Most locations do not have room for sound blankets. What do I do?

Zak Forsman said:
to get the boom(s) in nice and close you can do what we did in many situations, shoot a plate and matte them out in post. pics here >>> http://thesabicompany.com/blog/2012/01/get-good-sound/
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That's a really good suggestion, Zak.

The movie’s editor and co-producer, Jamie Cobb was in charge of our sound – booming, mixing, she does it all and has delivered the best sounding movie we’ve had to date.
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And she looks badass while doing it all too, from the included photo.
 
What movies pre 1960 had wide dialog shots? If you can find one it was probably ADR or on a sound stage and the quite close boom mic is right over their heads. The technology to do a wide shot AND capture usable dialog didn't exist then. I guess if they are stationary enough you could have used a plant mic but...

So I suspect that you are falling into the trap that many new filmmakers do, your believing the illusion.
To quote "the Stuntman", "remember King Kong was only 13 inches tall".

Films are a magic trick. If you want to duplicate the illusion you have to get past what you think you see and look at how the trick is done.

If you have worked with a lot of new filmmakers, I have, IP's questions are not out of left field.
When I was coming up by the time you could get your hands on a camera you had a fair amount of experience. These days folks see films and can get their hands on the equipment with basically no experience at all. They haven't had a chance to see how the sausage is made and they still make assumptions based on the illusions they have watched on the screen. It usually takes time and some failures before they start realizing that almost all of what they assumed was "real" is an illusion. It doesn't help that the film and software industries are busy telling them that it's "magic" and with the right potion you to can make a great film. Magicians spend years getting good at their craft. Filmmaking is a very similar business.
 
Zak Forsman said:
to get the boom(s) in nice and close you can do what we did in many situations, shoot a plate and matte them out in post. pics here >>> http://thesabicompany.com/blog/2012/01/get-good-sound/
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You mentioned this technique before. It's brilliant and I'm just sad I hadn't thought of it first!

The funny part is it's done all the time for other things, rig removal, fixing shadows etc. But this is the first time I ever had heard of suggesting it to improve the sound.
 
Zak Forsman said:
it takes about 2 minutes to create the matte. this is not an expensive or time consuming solution.
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Having done some VFX I would have to agree. If the camera is locked down this is dead simple and can be done in the NLE. If your camera is moving you would have to track the shot and that could get complicated. Still not too bad if it's just a small move,
 
Noiz2 said:
So I suspect that you are falling into the trap that many new filmmakers do, your believing the illusion.
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Back when I was in college, I let someone edit a scene on a project I was working on in order to gain some experience. I ended up having to go back and redo it all, because they were unaware that you could continue the audio from, say, the close up, into the wide shot. The audio cut along with the video, which sounded incredibly funky.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I've developed an attitude about ironpony... namely using their postings as fodder for what can come up when the Wife and I return to giving seminars on photography, with the expansion into 'moving picture' photography... and apropos this dept... moving pictures with sound...

Many of IP's questions are often heard in such venues... and sometimes even a train of such questions from the same person...

So it's good practice...
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On forums like these it isn't really disruptive (just seems a bit ridiculous) but in person it really can be. I was once at a training event a long, long time ago with someone who did that, and at the person running the training pulled them aside at a break. After the break, no more questions. Not sure what they said, but it made the rest of the day worth staying for. (I'm guessing they asked the person to write down all their questions and ask at the end of the day, or something like that.)
 
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