Mics - The long and short of it

S

sponge1

New member
Hi. New today.

Starting in filmaking. Read through (almost) all threads and purchased 'Now Hear This' for guidence (it was good).

My questions: For those on a budget (purchasing only 1 or 2 mics - but good ones), is there such thing as a good all round mic that allows me to focus on camera operating (I cannot afford a boom operator)? Predominantly indoor filming with a couple of people making thier way around a room about 12 feet by 12 feet (need to be able to pick up adequate audio from several people who will potentially be at opposite sides of the room).

I am unsure whether highly directional mics will cover off this sort of application (MKH-416) or whether I consider a studio mic (MKH60) - or another solution.

Cheers - from Australia.
 
As far as I know there is no mic that will do what you are asking. Directional mics need to be pointed at the subject, and to get good audio should be as close as possible. You can probably go as much as a few feet, depending on the mic before you start having problems. THe other option you have is to use lavs.

It would help to know exactly what you are doing. IS this a short film, a documentary...?

Being a good boom operator takes practice, but if you have a bit of time, enlist one of your mates to do it, read up on the basics, then practice with him. If you are shooting a narrative film, a boom is usually the best choice.
 
Definitely another solution -- hiring a boom op for the day. There's no way you're going to cover people moving around a room, using a directional mic, without someone (and a skilled someone, at that) holding the mic.

I dare say you'd get better overall audio from a $239 AT-835B, held on a pole by a skilled operator, than you would from a $1,000 MKH-416 stuck on a stand somewhere.

If you absolutely have to cover circumstances like that, and it absolutely has to be alone, I'd think you might have better luck with planting omni lavalieres on the actors (provided you can deal with the horrid clothes-rustling)...

I dunno -- sounds challenging. With a mixer, and a Countryman EMW running to each person, you could probably get decent audio... but I can't see it happening with people on the opposite sides of a 12' room, trying to capture that with one shotgun that doesn't even have an operator...
 
The plan in the early stage is to make a few short films - with a view to progressing towards something more 'feature length' as my skills grow.

I wanted to avoid mounting a shotgun to the camera (learn't that this wasn't ideal, but I guess not having a boom operator isn't ideal either).
 
The biggest mistake anybody ever makes with audio is thinking they can get good sound from a mic that isn't close to every person from which you want to record good sound.

However you want to accomplish that goal is up to you.

A lot of times people think they can buy something to accomplish the goal of getting good sound, but doing it the way they WANT to do it... There is no magic fix to get good sound with loose audio practices (such as cam-mounting or trying to cover a whole room from one position)... I agree with Barry that you'd get better sound by using a cheap mic properly... rather then buying a good mic and thinking it will make things happen.
 
Thanks for the input - am already canvaasing the neighbours to see who can assist or may have an interest.
 
Point To Ponder

Point To Ponder

Drummers make excellent, affordable boom operators. Think about it.

They move quickly.
They have endurance.
Best of all? They're almost always broke and they'll work cheap.
 
I've posted on this before and agree completely with Matt and Barry. Great mics are subtle in their greatness. For you to get your money's worth out of them EVERYTHING else has to be pretty close to perfect. A great mic placed poorly will deliver worse audio than an ok mic placed properly. In fact, it may be much worse since the great mic is designed to be work at optimal placement. The other issue is noise control, both ambient and mic. You will get better sound from a cheaper mic properly housed in a good windscreen and mounted on a good pole with shock mount than you will with an expensive mic bare on a painters pole. If you want to read more on my ramblings on this topic, do a search.

Ok, so for you, you have to worry about placement and control of ambient sound. How to do this given your resources. Well the best option would be to use an experienced audio tech to boom the scene for you. Since you can't do that you have to use a combination of technology and scripting to get usable results and scripting will be just as important as technology.

First technology. You can either go with lavs or multiple shotguns mounted on poles and secured to c-stands. I like shotguns better than lavs, but that's probably do to my inexperience with lav mics, so hopefully others will chime in here on this. For example, if you were having a conversation which took place over diner in a restaurant or on a park bench, you could use two AT897s, each placed on a pole and secured to a C-Stand and mic each actor individually, and then record each mic to a separate channel. The actors would not have much range of motion and you would have to shoot it closer, but it can be done with decent to very good results. Whether or not this will work better than lavs depends I guess on the scene. For what you described you might set up two to four Oktavas and record each location to a separate channel - but this starts to get complicated and probably unnecessarily so.

The biggest factor, to my mind, in this is the script. Unless you're doing a lot of ADR (which is also an option) you can't have dialog occurring with any great movement. For every line of dialog your going to have to ask yourself. "how am I going to capture this" (which you should be doing anyway). If you focus on how you will be able to capture the audio when you write the script and make sure that you write a compelling story that you can actually capture, then you'll have something decent. If on the other had, you're married to your "artistic vision" but don't have a way to capture it well, it will come off bad. Also think ahead of time about how you will edit this. For something like this you might be better off cutting in camera so to speak (knowing exactly how your shots will be edited together and shooting them that way) because this will allow you to set up the mics better.

just my $0.02, your mileage may vary.
 
To take this a step further, you could do the same with one mic (if you're going to the expense of setting up two mics you might as well hire a boom op) but how you script and shoot will be even more critical as you will have to capture each line of dialog in a separate take, multiple takes really so that you can better edit them together. You may have to make use of a lot of b-roll. Instead of having a conversation take place while two characters walk into a restaurant and then continue while they are seated and eating, you might have to play part of the conversation while they are walking in to the restaurant (obviously not speaking) and then cut to them eating as the conversation continues. For the park bench, you might shoot all your coverage at the bench in multiple takes with the mic(s) set up and then do shoot a dolly shot moving in from behind at a forty-five degree angle. In editing you would cut it together so that it appears that they are talking the whole time and you can't tell that there was no audio captured during the dolly shot. In this way you are substituting camera movement for actor movement to maintain interest.

It's all in the planing.
 
Worth much much more than $0.02. Great feedback and also gives me a couple of ideas to play with. Thanks for that.
 
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