feet noise when shooting in woods?

[Brandon Fraley]

I'm planning a to shoot a feature that takes place predominately in a forest and I'm trying to figure out how to avoid recording the noise of crew members snapping twigs and such during takes.

I went out walking a bit was of course horrified at how much noise resulted from each step. There was to be quite of bit of walking and talking, but I'm not sure how to handle it with a sound guy, operator and bounce board all tying to walk with the actors, making a huge racket with each step.

Anyone have any experience with this?

THANKS!

 

[Noah Kadner]

Talk to your sound recordist. You can always clear paths.

Noah

 

[Matthew Rogers]

It's called ADR. Simply put, if a scene in a movie has something like woods where both the actors and the crew would be making noise, they'd record sound on set to have something to match with and then ADR it. If you've ever wondered how they get such good sound in movies, that's how.

Matthew

 

[Brandon Fraley]

It's called ADR. Simply put, if a scene in a movie has something like woods where both the actors and the crew would be making noise, they'd record sound on set to have something to match with and then ADR it. If you've ever wondered how they get such good sound in movies, that's how.

Matthew

Obviously I'm aware that ADR is an option, but is it a requirement? I guess I was curious if anyone here has shot out in the woods and NOT required ADR.

 

[Charles Angus]

Plywood makes a good ersatz road surface. Haven't tried it in the woods, though.

Clearing paths is another good option. Rakes are easily found, and more transportable than plywood ( re-reading your original post, I realize it's likely a small crew, so scratch the plywood idea ).

What kind of shots do you have planned?

 

[ericyoung]

Another thing to try is for all the crew to walk in step with the actors. Then any leaves and twigs can be attributed to the characters walking.

 

[Chris Pickle]

I'm planning a to shoot a feature that takes place predominately in a forest and I'm trying to figure out how to avoid recording the noise of crew members snapping twigs and such during takes.

I went out walking a bit was of course horrified at how much noise resulted from each step. There was to be quite of bit of walking and talking, but I'm not sure how to handle it with a sound guy, operator and bounce board all tying to walk with the actors, making a huge racket with each step.

Anyone have any experience with this?

THANKS!

The only way is ADR. Other then lucky bits here and there, you'll never be able to record sound and not have the operator / crew be heard walking along.

I was always worried about this on a recent project, and was concerned about the work of ADR / folley in post, but here's the thing:

ADR / folley rocks! You can make the sound perfect and it's way easier then you think. Even ADR on actual dialogue (like ADR means) is not nearly as difficult as you think.

It makes me want to abandoned my location sound files as often as possible in favor of doing it way better in post. Not because the location sound is terrible, but because when you start from scratch in post, you can make it perfect. It was a big lesson for me.

Cheers

 

[Joe G.]

"Even ADR on actual dialogue (like ADR means) is not nearly as difficult as you think."

I did this once for a short, and it is pretty hard. The results would be better with live sound.

Plus, the indoor acoustics where we recorded were nothing like the outdoor acoustics of the scene we shot at. It was a mismatch.

I was liking some of the other suggestions about clearing paths, plywood, etc. Or choosing locations where you already have a path. Or having them stop for the talk.

PS

The old indy standby:
Use lav mics on the actors, and shoot from way far away, long lens.

 

[Brandon Fraley]

"Even ADR on actual dialogue (like ADR means) is not nearly as difficult as you think."

I did this once for a short, and it is pretty hard. The results would be better with live sound.

Plus, the indoor acoustics where we recorded were nothing like the outdoor acoustics of the scene we shot at. It was a mismatch.

Agreed. I did a short film where I had to ADR only about 10 lines and it was very difficult for me. Trying to get the actors to nail the lip sync AND give a good performance was wasn't easy at all, and then of course trying to get it to sound like the original location was almost impossible.

Perhaps if I was paying a professional it might come out better, but since I'll be doing any dubbing out of my house, I'd like to keep it to a minimum if possible.