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Capturing Round-Table Audio for a Shoot

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Ben Garvey

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I have been wrestling with how to best capture sound for a Roundtable Shoot.
I will be shooting a Roundtable discussion, think "Deadliest Catch" roundtable scenario. There will be between 8 - 10 people sitting in a semi-circle, and the conversation will be captured in a two camera shoot.


Originally, I thought of having a Boom OP, but I think that might be a little awkward for the shoot, since the talent will just be sitting down. And I'm sure if the Boom-Up will be able to keep up with conversation if it is between far sides of group. Also, I would like to have as little crew as possible.

How would it be to just placing an omni-direction Mic Mounted (on a C-Stand) above and center in the group? Could I get away with this set-up? What mics would you recommend? Should I use a omni-directional? Should I use more mics? Calling any/all Audio Gurus!
 
I think I'd still boom it, but with an omni. Mics have to be close to the speaker, 12~18 inches if possible. Moving one or two omnis on boom poles will be your best bet.
 
Lavalier?

Lavalier?

Are you recording sound to camera? I would put lavs on everyone, if possible. I'm pretty sure that's how it's done on deadliest catch.
 
I'd combine Cineben & Makkystyle's approach, 2 x omni's on stands + lavs . I'm a huge fan of multiple / redundant audio sources, it's a lot of channels on the mixer ( hell of a lot of switch checking that everyone is on ) but once you're rolling not much can stop you. the fixed omni's will make the lighting a lot easier too.
 
makkystyle said:
Are you recording sound to camera? I would put lavs on everyone, if possible. I'm pretty sure that's how it's done on deadliest catch.
Click to expand...

The sound will be going through the cameras (two camera shoot), so the problem with going wireless on everyone is that I can only have four mics as inputs.

How about PZM table mics, in conjunction with an Omni mic? I could set up a table. The shoot is with 6 - 8 winemakers, sharing their experiences, so I might set up a table that has bottles/glasses of their wines. Another tip I got was to place the PZMs on a mouse pad to reduce table sounds.

Would PZMs and an Omni be a good way to go on this?
 
cineben said:
The sound will be going through the cameras (two camera shoot), so the problem with going wireless on everyone is that I can only have four mics as inputs.

How about PZM table mics, in conjunction with an Omni mic? I could set up a table. The shoot is with 6 - 8 winemakers, sharing their experiences, so I might set up a table that has bottles/glasses of their wines. Another tip I got was to place the PZMs on a mouse pad to reduce table sounds.

Would PZMs and an Omni be a good way to go on this?
Click to expand...

You could have 8 mic inputs if you split the audio between the cameras. Will there be a Sound Mixer on set? If so you could just have him mix the lavs down into, say, pairs of lavs recorded onto one channel. This is not ideal (especially if someone has a cold), but I really feel that lavaliers will give you the cleanest sound and then you won't have any mics on the table (which always looks cheesy and breaks the illusion that you the viewer are sitting in with the subjects). But, yes even with lavs, I would still have an omni or two on stands.

Don't get me wrong, PZM's and Omni's will work if you don't have the resources to have a mixer and gear, you just should know that you are making that compromise on the quality you are looking for.
 
I would hire a sound mixer with this type of experience for a shoot like this. A lot of cart based location sound mixers use a Mac computer based system like Boom Recorder or Metacorder they take the analog inputs into a firewire interface and jam sync the recorder to camera TC. You end up with multi channel WAV files which drop right into your edit. Or they could use one of the new 8 channel recorders from Sound Devices.

You can easliy do 10 channels like this on a Mac Mini. Having a separate channel for each mic will greatly reduce overall ambient noise and the mixer can send a mix feed to each of the cameras. I did a couple of "talk show" style programs for a self help video and the group of 5 ballooned to 10 and not having a track for each mic was just an editing nightmare. Still might want a few mics suspended above the group I wouldn't use omnis I would go with some super-cardioid mics like the Sennheiser MKH-50 or some similar from AKG which are great and cheaper. These mics are slightly directional but sound very natural and 3 or four mounted out of frame would give a very natural sound. Hire someone with the know how and someone to be responsible for watching the levels and listen to their advice. Every time I went cheap on sound in situations like this it bit me in the butt in edit.

A really good example of a show like this is After Hours with Daniel Boulud. He is a renowned chef having dinner after famous restaurants are closed with chefs and celebrities.
http://www.mojohd.com/mojoseries/afterhours/

I think they use 2 boom ops and there are plenty of wide shots on the show to sort of see what they do.

I would avoid PZM or any table mounted mics at all costs - wine glasses on the table are going to make more noise than the voices.

My 2 cents anyway.
 
Brian Ferguson said:
I did a couple of "talk show" style programs for a self help video and the group of 5 ballooned to 10 and not having a track for each mic was just an editing nightmare. Still might want a few mics suspended above the group I wouldn't use omnis I would go with some super-cardioid mics like the Sennheiser MKH-50 or some similar from AKG which are great and cheaper. These mics are slightly directional but sound very natural and 3 or four mounted out of frame would give a very natural sound. Hire someone with the know how and someone to be responsible for watching the levels and listen to their advice.

I would avoid PZM or any table mounted mics at all costs - wine glasses on the table are going to make more noise than the voices.

My 2 cents anyway.
Click to expand...


So, would you use a super-cardoid for each person, or perhaps one mic for every two people? And would that be enough audio coverage?
 
cineben said:
So, would you use a super-cardoid for each person, or perhaps one mic for every two people? And would that be enough audio coverage?
Click to expand...

I would use it for every 2 or 3 depending on the angle and distance. It was something I did on a live comedy stage performance once - no way to mic a whole cast and 2 cardiod mics did a pretty reasonable job of covering a small comedy stage. I had the 2 mics center stage and crossed to form a V . It was a good representation of what the live audience heard but it was also all I could do on a DV budget with no money at all.

It also depends on if you have lavs on people as well which is where the multi-track recording helps. No set answer, tough subject to cover that is why I say bring in a full-time audio man.
 
You may want to ask around for opinions on whether this could be done with an ambisonic microphone (see www.core-sound.com). In theory, this would give you the ability to record the 4 tracks it requires to your RED and to change microphone characteristics and orientation in post.

Cheers,
Hans
 
Brian mentioned AKG mics, and I highly recommend the Blue Line series modular mics. Excellent sonic quality and great versatility at a very attractive price. You could experiment with the CK-91 regular cardiod capsule versus the CK-93 super/hyper cardiod to see which gave you the best combination of off axis rejection versus pickup for the particular area you're trying to mic.

They also make lavs for that series (cardiod and omni). I slightly prefer my Countryman lav for a speaking voice, but the Blue Line lav capsules (especially the omni) are excellent also.
 
Now I am thinking of probably going with wireless lavs for everyone, having individual tracks for each, to get the best sound/control, and maybe add a omni mic going over the whole group.

So there will be seven people total for the roundtable, two cameras. With the two cameras I get four mic ins, leaving three mics that I was thinking of capturing through an audio interface and into my powerbook connected to an external HD.
What audio interface do you recommend that would have three XLR's in w/pre-amps. Is this a good way to go?
 
With a Powerbook, you might want to check out the MOTU Traveller for I/O. Firewire into your Powerbook and a whole bunch of audio I/O. It does a lot more that may be of use to you down the road as well.

http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/traveler-mk3

You also might want to check out BoomRecorder, as it will easily take all of your tracks cleanly through the MOTU into your Powerbook.

A lot of guys use BoomRecorder (or MetaCorder for a lot more money) with great success. The deveoloper of BoomRecorder (Take Vos) issues updates to the software with great frequency. The product is much more than it was even a year ago. He's also very easy to get a hold of and speak personally with about any and all issues relating to the software.
BoomRecorder is incredibly inexpensive for what it actually is and does.

http://www.vosgames.nl/products/BoomRecorder/
 
How about a boundary mic, that'll pick up everything without the need for an operator.
 
A problem with all boundary mics in this type of situation is that they not only pick up the voices, but they pick up the unappealing sound of the room as well.

That "over ambient" room tone (which is impossible to remove in post) can be associated with bad film sound.
 
Roger Morris said:
A problem with all boundary mics in this type of situation is that they not only pick up the voices, but they pick up the unappealing sound of the room as well.

That "over ambient" room tone (which is impossible to remove in post) can be associated with bad film sound.
Click to expand...

Not really impossible, but it's a lot of time wasted in ProTools with a real Engineer.

Lav everyone. If you really don't want to do that, I'd do 4 fixed booms. That should be plenty of coverage without over doing it. Set them a bit higher then you normally would to even out the pressure to each mic. Try to put people with similar height next to each other to to keep a consistent volume without too much compression and gateing which might make you sound sound a bit fake. Your going to be setting the mics up like you would for a drum set. Depending on your framing, keep the mics about 3.5 to 4 feet from their mouths. Don't put the mics on top of their heads either, keep um out front and angle the heads towards the subjects.
 
Brian Russ said:
That should be plenty of coverage without over doing it. Set them a bit higher then you normally would to even out the pressure to each mic. Try to put people with similar height next to each other to to keep a consistent volume without too much compression and gateing which might make you sound sound a bit fake. Your going to be setting the mics up like you would for a drum set. Depending on your framing, keep the mics about 3.5 to 4 feet from their mouths. Don't put the mics on top of their heads either, keep um out front and angle the heads towards the subjects.
Click to expand...

I think that is exactly what I'll end up doing. Thanks for the great tips!

What AKG mics would you use? I think I might buy a couple and rent the other two.
 
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