How would you record multiple people talking?

D

David Evans

Well-known member
With just one mic? Is this actually done professionally? Or is it done with one lav per actor? I just have one shotgun mic and I'm about to get a hyper, what would be the best way to record a group of people talking over each other during a scene?

Thanks
 
Scenes with actors talking over each other are difficult, not just from the mixer's and boom op's standpoints but also because it's a HUGE PITA for dialog editing.

That said, coverage for a couple of people is perfectly suited to a single, boomed mic. More people, you'll need a second boom op. You can also minimize the cutaways that feature everyone (leave that to a master shot), focusing on a couple of folks at a time for dialog, to make the editing easier and to allow for creating the "talking over eachother" in post.

On major features, it's not uncommon to have two booms, plus a lav on each actor, and all of them recorded both discretely and as a mix.

TV shows (non-narrative) are entirely different, and are commonly all lavs.
 
TV talk shows are usually done with lavs on each person and mixed on-the-fly by a pro, sometimes auto-mixers can be used, but they ain't fool-proof either.
Reality shows? It depends, could be a combo of lavs, booms or other.
Somewhat the same for films.. it depends
A professional boom op and/or sound mixer should be enlisted in either case.
A hyper-cardioid mic won't save the day by itself.
 
depends on the situation and the ability of the sound crew. I know guys that never use lavs and have had scenes with multiple people speaking, and the boom op/s are so good they can cover it. I've seen some shows that have so many people talking that wireless lavs have to be used.
 
I would also look at the shot list and not have people talking that you don't need to understand. You can have them just mouth the conversations while shooting and then record just audio of them yammering away later (it's called "walla") and drop that in in post.

Very few directors record everyone at the same time for a narrative project. If the lips are not on screen or saying something we need to hear then they should not be making any noise during production.

The one big director who goes the other way lav's up everyone possible and records a huge number of audio tracks and sorts it out in post. But that is the exception not the rule.
 
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