miking inside car and general studio mic usuage

L

loudlael

Active member
Part one: I just watched some footage of a conversation between two people in the front seat of a car. I put the lavs on the visors and thought it sounded good, but it really didn't. So I'm thinking next time maybe use my rode nt4 stereo mic planted by the shifter. The Car will be on a truck bed.

Any advice?

Part two: I've also got a fat head figure eight ribbon mic and other various large condensers that I was wondering if anyone ever uses on set. Wouldn't these be better quality sounding if I could plant them and the environment was acoustically conducive?
 
Skip the figure 8.

Mounting in a car can be tricky in a lot of ways.
Outside noise, are the car windows down, is it reverbiant in an unattractive way,
camera position..etc.

Lav's in the visors can sound fantastic, as can schoeps in the visor,
but coming from underneath can be the best placement at times as well.
Point being is it depends on camera angle.

If all else fails, wire the actors up.


One thing worth mentioning from my own experience, a few years ago
I worked on a feature where I had to deal with dialog in a car that was NOT on a
process trailer.
It was powered by itself with the windows down.
I thought it sounded horrible while I was doing it.
Seeing dailies the next day I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it with "picture"
it wasnt nearly as horrible.

Then after hearing it a few months later after it went through post I personally think the footage sounds better than most
car interiors. (I believe post gated heavy)

It might not be as bad as you think.
 
2 months ago I was on a car chase shoot that involved the casts driving around at random speeds and corners, including the highway. My first thought was to rig the Schoeps in both visors and another Schoeps in the back seat for the third coverage. Nope, too small of a car. Tried mounting it from below, still too small of a car. The backseat, however, was okay.

Wanted to wire the actors up, but went for boom when out of car sequences.

Next option was to lav both visors with the RM11 mounts poking out just a bit over each actor's head. I positioned them in a way where turning heads wouldn't be a problem. Tada. At times I had to use just one lav to cover both the driver and passenger while having the 2nd lav covering the 3rd seater in the back. Worked well. At most three cams rolling with the transition to a boom. Crazy shoot.
 
What do you think of putting a stereo mic in? Problems, benefits? Is it a bad idea because you would have to checker board the post mix between the LFt and RT to center?
 
If a stereo mic is all you have, try placing it so that the diaphragms are pointing toward their heads from the dashboard POV rather than upwards from the shifter/arm rest. The mics are more oriented to their direction of speech, less off-axis pickup.
 
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