Shotgun for stage work?

T

TheaterDad

Member
I'm looking to improve "backup audio" for the school theatrical events
I shoot. Normally my stage mics (boundary or dynamic) serve that role
and I use them if there's a problem with the wireless mic feed from the
board. Problems aren't frequent but I am always grateful I have a
usable backup source when needed.

I just shot my first show in a new space that doesn't allow me to use my
stage mics. The school stage is wide and low, with three steps down to
a large carpeted area in front of the stage. The steps are full width and
the carpeted area is used by the director as an extension of the stage.
The kids are all over the stage and carpet so I can't place mics at the stage.

Well, I could have used better backup audio! In retrospect I might have
been able to mic the wings, but it occurs to me that some kind of
camera-mounted shotgun might be just right. I'd like to pick up dialog/vocals
from the stage, about thirty feet away or so.

Is this idea reasonable? Given the intended infrequent use I'd like to limit
the expense.

My cam is a Panasonic HMC150. They offer a purpose-built MIC150 but I
can't find any specs on the thing. dvxusers seem to like the AT875, NTG1/2,
Oktava MC12A for inexpensive shotgun uses.
 
I've shot school plays also. Rode Videomic, mounted on camera is better than camcorder mike, not what I'd consider good audio, but parents and kids were happy when I had to use it.
I've used a Zoom H1 on a small gorilla type tripod on the steps in front of the stage as backup in the past, works fine. (I set the levels from rehearsal on a previous night). If you can't put a Zoom on the steps, perhaps suspended from the ceiling is an option?
 
Thanks for the Videomic reference. "better than the camcorder mike" is what I'm looking for.
(I often use a Zoom H2 at center stage myself.) Yes, hanging a mic is a possibility but I was
trying to avoid getting into that.
 
"Better than the camcorder mike" is hardly a glowing endorsement. At 30 feet, the camera is so far back from the stage that ANY (repeating: ANY) microphone ON the camera is TOO FAR AWAY. Do I need to repeat that sentence for emphasis?

No microphone ever made at any price (including those that cost more than your car) will pick up decent audio at 30 feet indoors. And outdoors, as well unless you are going for very narrow bandwidth (telephonic) audio such as you get from parabolic reflectors along the sidelines of football games, etc. You are attempting to violate the laws of physics and acoustics. I feel quite confident in predicting that you will fail. Nobody has ever done this successfully.

No, a camera-mounted shotgun is NOT "just right". Not even close. (Pun intended, or not, as you wish.) It is NOT reasonable to assume that ANY microphone that far away will produce audio recordings that are anything but barely listenable.

Recording stage events involving several children with speaking parts is as close as it gets to a completely losing proposition, especially if limits are placed on where you can place microphones. If they tell me that they don't want any visible microphones, then I simply remove myself from any involvement attempting to record the proceedings. It simply isn't worth the aggravation, IMHO.

I'm not trying to be negative here, but simply warning that there are few audio recording situations worse than this scenario.
 
I agree completely with Mr. Crowley.

That said, one possible alternative is to embrace the fact that you can't put a mic on the stage -- turn it into a feature. Instead, mic it like you would an orchestra concert -- a couple of cardiod mics in X-Y, or ORTF, or... a number of rows back in the audience. Hang 'em from the lighting grid if you have to. Instead of fighting the reflections, record it all. That way you'll at least capture the experience of the people in the live audience. This (anything) is better than an on-camera mic in this situation.
 
Thanks. Understand, I'm just looking to improve my audio in a difficult situation. Normally
I've got good mics in place for wireless, music, and stage, and the results are fine. But in this
case there were a few problems with the wireless mics and I wasn't able to draw on my
usual backup -- I couldn't place the mics where I wanted. The camera mics are, of
course, awful. They're too far away to be any kind of help. I was hoping a shotgun would
give me at least usable audio for these situations. The backup never sounds a good as the
real deal but it allows the story to go forward without major interruption. If a shotgun
really wouldn't offer a noticeable improvement, given the large room and 30 feet, then
I should drop the idea. Find some other way.
 
I think your best investment in this scenario would be to try and improve the reliability of the wireless mic setup so you don't have to fall back on the more distant microphone options. Either better wireless units, or redundant (double) lavaliers and transmitters on each actor might be in order. This is obviously not a cheap solution, especially if you have a lot of actors to mic, but it's far more likely to pay off than trying to improve the quality of a recording from a 30 foot distance.

When shooting stage productions, I do usually place a couple of PZM-type mics on the edge of the stage to pick up footfall sounds and general stage ambience. These are mixed in with wireless character mics at a VERY low and subtle level to add a little "space" to the sometimes clinical-sounding lavaliers. When doing dance performances without speaking, they take on a more significant role.

- Greg
 
I have done stage and other performances with two or three AT875R's at stage side/front and got very good results will post some examples once they are uploaded to you tube.
 
I used two AT 875R (left and right) and a sony EMC-MS957 mic (stereo centre) for the performance element of this promo, the music backing track was taken live and direct on a sep track to be mixed in later and the workshop was done on a sennheiser G2 radio mic.

The spoken piece in the middle used two AT875R mic's and I have left the image in stereo so you can hear the effects of the actors moving around, it's a huge compromise but at least you can get the idea of what the performance is about.

If I were to do this again I think I would put a third AT875R for the centre content as it can be a bit wide at times with the M/S mic or just two of them..

Bet you are humming that damn frog burger song all day!

http://youtu.be/0i9y4QYRjgM
 
Last edited:
TheaterDad said:
I'm looking to improve "backup audio" for the school theatrical events
I shoot. Normally my stage mics (boundary or dynamic) serve that role
and I use them if there's a problem with the wireless mic feed from the
board. Problems aren't frequent but I am always grateful I have a
usable backup source when needed.

I just shot my first show in a new space that doesn't allow me to use my
stage mics. The school stage is wide and low, with three steps down to
a large carpeted area in front of the stage. The steps are full width and
the carpeted area is used by the director as an extension of the stage.
The kids are all over the stage and carpet so I can't place mics at the stage.

Well, I could have used better backup audio! In retrospect I might have
been able to mic the wings, but it occurs to me that some kind of
camera-mounted shotgun might be just right. I'd like to pick up dialog/vocals
from the stage, about thirty feet away or so.

Is this idea reasonable? Given the intended infrequent use I'd like to limit
the expense.

My cam is a Panasonic HMC150. They offer a purpose-built MIC150 but I
can't find any specs on the thing. dvxusers seem to like the AT875, NTG1/2,
Oktava MC12A for inexpensive shotgun uses.
Click to expand...

Sorry, your suggestion is not reallt feasable and would give pretty horrible sound.

If the right sound is picked up by an omni-directional mic. i metre away, you could use a cardioid mic. at 1.7 metres or a professional short gun mic. at 2.2 metres.

So, your on-camera gun mic at suit over 30 feet would be the same as using an omni mic. at about 15 feet - pretty horrible I think.

The professional way of using gun microphones on a stage is to have an array of about 5 of them across the stage and a very experienced sound engineer fading them up and down as required. I would add that in this modern age of radiomics this expertise is a lost art and very few sound engineers nowadays have the expertise to do this.

Boundary mics are a good idea but have the disadvantage that they can pick up footfall noise and can get trodden on.

An alternative is to use a "Turtle". This protects the mic. from being trodden on and also incporporates Rycote "Lyre" supensions to protect the mic. from footfall noises. You can use it with any small diaphragm condenser mic. with a 19-21mm diameter. And when you don't need the boundary mic. you can unclip the mic. and use it as normal.

Neumann4.jpg

I hope this helps.
 
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TheaterDad said:
...I couldn't place the mics where I wanted. The camera mics are, of
course, awful. They're too far away to be any kind of help. I was hoping a shotgun would
give me at least usable audio for these situations....
Click to expand...

Just as an FYI, it is an urban myth that shotgun mics pick up sounds from far away. They are not, in fact, "telephotos for sound" and do not magnify distant sounds. They actually are no more sensitive than any other mic. What they do is suppress sound arriving from the sides and rear so the sounds of interest on-axis are not subject to as much interfering "sonic clutter" from surrounding noises. Think of narrowing your field of view by looking at a scene through a paper tube ... what you're looking at isn't any bigger but it is isolated from its surroundings.
 
Gary, thanks so much for the wonderful example. I'm impressed with the sound
you got in such a challenging space. Very helpful.

John, your estimate that a gun at 30 ft might be roughly like an omni at
half that is a very good way for me to think about the problem. My boundary
mics are omnis, and I've had to use them as backup source. The actors
are often 10 or more feet away. I consider the sound usable for filling in
the gaps when a wireless mic is switched on late.

Steve, thanks for the keyhole analogy. I do find myself sliding into the
urban myth from time to time.
 
Steve House said:
Just as an FYI, it is an urban myth that shotgun mics pick up sounds from far away. They are not, in fact, "telephotos for sound" and do not magnify distant sounds. They actually are no more sensitive than any other mic. What they do is suppress sound arriving from the sides and rear so the sounds of interest on-axis are not subject to as much interfering "sonic clutter" from surrounding noises. Think of narrowing your field of view by looking at a scene through a paper tube ... what you're looking at isn't any bigger but it is isolated from its surroundings.
Click to expand...

Yes and no - actually the sound from the rear is normally about the same as a super-cardioid.

Maybe this diagram will help:-

256947d1317963512-ms-panning-stereo-interference-tube.jpg

1 = the interference tube
2 = the capsule position
3 = the rear entry slots for the super-cardioid
4 = the body where the PCB is
 
John Willett said:
Yes and no - actually the sound from the rear is normally about the same as a super-cardioid.

...
Click to expand...
Very much aware of that, was generalizing without getting into polar-pattern details. Was addressing the fallacy many people believe that 'guns somehow reach out and pull in distant sounds and of course we know they don't do that. They don't magnify distant on-axis sounds, instead they suppress unwanted off-axis sounds. Big difference.
 
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