cars?

[manis]

just wondering what thoughts some might have about this situation. I have a script in front of me, im not doing location on this so theres no way to know if the effects caught will be what I need.., anyway, this script, 6 minute student movie, director great guy, sharp, young.., three main characters, they all have cars, (sound and visually) that reflect their characters, well I think that would be obvious to the director too, .., this is a car movie! All characters have DIA in each car, talk to each other through the window..., ect. Mainly Im concerned with the dialoge in the car.., radio mike??,,?? plus.., Every car is 'taking off,' 'driving past'.., ect, every kind of take off, pass, follow, stop you can think of.., the movie evens open with 'blue sky, fluffy clouds.., a thud.., body through the air.., hits ground.., car drives off at high speed.'

director is not interested in ADR.., he hasn't seen it done well yet for one reason or another.

how might the mix look? is this a case of; long hours tweaking Qs?

any words greatly appreciated. I have a book here I am about to look at too that has some wise words if I remember correctly, so I am doing my homework

[georgia]

Make sure you get takes for every angle that has absolutely no engines running. Then since the director is young and doesn't know any better yet, you'll have to hope that some of this stuff will be usable as replacement dialogue for the scenes that will probably sound like crap.
I also suggest you find some great wireless lavs and lave every person with a speaking part. Get a couple of sticks and use them as much as possible. If you have shotgun mics that have settable patterns, then make sure you test the patterns to determine whixh will provide the most viable dialogue recording vs engine sounds. Finally, you can stick a mic away from the speakers and close to the engines to record the car sounds in some vain hope that you can use these to do a bit of noise cancellation for various takes.

I would record this on a multitrack system
track 1 main character lav
track 2 main character lav
track 3 main character lav
track 4 main character lav
track 5 stick
track 6 stick
track 7 noise recording track ( engine mic )
track 8 temp editing mix of tracks 1-6

I've been success using this in some really bad situations... Boats, cars, prison cell blocks, productions with really noisy generators, etc.

cheers
geo

[manis]

many thank Georgia, thats a great help in the sense it gives great food for approach. Im not sure what his budget is and if he is aware that money spent on renting the radio mikes (not sure how many we have at uni, maybe enough) is money well spent. I wouldn't underestimate him though, as I said he is sharp, but young.

I hope you dont mind giving me a run down quickly of a 'temp track' in this case.

what would me a good radio mike to use in this case, name of make?

also.., err.., whats a stick. (im still catching up on the colloquialisms )

but Im very appreciative of your help. I have 4 movies coming in quick succession, over the next 2-3 months. unfortunately there a very few with much location knowledge and i have been feeding the few a lot via here and the books Im reading to get the best product I can for these people. BUT, I seem to have been voted for at least a couple of them which has its good and bad points, the bad points being it might be hard to be in two or three places at once.., too much work. Im glad this is the last year at uni and I can work on projects I want instead of some of these rather bizzare stories.., young girls searching for her identity via acknowledgment of sexually transmitted disease and her boyfriends attitude to life by the way he treats seagulls (granted it COULD be interesting) , or, boy meets girl at a road house and have a 6 min deep and meaningful into the meaning of life, love and the universe, then leave, going their separate ways (sound familiar) ect.., its all fun though.

[manis]

stick.., err.., 'boom'..,??

[StavrosSound]

Record wild lines and make note of that for the director... Wild lines meaning the recording device is rolling, everyone is in place, but the cars are off and the actors are delivering their lines as per their scene. It keeps the timbre and acoustical nature of the sound reflections consistant. Taking the extra 5 minutes to do this on set will save you hours of ADR work later, let alone trying to get that ADR to match.

The goal of location sound is just that... location sound. Obtain the best possible sound. If you can save a director on spending money for ADR and calling the actors back, you've most likely got yourself another gig in the future.


Here's a few pointers:

1. Choose the right mic. A C414 is not a location mic, nor is an SM57. You want a small diaphragm condensor shotgun micrphone. Visit www.microphone-data.com to find out more. My personal recommendations are the Sennheiser MKH416, Sanken CS-1, Neumann KMR82i, the Schoeps CMC-5 and C-MIT. Remember: if the shotgun is longer, it will not "reach" further. This is a common misconception. If anything, it's on-axis acceptnace will be narrower. Most shotguns have a nominal acceptance range from about 18-24 inches from the tip of the interference tube, and refer to the polar pattern fo more info.


2. Use the mic's polar pattern to your advantage...keep the engine off axis. Make sure though, not to have the back end face the engine, becuase supercardiods and most hypercardiods have a small node of acceptance on the back end and will still catch this. Generally 45-90 degrees off axis is a good rule of thumb. For best ambience noise cancellation, especially outside, aim directly toward the ground... it attentuates the surroundings by at least 30 dB, and sometimes up to 50dB.


3. Be extremely aggressive. Keep the mic as close as possible to the source (on E.C.U shots I've gotten as near as 8 inches). Generally, keep the mic about 12-18 inches above the actor's mouth, and aim the mic about 2 inches in front of their mouth. Why? That's where the actual sound resides. Another rule of thumb... if your not being told "boom in shot" by your DP or camera op while getting your mic in place before a take, or "occasionally" during a take, you're not being aggressive enough.


4. Plan ahead and problem solve. Georgia made a good point. If you can afford to run multiple mics and record all those sources, you may be able to use phase to your advantage here, or even be able to choose from multiple sources when editing the dialog. Another thing to plan ahead for is that if you are only running a boom, run it through the mixer in stereo and into the recorer in stereo. Why? Backup track in case one of the channels manifests a problem later down the road.

Hope that helps

[Carl Kolchak]

I wouldn't underestimate him though, as I said he is sharp, but young.

Further to all the excellent advise already posted here, I'd just like to mention the maxim "Safety First"

I shudder to think of the number of times my life has been put in serious jeopardy by talented, but inexperienced directors and /or gung-ho crew members (admittedly most times whilst filming in foreign countries, but enough times with crews who you'd think ought to know better).

I realize that you are not recording the location sound, but it does seem that you have come to the fore and been elected the "sound supervisor", which may give you an added sense of responsibility.

You normally only ever hear about serious accidents when it involves an actor or a helicopter (see Vic Morrow in The Twilight Zone & Meat Loafs "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" video) but "expendable" members of the crew get injured all the time, and even low-loaders can be dangerous things.

If the director is not even going to that expense and wants to have the cars ripping around the streets for real, whilst the drivers are hurling dialog at each other with a camera man hanging out the window, a lighting guy clinging to the bonnet and the sound guy crushed into the foot well - you might want to take a step back.

That's before the director insists "It looks to pedestrian - go faster!"

Just speaking from some hair-raising experience. It is only entertainment after all.

[manis]

hey I got to say thanks (understatement).., and great timing. I checked the mail this morning , theres all this amazing information and a couple of laughs thrown in the mix. The amazing

thing is Im doing location on another film, two others actually, one started today, I was on

my way to the shoot this morning, about 40 minutes off when I got this mail. Anyway Im pretty tired. What great timing, I was able to walk in there with this great knowledge. I mean, you know how it is by the sounds of it, at a student shoot, the boom would have been flying in all the wrong places. No supervisor, we are suppose to know what we are doing. In a way a lot do but sound seems some what neglected if not a mystery at uni. Here anyway, this course is fairly new from what I gather. Anyway, I was able to look as though I knew what I was doing.., if you know what I mean. The main problem was the actors were sitting on noisy bean bags, but I was able to ask the director if it was possible the stay still during dialogue when the bags were in shot. Plus careful placement (thanks for all that info) , well my direction to the boom operator, I was on the mixer, as I said,careful placement of the boom helped heaps.

funny talking about safety, I have found my face on the TV the last couple of week ends. By
some fluke a director saw a (60 sec) movie (mobile phone content) I made with me in it. Long
story short.., Im i this pop clip.., on set (1st time acting) , Sergio Leone style, me alone, cowboy.., Im on set standing close to a fire, real close.., the lighting guy (been doing this forever) comes over and says, 'its only a clip, don't kill your self for it.' true words eh.

anyway, thanks again, Im off to bed.

[manis]

I was pretty tired when I wrote that.., what I meant was it was great to be able to share that knowledge with others who are keen.., and together make a better product.

just wondering, when doing an indoor scene on location (where else??) does one use the wind sock on the boom mike?? when and where does one decide when to use it.., this came up yesterday.

cheers