Sound Design Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for sound engineers, producers, editors, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Do any of you guys send a headphone feed to the director while working on a film set? Is there a way of doing this wirelessly & cheaply?
A splitter would have to be 3 way as when im recording on set I have headphones for the mixer and headphones for the boom op already.
Thanks!
Will there be VT? If so, you want the feed to go to the VT first and then the director. This way during play back they can hear the sync sound.
As Flipstar mentions, a cheap way to do this is by using some Sennheiser wireless systems (2G/3G). You can rent them for cheap.
I've recently used a bunch of them on a commercial to not only feed the VT and director but also agency and clients. You can have one transmitter and several receivers (set to the same channel) with headphones .
set up with VT:
From your mixer or recorder's line feed, either go XLR to the VT or if you're moving around, use a wireless system to feed the VT. Then have the VT do the broadcasting to the director and all those that need using the one transmitter with several receivers I was talking about.
just for the director:
If you just want the director to hear what you're recording, with no sync for playback, then all you need is one wireless system. Just go line out from your recorder/mixer into the transmitter, then give the director the receiver with headphones, and voilà!
The level is pretty low for this kind of stuff, so you'll have to set the TX quite high (maybe 0db), and the RX to +12db.
Just make sure to let everyone know that there might be some interference and will be noisy, but it's not gonna be in the recording. And check the batteries for everyone every now and then.
Hope this helps. Shoot if you have more questions.
The standard is Comteks.. Not cheap, but you can also use Sennheiser wireless tx's and rx's.
What equipment are you working with?
For an approach on a budget, I've used a car FM transmitter (with an aux in), and bought a bunch of portable FM radios and used them for the client's feed. It's quite reliable if you're working in a fixed and relatively small space, but the fidelity isn't great. Didn't get too much complaints about that but it does drop out if you are shooting in a reflective space.
If you have the budget, the Sennheisers are value for the money. You can send the tape out from the mixer to your boom op and director with receivers on the same freq block. From what you wrote seems like you're already sharing the headphone out with your boom op, and I don't think you should be doing that unless you have a proper-powered amplifier in place.
