the tip anyway. I might experiment with that for future projects.

Take care,

Mark
 
If the shot is THAT wide... then ADR might be a solution...? Other than that, i agree with hiding some small lav's around his person. Do some tests to see where you can put them and what kind of sound you get out of them.

Tom.
 
To be honest, what i would do is shoot this five minute dialogue scene with the shotgun mic obtaining poor sound. Assuming you are using FCP to edit then this is what i would do. After shooting, I then would export the clip into FCP, have the actor throw on some headphones, listen and study the way he says the dialogue in that particular clip so that he can do the dialogue with no flaws in lip syncing, voice, breaths etc. After the actor can pretty much repeat the dialogue perfectly out loud over the original clip on mute I then would grab the boom mic, plug it in to your camera (or directly into the computer) and have him watch the clip as he records his dialogue. This is a good way to do cheap- efficient ADR - at least i think. If you want to see more, check this out-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwZwTP52aIc
 
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