Recording Dialogue Inside a Phone Booth

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blambeth

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I've got a shoot coming up this weekend that will be my first time running sound on something bigger than simple student films, and one scene has a sound situation that I've been stressing over a lot. I'll need to record a character making a call from within a phone booth. I haven't seen the set yet, but assuming the worst, it will be a cramped space with a high glass to metal ratio, which I'm foreseeing will present some problems with getting clean, crisp audio. And on top of that, the director wants rain machines going on the booth during the whole scene.

The recording equipment I've got at my disposal is a Rode NTG-3, Audio-Technica 4053b, a couple LAV sets, and a Zoom H4n.

Given these conditions, how would you go about capturing audio for this scene? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
If you can, do a test the day before with a friend. You're NOT going to get crisp clean audio. No matter what you do, it will sound like you're recording in a phone booth. That's ok though, because that's where you are. Are the lav's wireless?

I would put a lav on the talent and put a non-lav somewhere ion the booth. Rent a mic with a cardioid polar pattern. Shotguns and hypers will sound like crap in that tiny enviornment. As far as placement goes, I think you'll have to get creative with the gaf tape.

I'm actually going to be in the same situation this spring and those were the ideas I came up with. I'm interested in what others have to say.

I think I may have to get that right-angle adaptor for my Oktava....
 
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Gaff taping the 4053b (or a cardioid if you decide to try that) into the phone booth may be okay, marginal, but with rain machines beating on the glass I'd be concerned about the thumping transmitting to the mic through both cable and surfaces.

Lav it. If you're really crafty, and you have a decent relationship with the prop department, you could try rewiring the phone's handset with a second lav... but honestly, a lav on the talent is your best bet. That said, this may also turn out to be one of the few instances where ADR is a better option. Maybe not, and I wouldn't go into this expecting it, but keep that in your back pocket. With something like rain machines creating so much background noise that cannot be isolated, rebuilding the sound in post for this could be the only way to keep dialog intelligible.
 
A well placed lav should do just fine. A phone booth isn't the end of the world. If the audio sounds like it's in a phone booth, then you are good.
 
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