In car audio recording while fiming

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pmk396

Well-known member
I was curious to know what is used for recording audio when filming a scene inside a moving car (eg. a medium/wide shot through the windscreen). I'm guessing that using a shotgun mic is too cumbersome and awkward, especially when you need to ideally have the mic above the actor and about 22 inches from there mouth (in this scenario the mic would most definitely be in shot and the car roof would be in the way).

Can a shotgun still be used out of shot (eg. under the actor's mouth down at the gear stick/handbrake) or would a lav mic be the best option for this scenario?
 
I place a lav on the visor (typically Tram TR-50) and use a hyper from below and send them to individual tracks.
 
i'm a fan of the sanken cub with cos11 lav on talent. i've even used dual oktavas mounted above the rear view for back and forth dialog.
 
I generally use one of two methods.

1. Shotgun or hyper with shockmount on a desktop mic stand between the legs of the actors. Throw a sandbag on the base of the stand to prevent the mic from falling over.

2. Lav the talent. Do it as you would if they were outside the car, and stick the transmitters next to the seat.

Personally, I don't like putting a lav on the visor, because I find I get more car noise that way. But while there is a right way and wrong way: the right way is any way that gets usable audio and the wrong way is any way that doesn't.
 
pmk396 said:
I'm guessing that using a shotgun mic is too cumbersome and awkward, especially when you need to ideally have the mic above the actor and about 22 inches from there mouth (in this scenario the mic would most definitely be in shot and the car roof would be in the way).
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22" is actually on the outside of the working range you want with a shotgun. 12" is much better. But when you cannot get overhead without being seen, it's time to rig the mic from underneath, and use obstacles that are already there to "hide" the mic from the lens.

That said, going with a shotgun or a hyper in a car interior is pretty dicey. Especially if the car is in motion, there's not much margin for error. You can get away with it for stationary (car parked, engine off) shots. It's more difficult in motion, even on a process trailer.

Lavs are the way to go, as others have used. You can lav the talent directly, or you can rig the lavs in the overhead visors. I've used both methods with great results. For the visor technique, I prefer a micro-lav, like the Countryman B6, as it's easier to place in the prime spot without risk of being seen be the camera.
 
I got terrific results once putting an omni (avantone ck-1 set) (inside a shockmount) in the cup-holder up front - we just kept the cupholder out of the shot and it sounded great.
 
I prefer a few different ways. It's always going to be different depending on car acoustics, how many people talking, what direction they are speaking, camera angles.etc.

I'll use 1 or 2 Schoeps up in the visor, 1 or 2 Schoeps on a magic arm coming from underneath, lav's in the visor, lav's on the people..etc.
Backseat stuff is easy since you can hide anything on the back of the front seats.
 
Now from a post perspective you are much better off if the car is not actually driving. In films with a budget mostly they are on trailers and being towed. But at the micro level you should think about how you can get the shot with the car stationary. Probably your going to want a bunch of back and forth shots and most of those wont have any identifiable backgrounds out side the car. You may only need an establishing shot and a couple of out the windo B roll shots that actually require the car to move.

The reason for doing it is two fold. First it's a LOT easier to shoot and you won't be picking up engine and road noise (those will make editing a pain).
And second, well it's a continuation of the first really. It will be very difficult to match shot to shot if your moving, picture wise but especially sound wise. Road noise is essentially impossible to remove from dialog. So you will have engine speed changes with cuts, road noise is constantly changing so it will generally never match. You can't pull alt takes easily because again the BG won't match.

The bottom line is that in a film where they shot dialog in a moving car 9 times out of ten it sounds very choppy, or they ADRed the whole thing. Neither is a great choice.
 
How are you liking the Avantone CK-1? I've got one on order, scheduled to ship Dec. 20. I bought it as an inexpensive hyper until I can afford a 4053b.

thisisapocalypse said:
I got terrific results once putting an omni (avantone ck-1 set) (inside a shockmount) in the cup-holder up front - we just kept the cupholder out of the shot and it sounded great.
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I'm interested in how the Avantone performs, a friend told me about it and I have been curious as to its sonic characteristics. seemed like it might be possibly like one of those gem finds like the oktava was.

please give us a review or maybe some samples.
 
Noiz2 said:
The bottom line is that in a film where they shot dialog in a moving car 9 times out of ten it sounds very choppy, or they ADRed the whole thing. Neither is a great choice.
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one of the other one out of ten's and a different way of shooting is the car dialogue in Clerks - camera pans from one actor to the other as they speak. No cutting necessary in post! Good actors needed though...
 
Could this be done with a single kit Senn G3? I know it would be best to lav both actors (driver and passenger) but is it possible to accomplish it with one lav? I reckon it would have to be mounted somewhere between the two actors, maybe a little towards the driver as he has his back to the lav? Apart from that, I could have an ntg-3 in there also, but I saw that shotguns might not be too appropriate for this kind of setup?
 
The reason lavs are used is that you place them very close to the talent's mouth, typically less than 8". As you increase the distance, the ratio between the sound you want (the talent), and the sound you don't want (everything else), is reduced exponentially (the inverse square law). This means the unless both actors are within 8" of the lav, the dialog is being compromised and more noise is being recorded. Car interiors often have funky acoustic properties (lots of glass, weird angles), so it's best to get the mic close thereby increasing the direct sound (talent), and reducing reflected sound. I would not try to share a lav between two actors in a car.

legrevedotcom said:
Could this be done with a single kit Senn G3? I know it would be best to lav both actors (driver and passenger) but is it possible to accomplish it with one lav? I reckon it would have to be mounted somewhere between the two actors, maybe a little towards the driver as he has his back to the lav? Apart from that, I could have an ntg-3 in there also, but I saw that shotguns might not be too appropriate for this kind of setup?
Click to expand...
 
Folks seemed to have missed my point. It's not about mic placement OR about editing. IF you shoot in a moving car your are recording in a tin can bouncing along. It doesn't matter much where the mic is it's getting hammered by low end and movement.

If a car shot was panned between two actors then it wasn't done while driving. Where was the camera? It would have to be on the hood with the cameraman. They were probably on a trailer.
 
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