No sound man?

mediamogul

mediamogul

Well-known member
Hi gang, I decided to shoot a feature and I wanted to hear your views on no using a sound man. I will direct and I have a DP. I will have a pa do the boom. Am I making a mistake? I did a doc with me and 1 person and the sound was fine.
 
Re: No sound man?

A documentary is one thing, but a feature is something else. I'd get at least one sound person in there that knows what's going on. You may regret it later.

-Dave
 
Re: No sound man?

I've done shorts without a sound guy with mixed results. The two biggest problems were :

1)Noise; the operator would inadvertantly hit the pole against the ceiling, floor or some fixture. OR they would move the boom in a way to make noise int he cable. Either of which would ruin the audio for that take, and I wouldn't alwaays realize it.

2)Consistency of sound levels. This occured 2 ways, the first being the boom operator didn't keep the mic a consistent distance from the actor. That was a pain to fix, but at least it was possible to manually adjust the levels. But the second way it happened was not always following an actor if they turned their face, or turned around completely. This was more difficult to fix because it changed the tone as well as the volume.

So I agree with Dave to try and find somebody with experience. If you can't, then I'd encourage you to find someone to work with on some tests before you shoot. Have him follow the actor with the boom, move the mic between to actors during dialogue, make sure they can handle the boom shot after shot without getting too tired, etc. That might go a long way towards decent dialogue. Good Luck
 
Re: No sound man?

Did your sound guy have cans? In my experience, even someone who's never boomed before will quickly figure out what makes noise in the audio track if they're able to hear it directly when they're operating it.
 
Re: No sound man?

Actually, I had them on. The guy had no experience so I thought it would be best if I wore them. Well that backfired because I was so focused on the framing that I wasn't really paying attention. I caught a few bumps and thuds, but missed even more. It taught me that if you are going to ask somebody to do something, you have to put your faith in them.
It also taught me to learn more about the basics of sound. For example it had never occured to me that the mic shouldn't be pointed at the actors, parallel to the floor when there is a lot of real estate behind them. You pick up all kinds of background. The guy holding the boom was more comfortable that way, and I told him it was fine. My mistake, not his. But one I won't make again. Someone with an ounce of experience would have known better. Learn, Learn, Learn. If possible by somebody else's mistakes.
 
Re: No sound man?

Sorry, but it's a huge rookie mistake to not have a sound mixer on a feature. If you want to cut corners you can combine the sound mixer and boom operator positions, but going without a sound person entirely is disastrous. Headphones are great, but inexperienced crew have no idea of what to listen for and can easily ignore things like the boom handling noise they're creating. I just saw these identical problems with someone who does recording engineer work. It takes some experience to recognize and avoid problems and to problem solve. The problems Jim describes are typical and will mark a production as amateurish at best and potentially unwatchable. I highly recommend doing some research and reading The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook to get an idea of essential crew postions and other essential filmmaking details before you start pre-production.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...102-4246534-2883354?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
 
Re: No sound man?

Cheers to Jim for not only sharing his account so that we may learn from his mistake, but also for being honest and accepting the responsibility.
 
Re: No sound man?

Thanks Terry. I've found you never get anywhere if you're ashamed of your own ignorance. Of course, if I did it again...
 
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