I'm going to shoot a scene in which two actors are outdoors on a not very noisy city street. The actors start out about two feet from each other and then move in slowly during a conversation that ends with a kiss. I will boom it (MKH-415) and have each actor wear a wireless lavaliere (TR-50). If it doesn't come out well, I will do an ADR session, but I'd like to avoid that. I'll be recording on an F8 to separate tracks for each microphone. Is there any advantage to recording one lav with the phase inverted? All other tips welcome.
Recording Two Lavaliere's up Close - Variable Distance
- Thread starter Paul F
- Start date
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
To the question, no. If I want the phase inverted in post I can click that button. It seems like there might be a disadvantage in that when they get close you may start getting cancelations in a mono dump. Won't affect post but might make a mono jump to camera sound dodgy.
From a post perspective you are doing about all you can and as long as life cooperates you should be good.
There is a really nice extra content on a low budget film called Pipe Dream, wich for some reason the full film is on YouTube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGOs1BiCBAY
Unfortunately the extra content is not, or I couldn't find it. It's the last scene in the film and it has the production audio and the take after take that gets interrupted by cars coming by etc.
The film is highly recommended BTW. Really strong film, more Hollywood "low budget" than DVX User "low budget" but probably under a 1,000,000.
And it is about making an even lower budget film, for all the wrong reasons.
From a post perspective you are doing about all you can and as long as life cooperates you should be good.
There is a really nice extra content on a low budget film called Pipe Dream, wich for some reason the full film is on YouTube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGOs1BiCBAY
Unfortunately the extra content is not, or I couldn't find it. It's the last scene in the film and it has the production audio and the take after take that gets interrupted by cars coming by etc.
The film is highly recommended BTW. Really strong film, more Hollywood "low budget" than DVX User "low budget" but probably under a 1,000,000.
And it is about making an even lower budget film, for all the wrong reasons.
Jim Feeley
Veteran
I agree with Scott. I wouldn't flip phase or do anything fancy on location. And for this scene, if you're just sending one scratch channel to the camera, I'd probably send the boom.
The way you describe the situation, if you get a car-free take, seems like the boom will be primary anyway...depending on how you wire the actors & how passionate the kiss, the lavs might grab a lot of waredrobe noise. Assuming a rehearsal or two and not too much overlapping... but even then; it'll be fine.
And if camera isn't rolling tight&wide (or at least not too wide), maybe you could use a super/hypercardioid mic on the scene... that'd require a bit less swinging between the actors. Do you have one?
Anyway, with your 415 and TRAMS recorded as ISO, you should be good to go. #onelessthingtoworryabout
The way you describe the situation, if you get a car-free take, seems like the boom will be primary anyway...depending on how you wire the actors & how passionate the kiss, the lavs might grab a lot of waredrobe noise. Assuming a rehearsal or two and not too much overlapping... but even then; it'll be fine.
And if camera isn't rolling tight&wide (or at least not too wide), maybe you could use a super/hypercardioid mic on the scene... that'd require a bit less swinging between the actors. Do you have one?
Anyway, with your 415 and TRAMS recorded as ISO, you should be good to go. #onelessthingtoworryabout
AndrewGentle
Well-known member
If you have phase cancellation between two mics, this is dependent on the distance between the mics. Inverting the phase is only really helpful if they're static.
If the background noise is consistent enough between the two mics, you could do a line-by-line mixing technique like they do in theatre (these videos are great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oV58qQ5JBg). Make sure you get some clean atmos from both the lavs and the boom as well to patch over any gaps.
If the background noise is consistent enough between the two mics, you could do a line-by-line mixing technique like they do in theatre (these videos are great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oV58qQ5JBg). Make sure you get some clean atmos from both the lavs and the boom as well to patch over any gaps.
Ok, someone suggested the phase flipping to me. I didn't understand what that would do for me other than make the phase cancellations different when mixing it in post. I wanted to run it past the experts.
Yes, I'll try a super. It's a pleasure to have so many channels to play with on these new mixer/recorders.
Yes, I'll try a super. It's a pleasure to have so many channels to play with on these new mixer/recorders.
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Yes, I've done this for many years in live TV studio work. But I'm a novice when it comes to narrative production and post. There's always something to learn from others.
Yes, regarding that, I was wondering if there is value in getting an x-y stereo recording of the atmosphere? This will be finished as a simple stereo project. How do people add the street atmosphere? I don't mean things like car drive bys or dogs and such, but the actual background noise. It seems it would be useful to have that in stereo to give it some 'depth'.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Live mixing and post mixing are really different worlds, for one thing more and more it's done in a DAW. Even bigger projects are often using a large control surface to adjust automation and not doing actual audio through the mixer mixing. So a lot of that live dance on the faders doesn't happen. And really ever since fader automation in the mid 90's or so there was much more focusing on a couple of tracks at a time and less doing it all at once.
As to BG's and such.
With very rare exceptions no film that does any serious sound post uses anything but dialog from production.
There are a couple of reasons. One is that if the film is going to be dubbed you need to loose the dialog so you need 100% background coverage anyway. But the biggest reason is that sound posts biggest job is creating the "world" of the story of the film, and that world is almost never a film set. Generally IF you are filming on location and that location is unique ie not a big city where post already has a large library from, then having a recordist get sounds from that location is great and a time saver. BUT only if the recordist is not recording when the crew is around, because then it sounds like a set. But nature and BG recordings from that area are great. Any really unique local sounds (like cable cars in SF, or Big Ben in London) are great also. If the story is set close to an airport, getting 30 min or so of air traffic is great.
What this generally takes though is a recordist that is not the production recordist. Partly because they already have a lot on their plate but also because it really helps if the person doing the recording knows how post works and what kinds of sounds an editor is going to be looking for.
A completely different issue is Room Tone. That you should have your production mixer record. I always am glad to have some in post though I will confess I hardly ever use it. A big film will use it a lot more. On low budget projects that are not going to be dubbed there isn't really a need for an "air" track which is used in the big blank spaces left in the dialog track when you remove the dialog. And I'm not certain that even they still do that since it is not used much. Mostly what RT is used for is to fill the gaps when you cut out a lip smack or a stutter, etc. I will usually grab some dead air close to where I need the RT and use that because it matches better. RT was really needed before digital editing because you couldn't just grab some air close by and patch it in. RT though is not ambience or background, it is used in tiny bits to act as a bandage over an audio booboo.