Party/Bar Scene

[ric8138]

I would like to poll the experts on how to handle two upcoming scenes. One is a house party, the other is a drinking scene in a bar. The bar will be closed and populated with extras. Both call for music playing in the background. There will be three primary actors with lines but 10-12 people chatting, cheering, reacting to the actors. At my disposal I have 2 Country B3 lavs, 3 Countryman B6 lavs, 3 Sennheiser G3 radio sets (2 of the B6's can be used as direct connect XLR, the rest are set up with Sennheiser 3.5mm locking plugs), MKH 50 on a boom, all going into a Zoom H6 with the additional 2 XLR module for 6 discrete tracks.
Would best practice be to:
Record some room hubbub first or last?
Run the lines with and without the music playing?
Play the music in the location and record the full contiguous music track to mix with dialog as required later?
I believe we will be cutting from wides to closeups of the actors speaking, so we'd have "jump cuts" in the music behind them that would be jarring, no?

I would appreciate suggestions on how you may have covered such a scene and what you would do differently if you had it to do over.

This is a micro budget indie with about a half day to shoot each scene.

 

[GaryNattrass]

Just concentrate on getting the dialogue clean and add the music in the edit once the scenes are put together.

Do a wild track of people talking after the takes or add bar chatter in the edit.

As for the cheering etc this needs to be faked and mimed if the main dialogue is going on so you get that clean then do the sound of groups as a cut away.

It is all about avoiding overlaps and audio cutting in and out so as said at the start concentrate on getting the dialogue recorded clean as other noises can be added later to give reality and continuity to the whole scene.

Think of the whole scene as layers in the edit and you need to end up with tracks for each element to run throughout

1: Clean dialogue
2: Reactions
3: Bar chatter and noises such as glasses / gaming machines etc
4: Music from juke box or band to cover whole scene
5: Foley if required

 

[Richard Crowley]

During principal shooting, capturing clean, isolated primary dialog is of PRIME IMPORTANCE.
If you have limited time and/or resources, you could live with recording ONLY the primary dialog.
EVERYTHING ELSE is secondary.

NEVER shoot/record with background sounds (ESPECIALLY music) running.
As you correctly observe, it makes intercutting takes, angles, etc essentially impossible.

Scenes like that are typically shot with the background extras completely silent, only pantomiming speaking to each other.
Sounds of the crowd, the music, and sound effects are mixed in separately under CONTROLLED CONDITIONS during post-production.

You can get pre-recorded tracks of Walla to add to the sound track mix.
Or you can record your own or capture it during regular operating hours for realism. Be sure not to record anyone distinct enough to recognize the words.

And, of course the music and/or other diagetic sound is mixed into the sound track after the shots are edited together in the proper sequence and pacing.

 

[Noiz2]

The above is spot on. You don't want any other noises than the principal dialog on your production tracks. Pick up everything else separately. Otherwise editing will be a nightmare and you will probably have to do ADR, also not fun.

Many years ago I was an extra in a low budget film and we were doing a scene at a campaign party, so lots of people big Bar music etc. For dialog shots nobody was making a sound except the principal actors. Looks great in the finished film.

As to getting the other sounds.

As long as you have the people and the space I would use it.

Get some decently long takes of the room with people talking with out a lot of other sounds. That would be your Walla, you can use it to add more people to the track if it needs it.

I would also do one with people doing stuff also. As in greeting, glass clinks etc. Walla is supposed to be very generic and "bland" this track would be more of a background track for the space.

You should also get the cheers as separate bits, do some shorter and some longer etc. You can always add a couple together later if you need them bigger.

Also get some bar activity. Making drinks, shakers with ice, glass downs, bottle pours etc. You can toss these in whenever it feels right and the shot doesn't show the whole bar. And you should also do any thing that the bartender is shown doing.

Part of why you want the extra stuff is that all too often new filmmakers will ignore what is not in the shot, but of course a bar has a lot of stuff going on and all that stuff should be going on whether we see it or not.

You can probably find a lot of this stuff in sound libraries but if you can do it in the space it will drop in and sound right where you will have to alter the library stuff to make it fit in and not sound added.

Another heads up is that bars are very noisy places. There are refrigerators and Ice machines, just tons of stuff with hums and buzzes. If you can have the owner/ manager help out and switch things off for takes your editor will buy you a beer or ten. You want all that stuff off or unplugged but you really should not just do it unless they say it's OK, which is why having them do it will be better. It's very easy to forget to plug something back in and they have a lot of inventory at risk so ...

When I turn refrigerators off I stick my keys in the fridge so I can't drive off and forget to turn it back on.

 

[ric8138]

I must be starting to think like a sound guy, as this was all pretty much what I was thinking of as I did my advance "imagining" of the shoot. I am going to suggest that the DP do lot's of B-Roll of people talking, glasses down, beer cans popping (we have a product placement) and people talking, laughing, etc as I do the "wild sound" to give some edit choices as well.
Again, I thank you all for your input. This is the best forum I've found for airing these questions and I always get valuable feedback and insight.