ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

9 years, 11 months ago - Jon (Jack) Gritton

Hi Kyri, I'd recommend aiming to get both sides of the conversation recorded as "cleanly" as possible and with the best possible quality. Once you have good clean, high quality originals, practically everything else can be done in post but if you START with poor quality/effects/noise then it's a lot harder to move in the direction you want to go.

I'd also thoroughly recommend having the actress actually hear and respond to the other side of the conversation rather than trying to act it out. We make lots of visual clues and occasionally small noises when listening to someone on the phone (or face to face) and your scenes will be much more convincing if the actor can actually hear the lines being spoken and therefore let herself respond visually as normal.

Jon

9 years, 11 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

More great replies, thanks very much. It seems there's no one way to do this, but many very different possible options. It's also clear there are many very real potential pitfalls with the project as far as sound is concerned.

I am now wondering whether I just record the actress dialogue sound whilst she is on the phone for real and therefore reacting to a real voice on the other end of the phone line. But I am worried that I will be picking up sound from the other voice which I believe I shouldn't have as it willl be extremely poor quality and unusable as well as getting in the way of clear sound from the actress. The idea was to obtain the actress dialogue and record the male voice separately and then add effects to the male voice to make it sound as if it was coming from the phone.

So I suppose where I'm at now is: can I record a real, live dialogue (actress in phone box only while she is listening to a real voice on the other end of the line) but only capture her voice and then record the other voice and add it in post? Then again, the same issues highlighted in some of the replies above would apply to the male voice! For example, he too will need to be reacting to the actress in the phone box. ie. both need to be reacting to each other in order to achieve a realistic emotional depth!

Also, the male voice on the other end of the line will need to sound like a man talking on his mobile from within the confined space of a car boot of a car that is being driven! And I need to convey all that sound in the film so that the woman in the phone box hears all this and can guess that the man she's listening too is in a car boot of a car that is being driven!

A lot of the effects above are beyond my technical understanding so I intend to let a sound person deal with a lot of it. But, as has been pointed out to me above, I still need to get the right footage and also the right sound on location that can then be used and edited accordingly. There's lots of variables here.

I appreciate all the really helpful responses from everyone that I've been receiving. I've been reading them through several times to try and understand what I should be thinking about in terms of sound for this project. Thanks again to everyone for their kind input.

9 years, 11 months ago - Matt Thompson

Kyri,

On the sound side you could record the woman with a high quality clip mike hidden in the bit of the phone she speaks into discreetly hiding the wire behind the receiver. Plug it straight into the camera. That way unencumbered by a sound engineer in the box she could speak naturally. (But it is crucial the engineer can monitor the call outside the box with headphones)

You would be much better to have her speaking to another actor so you could call the telephone box and get the other actor or actors to have a dialogue. They should do that from a quiet room or, better a studio, and record in high quality at their end.

If the phone line is noisy this might not work so the other actor may need to speak with her through a discreet earpiece. (But do not use mobile phone see below) . If the door is open that second actor could even stand just out of shot and speak to her live which would be easiest of all. Do get the sound folk to test this out long before filming.

If doing it over the line (recording at both ends) do be careful of letting too much sound spill out of the earpieces of the phones which can reduce editing options or sound bad.

In post ask your sound bod to use a little automated reverb (so she sounds in a telephone box) on the lady in the box (altiverb or speakerphone reverb is the best) and once established after a short time reduce the amount of reverb which gets tiring for the viewer. Similarly for the actor on the phone it is very easy to create phone effect with eq which should be reduced subtly as it too gets tiring. Then add some phone clicks and crackle which can be recorded on an ordinary land line. FIlm on a quiet day and add some traffic noise as required.

Before you do anything check it works! If the clip mike doesn't work you may need to hide another mike in there. eg short black shotgun mike. Note: microphones always pick up mobile phone interference even if they are on silent mode. So do not use mobiles.

Consider using a phone box at a visitor attraction eg train museum which will be much a more controlled environment. With careful framing you won't know they are there. You will also be able to control reflections more easily with screens to get different angles on her from outside the box.

Finally, if you can make as natural as possible for the actors they will speak like they are on the phone and you will get a much better performance .

best of luck.

Matt
Rockethouse Productions ltd

9 years, 11 months ago - Jan Meinema

If you record all dialogue full quality, then in Post you can use a bandpass filter combined with a distortion effect from a guitar amp emulator to 'recreate' the phone line replies. You can make this sound very intelligible, but clearly suggesting it emanating from the phone (ask the sound designer). I use GRM bandpass filter and the Waves GTR amp simulator, which adds the distortion that happens (especially if a mobile phone is involved on the other side).

Recording it live also works well, but indeed there is a risk of making production sound unusable with having the temp replies interfering (I am working on a film in post at the moment where one of the replies partly runs over the actor's voice.

9 years, 11 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

There's also a device called a 'telephone hybrid' which can record both sides of a conversation - albeit with it sounding like a phone call. Used a lot in factual TV/consumer '... So we called the boss of Argos and he said...' shows. You'd probably rent fairly cheaply. May be useful if you want to record the call live, as opposed to reconstructing it in post.

9 years, 11 months ago - Nick Cheel

Hi Kyri - A zero-budget approach:
For synchronising with near-side (i.e. on-camera) dialogue, which I imagine most actors would prefer: one trick I've used is to have your actor listening to music on earphones just before taking the call, with one earphone remaining in situ when they answer the phone. Through that earphone will be the far-side only (pre-recorded) soundtrack (i.e. other end of the phone) for your actor to co-ordinate with (effectively, an edited audio-'take' prepared together earlier with near-side input excised). Otherwise, concealing an earphone to the same effect should do the trick ...
You could use freeware (such as Audacity) to produce the far-side soundtrack. I'd suggest mixing together your background soundtrack, so that the various voices/events levels are authentically and suitably equalised (i.e. get what you need foregrounded), and then play with the effects in Audacity on the combined track(s) to obtain a synthetic small speaker reproduction (e.g. knock out the bass frequencies, etc.). Since there's no such thing as a standard quality phone reception, you have some latitude to obtain the clarity and tinniness that will not appear incongruous to an audience.
The short - Open Letter - is viewable on the SP site, check 2:00-3:30 [https://shootingpeople.org/watch/115696/open-letter]. Unfortunately, the red phone box used there has now been refurb'ed with opaque ad-plastered glass. Yet another way privatisation despoils cultural karma :(

9 years, 11 months ago - Dan Selakovich

OK, you need to listen to me. If you don't understand what I'm about to tell you, say so.

You can easily fuck yourself in the editing room with a show like this. Off camera sound is a bitch for us editors. I can't tell you how many times I've spent an entire day trying to get sound or a conversation to fit picture because the director didn't get enough footage. When you are shooting this thing, get a lot of coverage. You may think you have it timed just right with that single shot, then discover it doesn't work either dramatically or technically. In your coverage, get things you can actually cut to as a cheat to extend the scene to fit the sound in, or shorten a scene that you've discovered is too long. That means things that are not sync dialogue. Keep in mind that those "cheat" shots have to fit and make sense to the emotion of the scene, so think it through.

If I were doing this, long before the shoot, I'd make it a "radio play." Because you are not only dealing with dialogue, you're dealing with all sorts of off screen sound. Rehearse your actors, then record their dialogue. Pull out ProTools, or whatever you have (even garage band is fine), and cut the dialogue, add sound efx, layer all of those efx tracks and do a rough mix of all that. Not only will you find out what works and what doesn't, you'll have a built in sort of pacing for your actors. You might even strip the dialogue tracks out, and use the off screen sound you need on set. Get the actor an ear bud and play those off screen, non-dialogue tracks into her ear. Don't let the actor "imagine" and set the pacing. You can even have the male character on set, feeding her his lines (and please mic him. his emotion will be right when he is actually talking to her on set).

As others have mentioned, you need clean sound. Don't try to do a phone effect on set. You'll be stuck with it. Every digital editor has a "phone filter" that you can just pop on to a track of dialogue. Or you can create one yourself and use it as a templet for OS dialogue.

This sounds really interesting! Good luck with it. If you do nothing I've told you, AT LEAST get lots of coverage. It will save your bacon, I promise.

9 years, 11 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

Good point. Thanks very much. I think I may have to re-think the dialogue recording part.

9 years, 11 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

Hiya! So basically I should get the male voice actor to the location for him to speak the lines to the actress in the phone box. That would mean his dialogue will be picked up by the mic. So, I must be missing something here. Isn't it the case that I should capture only the female dialogue? Or should I try and capture both at the same time and then make the male voice sound like it's coming from the phone line? Sorry, I have no idea what to do!

By the way, if I do the location sound myself, it will be a Rode mic on the DSLR hotshoe. If there's a sound recordist on board, then s/he will do it their way and maybe use a different sound set up.

Also, I am wondering that there won't be room for myself and the actress in the phone box or, if there is, it'll be very tight, awkward and uncomfortable. The more I think about this whole project the more I'm anxious with all the difficulties that are coming to light in my mind.

Just to recap: the film is a woman having a conversation on the phone in a phone box. And, in the film, the audience will hear the woman talking, normally, and the voice of the man she is talking to, as if it is coming from the phone, but clearly so they can make out what is being said.

9 years, 11 months ago - Dan Selakovich

Kyri, all of the problems you just listed are easily solved if your off camera man is on set feeding the woman his side of the conversation. Phone boxes aren't sound proof. You could easily pull this off with him just outside the phone box. Hell, you could even build an sound foam box on three sides of him if you don't want to re-record his dialogue later (though that might be a huge hassle).

Please, please, just mic them properly. Don't use the phone as your mic for either side of the conversation. And don't encourage the actors to overlap their dialogue.

9 years, 11 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm looking into all of the suggestions to see what I can do, much appreciated.

9 years, 11 months ago - Dan Selakovich

Of course you'll pick up his dialogue. I don't understand the concern. They are not speaking at the same time. In the editing room, you replace the crap sound of his dialogue with clean sound of his dialogue. Unless you have a production mixer, and even if you do, frankly, you're going to pick up the dialogue of other actors in the scene. That happens everyday on every set in the world.

Why in the world are you getting into the phone box with the actor?

Want some advice: go shoot something else, like a 2 minute film in your living room with two actors talking, before you do this thing. You seem very worried about problems that are not problems, but just an aspect of filmmaking.

9 years, 11 months ago - Marlom Tander

http://www.avoncroft.org.uk/collections/special-collections/ - of telephone boxes, because most of the remaining red ones are there for conservation reasons, so prob major noise and permissions issues.

Sound design I'll leave to you, but you need a good one.

Scripting - this needs total planning, and the actress does need something to respond to. Her mental beats may be different to yours.