4
Sometimes I ask that the Director to wait a few seconds after frame is called by the cam operator. If there's not enough time there. I ask for 15 seconds to 30 seconds of quiet before cut is called on the 'final' take of a scene.
The truth is room tone is mostly used from the takes themselves.. not from the separate room tone recording. The only time you ...
4
Assuming it's a "standard" sort of scene... Two Shot (won't really get wide in a car), OTS, OTS and a couple of CU's, then the most important thing you can do is to make sure you get LOTS of room tone (ie background sound) for each setup. Inevitably the noise is going to be different from one side to the other, and an editor(you or another) will need that ...
3
Generally when recording you're looking for the best signal to noise ratio possible. If you record something too low then need to turn it up later in post, you're also going to be turning up all the unwanted noise.
Personally I try to record as hot as possible without clipping or activating limiters. This may mean initially backing off the gain a little in ...
2
You can find printable production sound report templates here.
A great read on production sound essentials here.
2
Borrowed from a comment I made to another answer asking a similar question:
There's known line-level issues with the H4n, so unfortunately it's not quite that simple (thanks to Samson's/Zoom's fault here). It's a Hi-Z (unbalanced, high-impedance) which still feeds thru the preamp instead of being a direct, true professional line level. Leads to distortion ...
2
I need room tone by microphone angle for dialog editing. I usually make fill with pauses between breaths, but if I can even get 10 seconds per angle, then I'm pretty happy.
A general room tone is really helpful when I'm backfilling MOS shots, then I don't have to try to make a fill from other takes, or the take prior.
A trick that I've been using on sets ...
2
To answer your first quesiton, very dense and thick foam (properly attached too to prevent vibration transference - as in, not just "set and forget" flopped ont top of the car) should do the trick. That's effectively what the Rycote rain covers are in a general sense - thick and dense over-sized foam to help absorb the rain drop sounds from transferring to ...
2
A mixer will have multiple channels for your multiple inputs.
Each channel will have a trim pot (gain knob) for adjusting the input level.
(Sidenote: some channels may not have a trim, those are line-level inputs, not mic-level inputs, and they are meant for things that already at "line-level")
You set your gain as you need to for each channel, nothing ...
1
Blankets will help with room reflections/absorption, but they're not the best at preventing noise leakage. It sounds like you need some sort of isolation material.
The best isolation product I know of is mass loaded vinyl. Perhaps you could seal the window with it, building some sort of mass loaded vinyl curtain. The problem is that stuff is extremely ...
1
I was just at a shoot where after the last take the director himself asked everyone to stay in place for 30 seconds for room tone - brilliant
1
Flipstar gave a good explanation—I'll add that I've worked with a couple of directors who actually like to have a long silence on set right before the first take of a scene. It's a moment for everyone to relax and think about what they are about to do for the shot. Plus, no one is trying to "pack up silently" while you linger and curse them for every floor ...
1
There are a number of techniques and mics that can be used. Spaced omnis, reflectors, hydrophones, contact mics, soundfield mics to name a few are used to capture individual calls and ambiences.
The Natural History Unit used to have a sound department until 2001 for capturing location sound but alas these days most of it seems to be stock sound, Foley or ...
1
Maybe a phasing issue between radio mics ?
1
If the bass is lacking, then it sounds like there's a phase issue, i.e. a false connection or bleeding of channels. Quite unexpected though and not something I'd consider a feature of "a bad quality mixer".
1
Curious, this type of mixer is sturdy and doesn't start acting up suddenly (in my experience at least).
What do you mean with 'tails' is that the multipin output on your mixer, with the screw on plug? If so, have you tested the XLR outputs? How do they sound? Also can you listen to both outputs without the SD702 in between?
1
I've never recorded in this typical situation but i could be done. Espesecially if the image (shot and frame) show the actual location and the listener is supposed to feel this space.
On loudness/heaviness of background noises. It depends on the time of day (evenings will have less traffic), but also the car model and if windows or doors are being opened ...
1
It's very important to establish a routine with the 1st AD (if there is one) as well, as he or she is most often the one who handles the scheduling of the day and calls the roll. On the first production day, make sure you let the AD know what you need (room tone as well as wild sound) so that recording room tone is an expected and integral part of the day. ...
1
Well usually what is expected from the director and the other members of the crew is roughly 5-10 sec of silence before the Director says ACTION and 5-10 sec silence after the Director says cut. That's what I request my director to do. Some of them follow, some of them just disregard it and think that everything can be FIXED in post. If you are freelancing ...
1
Look up this topic on jwsoundgroup.net, there are several quite long discussions about it by top professionals in the business.
1
Hi,
Seems like a reasonable way to do it. Some questions:
Why don't you wire the actors themselves? To get 'better' acoustics?
Do you really need to go wireless? I'd rather go wired if the car is stationary. If you do need to go wireless, make sure the transmitters are outside the car.
I would put an extra 'plant' cardiod microphone in between the actors. ...
1
Liam, I think you got it right. I've been screwed by editors that don't know how to handle sound so many times that I stopped offering up split track options, and unless I'm posting the project, I record single tracks only - No shotgun on channel 1 with lav back-up on channel 2. Many don't seem to understand the summing issue.
I find getting it right in the ...
1
In situations like this, I run the dialogue out into Analog and boost it up with an analogue preamp and then back into Pro Tools - but that's usually the mix.
YMMV on digital plug-ins for that gain staging, but I have had the most success on "unusable" low recordings by boosting it in the analogue domain as opposed to in the digital realm. In my experience, ...
1
Just find this thread here :)
1
Interressting. Seems to be somehow affordeble. Are there some testers of this anywhere ?
1
I don't remember any places in NYC, but in New Jersey there were some really cool foresty places near norwood, wich were only a 45 minute bus ride from the grand central.
1
I had the DR-680 but it perished in water during a recording session. Until it drowned, I liked the UI, the recordings sounded great, and It seemed durable enough construction-wise. I used it in a petrol Deca Eargonizer, it fit perfectly in there. I also really dug recording to a SD card. Both of my macs have built-in SD card readers so offloading recordings ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
