Interview audio in noisy location

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weis5on

Member
Any advice on setup/settings for interview audio at a loud outdoor location like a race track? Plan is to use Sunken COS-11D lav mic on Juicedlink Little Darling as well as AT895R into Tascam DR60d. Never shot at a location such as this, so any experiential knowledge or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.
 
Its mostly about maximizing the dialog level while minimizing the background noise level.
Most of the details are missing from your question.
  1. How far away from high-noise areas (pits, track, etc.)?
  2. Are these run-n-gun, drive-by interviews?
  3. Are they arranged-on-the-fly standup conversations?
  4. Is the interviewer on-camera?
  5. Are you interviewing only one person at a time?
  6. Can the interviewer hold the microphone up to the subject?

How were planning on deploying the mics?
I would make an "earset" out of a coat-hanger wire to get the lav right next to the interviewer's mouth.
And then I would have the interviewer hold the shotgun up to the mouth of the subject.
 
Wanted to unwanted sound ratio is the key. Look at formula one for how to do it. Forget lav mics, you want something you can get in very close. A headset mic tight fitted to the cheek might work, but will need shielding from wind. If we are talki h horse racing then it's much easier. If we really are talking cars, then we're into ear defender territory! Even a shotgun in a housing of some kind might not be able to give you the separation. If it is cars, then also be aware that the ambient spl can be right at the top of end of many condensers dynamic range, and distortion can easily happen.
 
Standard broadcast mic for such interviews is an Electrovoice RE50-B or similar and you need to have an interviewer who can use it and get it very close.

Other hand held mic's can also be used and the F1 and soccer presentation at SKY is generally done using sennheiser hand held radio mic's but with one of each person speaking.

See pic here and note the people also have in-ear monitoring as when it gets loud in the pit lane etc they actually need to hear each other over the engine noises!

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/10135381/every-f1-2016-race-live-on-sky-f1

and when the race is on the reporter has to wear an OTTO over ear headset to hear anything as it is very very loud.
 
We always used a shotgun with the talent holding it, few other microphones would give the isolation needed. only better thing would be noise cancelling headset mics, looks funny but works far better.
 
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