Members fukawi2 Posted March 20, 2007 Members Share Posted March 20, 2007 Hey all - long time no see!! Been too busy with my day-job I'm sure there's someone on here with experience that can help me and give me some pointers... A friend of mine who's in to film making has asked me to help him by doing the audio for a short film he's making. I've never worked in film!! He wants me to do some tracks for post-production, and also operate the boom mic / mixer for them while they film on location. The post-production I'm happy with as I used to do production for the local radio station. The boom mic and mixing that I'm hopeful someone can give me some pointers... Tips? Tricks? They're filming over the Easter weekend on Friday / Saturday and we're heading to the set on Thursday so I have a day to play and practice at least From what I've been told, the boom mic goes to the mixer with 2 channels (I'm assuming it's a stereo mic), then from the mixer to the camera to be recorded - I get to hold the boom mic and operate the mixer at the same time... Any help and advice would be great (PS, how's my terminology? ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted March 20, 2007 Members Share Posted March 20, 2007 Real film or video shoot??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fukawi2 Posted March 21, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 21, 2007 Real Film... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted March 21, 2007 Members Share Posted March 21, 2007 So you are acquiring the raw tracks, find out from the post folks what they expect, what kind of noise floor they are working with etc. There are a lot of special requirements that will be specific to each production's needs. Find out in advance! They will take care of dynamic range issues later, I assume you will be recording to digital media? Find out about time code reqts, and how they will impiment sync issues. 35mm? (nice ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fukawi2 Posted March 22, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 22, 2007 Noise floor... Check. Dynamic Range not my problem... Check. I will check about the digital and 35mm gear. I was sure you'd have some good input horse, cheer (I'll buy you a beer next time you're in Australia ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PrActical_AV Posted March 24, 2007 Members Share Posted March 24, 2007 First of all, I would find out the model numbers for the equipment (mics, field mixer, camera, etc.) you will be using so that you can read up on it to know how they operate and troubleshoot. Rarely are boom mics stereo; they are usually mono shotgun type microphones. But your situation may be different. You will want to watchout for wind noise (outside) and echoes (inside), so bring a good pair of headphones to monitor the sound and levels. Use a "blimp", "zepplin", and/or furry windscreens to reduce the wind noise. For echos, dampening material and/or different mic patterns will help. A lot of audio editing programs will allow you to filter out noise, but you will want to capture the best possible sound as your source. It's probably a good idea to capture a few minutes of ambient noise too so you have some continuity as transitions of camera angles change. If you're feeding the sound into the camera and it's digital, you shouldn't have to worry too much about time code - it will be recorded as you shoot. Film is a totally different issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fukawi2 Posted March 24, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 24, 2007 Thanks PrActical_AV... I only assumed it was going to be stereo because I was told I'd be mixing channels, but I can't hold 2 booms at the same time so I assumed there would have to be 2 mics... I might have that wrong... I think most of the recording will be outside, so wind could be a problem - as I said, they are supplying the gear so hopefully they'll have the windscreens and all too. They're semi-professional (their last "feature" had something like $1.5m AUD budget was is being distributed internationally - not exactly "back yarders"!), but this is just a "fill in time" and "keep things moving" activity so they can't pay proper people to do sound, lol Can you expand on the ambient noise for the camera transitions? I don't quite understand what you mean exactly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members paulwannabe Posted March 25, 2007 Members Share Posted March 25, 2007 I have no idea how the audio is supposed to work for film, but I do know how to do it wrong. I was trying to make a DVD for our band, featuring footage from some of our performances. We recorded the shows live to an audio cassette tape, and a friend with a cheap home video camera videotaped us. The audio from the video camera was terrible, so I muted it and mixed in the audio from the tape, which had taken a feed straight from the mixer. I was able to get the audio and video perfectly synchronized, but after a few seconds the audio started to lag, and within 10 seconds it was hopelessly off. I don't understand what went wrong; the tape audio seemed to be at the same pitch as the audio from the camera, but I guess they recorded at different rates or something. I ended up just using the audio from the camera, and it sounded like crap. At least the guys in the band will have it for old time's sake. Anyway, running the mixer straight to the camera is probably your best bet. I'll try that next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PrActical_AV Posted March 26, 2007 Members Share Posted March 26, 2007 The ambient sound is used to prevent technical continuity issues. It is a very low volume recording of the background noise that is played throught the whole scene so your final editted scene with different camera angles/views does not have noticable, abrupt, or undesireable changes in audio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fukawi2 Posted April 16, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 16, 2007 Well it's come and gone and the world continues The producer / director / camera guys all said I did a pretty good job for my first time so I guess that's good. They said they're happy to have me back again, so that's got to be even better The gear I ended up using was a Rode shotgun mic on a Rode boom, with a Shure FP33 mixer that we ran directly back to the camera (Sony Z1) and recorded with the video. A few issues with handling noise of the boom on my behalf, but I learnt my way around that pretty quick. The best thing I did was figure out that you could actually run the XLR down the center of the boom instead of velcro / taping it on the outside of the boom. There was a couple of scenes where I managed to get away with mounting the mic on a standard mic stand to eliminate handling noise, and then sit the stand on a folded blanket which eliminated floor noise. Best of all, it meant I didn't accidentally get in the frame Sydney put together a cut on Friday with the post-production recording stuff I did as well and are sending a copy down tonight, so I should get the see the semi-finished product in a couple of days. Thanks all for your advice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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