LAVs & Advice On Use

KyleProhaska

KyleProhaska

Veteran
I've been following Edward Burns on Twitter reading whatever I can find about his latest low-budget movies and how he's making them for almost nothing. On his latest movie Nice Guy Johnny shot for $25,000 he didn't have a sound-mixer, just LAVs on all the actors. What kind of LAVs do you think he's using? How practical is it to use LAVs and get decent sound like he's getting? I don't know a lot about using LAVs so I'm looking for any advice on what I should look into. Even if I use a boom for a lot of things next time I do a feature (particularly indoors), LAVs will be much more practical outdoors and especially in shots where I want to have the actors any farther away from camera than a boom would allow (which as a problem last time).

Any horror stories with LAVs you'd like to share? Inviting an open discussion here...
 
Exposed Lav's like in news casts can be the most simple way to capture good sound. Suddenly the moment you put those same mic's UNDER clothing the possible horror stories
arise.
Clothing noise, muffled sound, throaty sound, etc are all issues that pop up.

Even the best mixers out there have issues with clothing noise even with every trick in the book so put that same situation into the hands of an inexperienced
person and figure out what the result will probably be.

That being said, if this is the option you end up going with there are ways to put the odds in your favor. The biggest being wardrobe choice.
Soft materials like cotton are going to work much better than silks or starched clothing. Learning lav placement is another way to achieve better results. (where the best places physically on a body mics sound the best)

Realize one of the problems with lav's are they sound "dead" as in very little environment. Sure it's great to have less background "noise" but at the same time
you'll get a much more pleasing sound if there is some "air" (openness) around the mic.

On bigger features you'll almost always see a boom being worked even if the main source are lav's.
The mixer is using it for some ambiance to make the mix sound more open.

Realize another thing you mention when you say you want to use lav's because the camera is so far away.
What you are creating visually is different than what your audio is supporting with a tight in your face lav sound.
Just as you visually need perspective, you need your audio to match the same perspective in order to help
immerse your audience more into the world you are creating.

Obviously if it's an extreme wide you need to use Lav's but try using the boom as well (probably best on a separate track if doing this is new to you)
to help open things up.
 
Yea I've considered those things, thanks for the information. I guess what is outside my skillset is properly setting up LAVs if they are under the clothing. Ed Burns shot his entire last movie using LAVs and while I won't be going that route, it means that every shot has them hidden somewhere. We used a boom the entire film last time and a studio mic instead of a shotgun and as long as the wind was kept down and noise was minimal, we got sound that was amazing, because the mic picked up a lot of atmosphere but gave super rich sound for our actors so things sounded incredibly real. I'll need LAVs for certain things next time so if I wanted to use them and hide them under clothing, what would you suggest? If I'm in a hurry, putting them outside the clothing could work really well in ultrawides where my AF100 could never see it.
 
Yes! I've noticed sometimes in old films, like from the 40's etc., you'll have the characters some distance away, yet their dialogue is a closely mic'd ADR. Very jarring. I think the situation Rippie is describing sounds similar (they didn't have LAV's back then, so they had to solve the same boom-in-frame problem differently, and obviously not always competently :)).
 
Some down and dirty tricks for hiding lavs.

1. I keep a roll of white, medical tape and and great BIG set of colored markers with me on shoots. You can often have the lav peaking out of clothing if you wrap it in the tape and then color it to match the clothing.

2. For shots under clothing or where there is a high chance of noise, I take two pieces of gaffer's tape and fold them into triangles; sticky side out. I then embed the lav between the two triangles, being sure to have the two sides of the tape just a bit higher than the top of the lav. That cuts out almost all of the noise coming from clothing rubbing across the top of the lav. I then stick this triangle wherever it might need to go.

3. The amount of ambience you can get from a lav depends on the lav, itself, and it's placement relative to the speaker's mouth. The farther from the speaker's mouth, the more gain you'll need to apply to get the speaker's voice up to an acceptable level, and the more ambience you'll get. Of course, higher gain comes with its own issues. ;-) I have some cheap lavs that are very "dead," excluding most ambient sound, and I find them absolutely invaluable in high-noise environments, like when there's a huge amount of traffic noise in the background that I don't want. So, deadness can be a virtue in some cases.
 
Does anyone have any specific Lav sets they recommend? One important thing to mention is I would like to be able to record at least two at once. Also I notice some cheaper systems have the larger heads on the mics itself, not very helpful unless the actor is in a major wide where it's not seen. Just wondering if anyone knows what the pros use, and what might be in-between for quality/usability reasons.

Good info here...thanks for the information.
 
Another couple of tricks, especially for problem garments, is to use makeup sponges with a hole in them as shock mounts for the Lav. I also tape the Lav to the garment so it isn't rubbing over the mic.

Sometimes.....nothing helps!
 
what if the actor/actress is wearing swimsuit, and it's a wide shot?

I've heard of "super long boom pole" before, has anybody ever used it?
 
Hiding the mic for swimsuits are easy, it's hiding the pack that's trouble, and requires lube. :). Seriously, boom and/plant mics save the day.

marvinhello said:
what if the actor/actress is wearing swimsuit, and it's a wide shot?

I've heard of "super long boom pole" before, has anybody ever used it?
Click to expand...
 
Using moleskin around the lav and placing it on the sternum is a great way to get clean audio without rubbing. Essentially you use two strips one strip of moleskin goes on the actor, the other goes over the lav and then adheres to the first layer. If you recess the lav face down inside the pocket made by the mole skin, you get a bit more protection from rubbing and wind sound. With the sternum being a recessed portion of the chest, it keeps clothing at bay. And it is in a close proximity to the mouth.

Again, not ideal but functional.

I personally prefer ADR. Even Rodriguez style ADR can be used to great effect.
 
If you search for lav mics you'll find a ton of stuff. But common used lav mics are countryman b6, b3, emw; sankin cos11, tram tr50 and a cheaper company on the scene is oscartech. And you can get these lavs with different connectors for hardwired xlr or whatever wireless you're using.

But this guy making his film for 25k? I hate reading stuff like that. It usually means a lot of people are working for far too less if not free. I wonder how many bit the "it's a great project and will def sell" hook?
 
Mangler, I understand what you're saying when you mention a low budget like that for a feature and how people are going to
be working for far less money but not everything out there can have huge budgets.

Zak Forsman in the usefilms section of this site just did a kickstarter fund raising campaign to raise $30K to do an entire feature and got many many people behind him
showing support for it. I personally think it's great if he can pull it off for that. All people have to do is say no if they don't want to be a part, but good on him if
he can find people who believe in it.

Sorry didn't mean to go off topic but wanted to put that out there.
 
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