Indoor dialogue recording.

[Robert Hart]

I look like getting involved in a low-budget feature shoot which may involve sometimes up to three SI2Ks in a multi-cam sequence.


For dialogue recording we can go into the cameras from a Sound Devices mixer at 48K 16bit two channels. The recovered audio is adequate for dialogue purposes. There may be be a Sound Devices digital audio recorder on the job as well in which case the camera audio will revert to reference track.


Whilst we have a Rode NTG1 for dialogue, I have found that dialogue audio indoors can be sweeter sounding with the Rode NT2a mikes I bought in and used on a symphonic orchestra recording. I did not have to resell them afterwards as was originally the scheme.


I have observed on some BTS extras for major movies indoors, that directional mikes like short shotguns are not used but a smaller, apparently omnidirectional mike on a boom pole.


My question is, except for the extra weight and the boom swinger getting the shakes, it is worthwhile using the NT2a indoors switched either figure eight or directional. More to the point, is anyone already doing this? Most of the indies here seem to be wedlocked to directional mikes indoors.


Not being a soundie, I am in your hands for suggestions. There is no budget for any other than the existing selection of mikes. We will have sound blankets for some lively environments.


Rode NTG1.

Sony C74.

Rode NT2a

Sony ECM-674 - a little more mellow and lower gain than the Rode NTG1 but slightly more directional.

Sony ECM-55 body mike - no radio pack.


Whilst we may have a soundie who has good gear and knows his stuff, this being a low budget project, a good soundie may not prepared to get out of bed for lower than standard reward. "Lovers" of the craft prepared to work for the sawdust of the meatworks floor and a mouthful of Dominos Pizza sometimes yield less than ideal results.


I am just after hedging my bets against a last-minute "can you do this I know you can". I have been ambushed before and I am getting a bit too old for desperate hasty scrambling.


Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Many books cover topics like this in these previous discussions:

Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Recording

Sound Recordist Handbooks

Recording dialogue on location is highly specialized and difficult, and depends very much on the nature of the location and the relative position (and number) of the actors. None of the mics you mention are mics I would reach for on location, though there are students and low-budget users who like the Rode mics. My joke is, we rarely encounter with audio per se; what we run into are location problems, where people have foolishly chosen cheap places to shoot without regard to noise problems, and then we run into issues with power, interference, and timecode issues. Audio itself is rarely a problem.

For modern American television, what I see used most often are Countryman B6 or Sanken COS-11 lavaliers on actors, using Lectrosonics SM-series transmitters. Boom mics for interiors are often Schoeps CMC641 or Sennheiser MKH50s, both hypercardiods, and you can make good cases for each; outdoors, I see Sennheiser MKH60s and Schoeps CMIT shotguns, but there are always exceptions. So much depends on how you use the microphone and where you put it, and not necessarily what model it is. A great mic in the hands of an inexperienced boom op can be disastrous. And at the same time, wiring up every actor with wireless mics is not always an optimum choice.

I also think it's very bad practice to rely only on the camera sound recording because the circuitry involved is generally not reliable in my experience (and this goes for Arri, Canon, Red, and Sony -- it's not a Red-specific problem). You're much, much better off just using the camera for scratch audio and recording on a standalone, dedicated digital audio recorder; Sound Devices is a good choice. Sync up the separate tracks in post and hire a competent dialogue editor to put the pieces together.

This is an extremely broad, complicated subject on which scores of books have been written. You'll find lots of discussion it and basic advice over on Jeff Wexler's Production Sound Group.

 

[PatrickFaith]

.... We will have sound blankets for some lively environments....

Hmmm ... I've found sound blankets are just barely useful for bad sound environments. If you have low budget gear, good acoustics will go real far ... but with low budget and bad acoustics, people just need to emotionally get prepared that it is going to have horrible sound(sound where the audience decides the whole film is low budget within the first 5 seconds of listening).

I noticed Marc said on another thread "almost 50% of it involves choosing decent locations with minimal sound problems", I think that's a solid piece of advice. One of the best things you can do is make sure the indoor location has minimal sound issues (i.e. even a ok omni mic will do fairly good in a room that doesn't have any sound problems and has good acoustics, yet a indie location where you are fighting doors slamming, alarms going off, street noise, etc ... best mic with total expert is a tough go). I deal with extreme low budget stuff, and what I do is scout the location for sound ... (go there, put some headphones on with some crap mic, and just hear what is in the location). If there is a lot going on in the room sound wise during the scouting, i know my low budget approach will be hopeless on the sound, and i cost doing the sound in post(this way it's a straight money thing, pay up front or pay on the backend ... almost always cheaper paying up front though).

 

[Marc Wielage]

Hmmm ... I've found sound blankets are just barely useful for bad sound environments. If you have low budget gear, good acoustics will go real far ... but with low budget and bad acoustics, people just need to emotionally get prepared that it is going to have horrible sound(sound where the audience decides the whole film is low budget within the first 5 seconds of listening).

I have told clients before, the three things that immediately tip-off the audience that the film is bad and/or low budget are:

1) bad dialogue
2) bad titles
3) bad lighting

not necessarily in that order.

I have been on location scouts before with producers and directors, and what's sad is that we go to a location, I whip out a decibel meter and warn them, "hey, there's 80dB of background sound... this is going to create a lot of problems for dialogue and your final mix," and they basically shrug and say, "this is all we've got -- we can't afford anything better."

It's kind of stunning the number of stages around Los Angeles that are pitched as being suitable for film and TV, but the reality is that they're so poorly insulated, you hear every car, train, siren, airplane, or helicopter that passes by, or the air conditioner is terribly loud, ruining the dialogue. Sadly, if the audience can't understand the dialogue or is distracted by background noise, then they won't be able to understand the story.

I refer to stages like this as photographic stages, where they're fine for still photography but totally unsuitable for motion pictures with dialogue. Unfortunately, there's quite a few green screen stages that are set up this way, and the reality is that too often they wind up sounding like somebody talking in a giant concrete warehouse, ruining the illusion of whatever background you composite behind the actor. A true sound stage is heavily fortified and insulated with very thick pads on all the walls and ceilings to keep the enclosed area as free from background sounds as possible, which is somewhat costly to provide and maintain.

Note that much of the green-screen shots in Avatar were all looped months after the movie was made, for reasons like this. And the dialogue re-recording was terrific and worked fine for the film... which you can do, provided the filmmakers have lots of skill, time, and money. This is rarely possible on an indie level.

 

[Robert Hart]

Thank you folks for your time taken in reply, the links and advice provided. I sincerely hope they get themselves a proper soundie.

 

[Matt W.]

I've never worked in sound (technically I held a boom pole on a no-budget corporate shoot once) but from what I understand:

For outdoor scenes and very large spaces the MKH416 is the best affordable mic, but its pickup pattern is harsh so the MKH60 or NTG3 are popular, too, as they are a bit more forgiving and still sound good for the inexperienced boom op.

For indoor spaces the CMC641 is most popular; the MKH50 is good, too. Since I'm a camera op and can't afford either, I'm getting an Oktava MK-012, which is supposed to be the best thing for the money but it has a lot of handling noise relative to the other two and quality control is inconsistent. These are not omnis but supers with wider pickup patterns but not omnidirectional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbSaYDKTmU
http://www.oktavamodshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=35

For lavs the G3/ME2 is the standard and sounds pretty good to me, but the Lectrosonics with Sanken/Countryman mics are preferred if you have the money as there's a lot less interference and it's easier to avoid clipping. These are omnis.

I wouldn't skimp on sound. A feature with bad sound will be unwatchable and a two camera shoot makes things a lot harder without lavs especially.

 

[Marc Wielage]

For outdoor scenes and very large spaces the MKH416 is the best affordable mic, but its pickup pattern is harsh so the MKH60 or NTG3 are popular, too, as they are a bit more forgiving and still sound good for the inexperienced boom op.

You know, I wouldn't call the MKH416 harsh per se, but I would agree that none of these sound great off-axis. That's kind of the nature of a shotgun mic: you have to have a good boom op.

There are people who like the Oktava mics, but I'm not one of them. They sound very noisy to me. There are dealers who sell Chinese and Russian mics like these and give them intense QC, and those can sound pretty good. But I don't think they're up to the difficult conditions of location filmmaking.

I do think wireless lavs help out a lot with location filmmaking on a tight budget. This will give the post sound crew more options in dialogue editing and help avoid ADR in some cases. It's striking to watch certain shows -- Modern Family is one I'd point to -- where they run tons of wireless mics very effectively. But those present additional challenges in terms of clothing noise, RF interference, and power issues.