Oh The Drama

hey folks, thanks for the replies...

wabbit - didnt have any phasing issues, and the mics were also split tracked. with lavs on talent, luckily those girls look young but are actually both 19. They are actually pretty fun to mic, and I dont mean that in a creepy sound guy sort of way - they are very keen to help me get the mic in the right spot (Im usually going with cleavage for a lot of scenes), and like they are keen to get their delivery and placement right, they are also trying to learn how to mic themselves so that I can just give them the mic and pack, and watch as they do the "invasive" parts themselves. Of course, I do fix any mistakes, and always do a touch up afterwards. But placing lavs are ok.

By the by, wardrobe on this set rocks! Its a one woman show, but man she's cool.

Something cool I didnt mention, the DOP actually reframed a shot for me yesterday! I had a lav on the talent on the outside of her clothes - it was very camo (like black on black, in a dark scene), but to be sure for me, he reframed it out of the first position the shot (it was a mid turning to extreme long, he made it a mcu to extreme long). Cool guy. Must remember to buy beers for the lighting and cam departments. :)

Lav placement - So are you guys saying that you just flat out tape the mic to the skin, and maybe immobilise some fabric here and there?

Glad you guys are enjoying the photo's. I will carry on taking them and putting up more.
 
Ok, so Im sort of back in the land of the living with a whopping two days off! Miracle! It seems some of you folks have been enjoying this thread, so Im gonna update.

We've just finished week 4 on the show, and so far its going really well, a definate highlight being the comissioning editor of the channel its going to air on specifically finding me on set to thank me for the "international" sound the project has (WAHA! Sorry, people in South Africa are sometimes hung up on things sounding and looking TOO South African). The editors were specifically amazed at the sound we managed to pull on the bus I mentioned above - remember, also, that all I used was an Oktava! So big triumph on that one.

Anyway, some things that have gone on:

My B6 lavs arrived. Wow. I was shocked how small the things are, and most importantly how easy they are to rig without any clothing noise. In general, got to put this lav as my favourite interior lav for sheer ease of use. Big negative I've noticed, and others have spoken of this, is their sensitivity to wind. But hey, its a tool, and every tool has a job its designed for. If anyone has any tips for using the B6 on mildl/moderately windy ext shoots, let me know...

One of the things I really like about them is that actors enjoy using them too, because of how un-invasive (is that even a word?) they are to work with. They really do make wiring an actor more of an option than Ive thought in the past (i still, however, avoid it like the plague). My only problem at the moment is that the B6's were ordered by the production company at my request, and they decided to go with sony UWP (minijack) plugs not Lectro TA5fs. DAMN!!!! So I cant use them with my lectros... yet. Its like strapping a rocket to a mini at the moment. but Im keen to get some custom female mini to ta5f short cables to I can adapt the mic for my use, but still give it back in a way they will be able to use when Im done on the show - any advice on wiring for this?

I was also yesterday lucky enough to work with one of the best beatboxers in the world - we were recording a "subverted classical piano recital" for the show, and the beatboxer shook things up with some crazy hiphop beats. Never before have I found such a use for an SM58 on a shoot! We chucked out art departments prop mics, and substituted for a 58, and then took the feed to my cart. INCREDIBLE! Wish i had the clip to show, but alas not.

Instead, heres a cool picture of the spark on the show, taken from an empty swimming pool we shot in. I just thought it was pretty funny:


This is the empty pool (incredibly cool/weird echo inside it from the hard surfaces and long distances!):


Yesterday we worked with some rather young kids that we also needed to get some SFX and voiceover stuff from, but young kids can have quite limited attention spans. So I was forced to invent a child actor friendly softy using an old beaten up rycote softy:


The first AD, and my boom operator, Zozo. Great guy, very hard worker. We were about to start a short ext scene, (416 is on the boom).


Heres a quick quiz: whats your favourite piece of "on loan to sound department" gear you frequently steal from another department? Mine is without a doubt blackout from the lighting guys. We have several bags of thick canvas black cloth, which I find Im using at least once a day to acoustically treat rooms. They are so big its completely easy to wall to wall cover the floor of a room (Im primarily using them in bathrooms, but i think above I mentioned using them to partition a big room and break up echo).

Today we managed to decrease a decay in a huge bathroom by at least 70% using this technique. I made a point of taking the director in before we treated the room and clapping my hands - he looked at me slightly worried. I then treated the room, and called him back in to show him the difference - big smile. This in conjunction with using the right mic for the job (a hyper) is making interiors a complete walk in the park for me on this show. Sometimes its really just a few small correct choices to make, in conjunction with decent gear and mics close to subjects that gives a good result.

In one location we shot in, it wasnt feasible to bring in the black out because of camera seeing the floor, but I pulled out some nice neutral carpeting the art department and I have started to love and haul around with us, and this both broke up the white tiles of the location, and the disgusting interior reverb. This photo was taked during a tech rehearsal, after this we moved the carpet to be under the chair legs too, this killed any "chair pulling out" irritation in a busy coming and going sort of breakfast scene.





Hope this post was interesting... At the moment Im strongly thinking of buying a Sanken CS-3, and want to put out another quick poll: if you had a CS-3e and an oktava, which would you use on interiors? Tough call... :P

Tim
 
Right! First time i've managed to catch up on your thread tim! was on a shoot 1st to 15th, and only now getting back to normal life!

great stuff, love to hear accounts of shoots - problems and annoyances. its good to hear that I am doing the right things, and having the same problems as everyone else. Its encouraging. I recently met david attenborough's sound guy, and was similarly encouraged, and it seemed he was (almost) as pleased to meet me as I was him, saying how you never get to meet other sound recordists. and when you do get to compare notes, even with someone as prolific as him, it seems that i'm on roughly the right track.

I think we here should do more of these report threads, they are the most interesting ones!

you said back on page 1 about high fader levels producing hiss. too darn right mate. before I got my own kit i worked mostly on sqn's of varying quality. I remember holding up a whole production on my first day of a shoot, complaining about an old sqn that i considered unworkably noisy. but also working with newer sqn's that you could blast the fader all the way up and wonder if the mixer was on at all cos it was so quiet. Now my 442 seems to be verging towards the noisier end of this range, seems I can't get the sensitivity out of some mics to have the faders at a sensible level. I'm considering putting it in for a check. I'm having lots of hiss paranoia.. does anyone here remember my 7 mic SHOOTOUT thread, where I had two 416's.. one of them was really noisy, the other one was better. but compared with the schoeps they were both pretty bad. nobody ever came back to me on that issue, so i never got tp the bottom of my noise problems.

flat lavs. well it should be common knowledge now that i hate my trams. I've used the sticky triangle technique several times, with varying results. the best time was on a kid, with skin like a dolphin, so could sucessfully bond together the skin with the teeshirt. i've also used it disasterously on guys, using far too much gaffer tape, so the only sound picked up was the tape sticking and unsticking all the time, so had to hold up production to rethink it. I usually go with vampire clips on the inside of a collar, but am gagging for my b6's to arrive so i can sell the stupid things. hypofix i've heard is great stuff, but difficult to get hold of .. and is only sticky on one side, so won't help in keeping the clothes from moving around near the mic. toupee tape is great for sticking to leather jackets, or on the backs of zips (if you can secure the zip from clanking). Baseball caps are a dream for trams. just vampire it under the peak and any turn of the head the voice is picked up perfectly.

as far as the wind in the b6 goes, i'm hoping the rycote stickies will be the key there. you got them?

couldn't agree more with you about getting on with camera and lighting depts. ecspecially camera. wabbit mentioned it here but i've said before here too somewhere about a DP i get on with really well, and will always look for a compromise if soudn jsut can't get it, reframing, lowering lights, flagging etc but this guy also has serious potential to screw over the sound department.. he's told me that if the sound department gets on his nerves he WILL put a light somewhere just to screw them. not conducive to the process, but all part of the tricky, sometimes infuriating politics that goes on on a film set.

what screen did you get? did you get the JXD-900? i'm still enjoying mine.
 
Yippe, another Tim's journal post :) Always fun when I see this thread updated.


timapter said:
but Im keen to get some custom female mini to ta5f short cables to I can adapt the mic for my use, but still give it back in a way they will be able to use when Im done on the show - any advice on wiring for this?
Click to expand...

The issue with that is the powering issue. Different wireless provide different power so a simple adaptor won't work. You also might have issues with overloading one wireless and need a resistor in there. I gave up on wiring my own lavs years ago. I would post this query over at RAMPS. If it can be done someone there will know how to do it.

timapter said:
If anyone has any tips for using the B6 on mildl/moderately windy ext shoots, let me know..
Click to expand...

Don't :) Seriously though, B6 are great but in really harsh winds even a Microcat is pretty ineffective. It's really one of those times you need to have another type of lav available, like the COS11, which does do really well with wind....comparitively. If you don't have that, then apply as much foam and moleskin as well as a microcat/Rycote as needed. Your audio will be muffled but it can be brighten up a little bit in post. Not ideal but better then nothing.

timapter said:
Heres a quick quiz: whats your favourite piece of "on loan to sound department" gear you frequently steal from another department?
Click to expand...

Toss up between sound blankets, clips, apple boxes, C-stands, and gaff tape. I come loaded with my own but often need to dip into the lighting dept supply.

timapter said:
Hope this post was interesting... At the moment Im strongly thinking of buying a Sanken CS-3, and want to put out another quick poll: if you had a CS-3e and an oktava, which would you use on interiors? Tough call... :P
Click to expand...

Depends on the interior and requirements I think. Not owning a CS3e..yet, I would say they do work in interiors better then a normal interferrence tube gun but a hyper is still going to be the better choice most of the time.

Nice job with the carpets under the chairs. A trick I have used is moleskin on the bottom of the legs of the chairs to kill the squeal.

Love the goofy face on the softie. My issue with little kids is they won't stop staring at the mic or reaching out to touch it. The older children sometime have a hard time not talking directly to me since they know I am the sound guy. I have found that avoiding any interaction with younger kids helps keep them from focusing on me. I think I have left many children with a less then favorable impression of the friendliness of the sound guy.

Good stuff Tim, hope you are really enjoying yourself and keep the posts coming. :thumbsup:
 
wow great thread going here!

i can't believe they have that budget and are using that camera!

a varicam hd rental would seem to have been a better idea?

so many subjects...

boom op's - i have never been fortunate enough to work with someone who was truly experienced at being a boom op but on this last project i was lucky enough to get a PA who had some experience with recording audio in a small studio and he turned out to be amazingly helpful.

not only did he do a damn fine job of booming but he took suggestions and small corrections on technique totally in stride and wasn't offended but he always went out of his way to help me take down mic's and pick up etc.

booms and lav's - i ALWAYS put the boom on input one and by itself on the left channel. if there is nothing else i put it on both left and right.

if there are other mics i never put anything but the boom on the left channel and put the other mics together on the right channel. but i have the 442 going into a 744 so i have channels 3 and 4 going directly out (pre fader) and into the 3rd and 4th tracks on the 744.

i am a HUGE fan of the plant mic. i used to use lav's for that but i almost never use lav's now that i have gotten the sanken cub-01 boundary mic.

it is a superb plant mic and an even better car interior mic. for that scene where you had the two wireless cleverly hidden in the ceiling storage in the mini van i am pretty sure you could have gotten that dialog with just one cub-01 and one wireless transmitter.

i would always try to use my oktava mk-012's before i would reach for the 416.

now that i have a schoeps cmc6/mk41 i try REALLY hard to use that before i even think of resorting to the 416, especially since i got the cut-1 filter too.

but that said, even having the schoeps i still enjoy using my two oktava's when i have a scene where i need to mic two areas where dialog is happening but it can't be boomed.

then i put the cub-01 boundary mic right near a couch to pick up additional dialog and room ambient sound.

favorite new find #1 - joe's sticky stuff a.k.a. "double sided snot tape"

http://cinemasupplies.stores.yahoo.net/joststclbual.html

i have asked gotham to carry it but so far filmtools.com is the best place i have found to get it and i get a few other things there anyway.

amazing stuff. i love my rycote coverup thingies for lav's and the topstick toupe tape is very handy but this joe's stuff is amazing.

i have always just used gaff tape or 3m transpore (an easy to find, semi affordable medical tape that breathes pretty well) but occasionally i would run into surfaces where nothing seemed to stick.

i had a real problem getting anything to stick to car interiors, either people armor-alled it or newer/luxry cars seem to have something armor-all/scotchguard like from the factory.

first time i had to put the cub-01 in a car after the joe's sticky stuff had arrived.

i pulled out the roll of joe's sticky stuff and it held the cub-01 in place with just a half inch long piece and after 5 or 6 takes i had to pull pretty hard to get the mic off where i had stuck it.

but this stuff has never left a mark even on softer stuff that i was hesitant to put it on like the headliner (ceiling) of a car.

it has already saved me a lot of time in tacking up wires as you can use a smaller piece of it and put it farther apart and not have to worry about it falling off.

and when you pull down the cable you can usually get the sticky stuff to come right off with the cable. and then it comes off the cable when you roll it back and forth.

i don't have a favorite thing borrowed from other departments because i pack a crazy amount of gear with a huge variety of what i pack.

i always bring 3 apple boxes. one for me to sit on and two that invariably get borrowed. i always bring at least one tall c-stand with a boom holder and i always have at least 3 moving blankets folded up into a 2'x2' square and held together with bungie cables.

for lav mic's i love my sanken cos 11's - it was almost a toss up between the b6 and the cos-11's but most of the people i asked preferred the cos-11's, mostly it seemed they thought the cos-11's sounded less lav-ey than the b6.

i have never used a b6 so i can't comment on

i have two sets of sennheiser w/l, one is g2 and one is the g1 type but so far this year i have been doing shorts and two features where the caliber of the audio that was expected had me leaving the sennheiser w/l at home.

pretty soon i am going to spring for just one set of lectro's - i'm going to wait till i can get the sm transmitter (or one of the other sm* models coming soon) and one of the 400 series receivers.

i know its over the top but i have gotten by without wireless and i know that if i get newer/better wireless it has got to be really good and i figured getting one setup of the top of the line can't be a bad way to go!

to go with the lectro i will get a cos-11 wired with the lectro plug.

matthew
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top