ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years, 6 months ago - Philip Taylor

it's also normal practice to use a shotgun mic on a pole to get a more natural-sounding recording.

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

Yes I now see the value of that.

10 years, 7 months ago - Alève Mine

Thanks, I'll see if they have these locally. Yet the provider already gave a sort of a shell to seat the mics in on the skin. They still made noise even when there was no clothing on top. Maybe just from the cables?

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

Thanks for the tips.

Indeed not only was there no dedicated sound person, but I also had few minutes per shot. So no time to check the sound at the end of each shot. Just once in the beginning and then whenever I had a second, literally running to the computers. Actually now that I think of it a shotgun might have taken too much of the cracking wooden floor.

One additional hinderance was: how do you stick anything on the skin of actors with body hair without hurting them?

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

See the result after denoising on http://youtu.be/DtnNLZRXXFw at second 3:33. Just about audible. Glad we had music right there. The noiselike sound you hear is from the music.

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

all evening, not all day :)

10 years, 4 months ago - Alève Mine

For our latest (second) short, which is our first action film, we only used the mics that were embedded in the cameras. The shoot took a lot less time, and so did the edit (less producing the music). And the equipment was much easier to carry. Now the film is in a good position for film of the month, PLEASE give it 5 stars of encouragement at https://shootingpeople.org/watch/129669/nat#

10 years, 5 months ago - Alève Mine

Ryan thanks. We had these: http://abp-shop.ch/en/zubehor-microphones/33-rbm.html And it made a hell of a noise. They are telling me it worked well for other users.
Are these vampire clips especially made for lavaliers or do you mean these? http://www.solidapollo.com/images/D/Vampire-Connector_T.jpg
I had seen somewhere that they make a little curl along the cable, too, fixed with some tape. We didn't do that.

10 years, 6 months ago - Andy Partington

Without a dedicated sound person, you're always going to find it harder to get good results - there are only so many jobs one person can concentrate on at once. Don't leave out the headphones next time (and use decent ones, not something that came free with a mobile phone) - monitor the audio while recording all the time. You wouldn't film whilst only checking very occasionally to see if the subject was framed up right, so why take that risk with sound? As well as the problems you had, you could have interference from other radio mics, a poor cable connection, distortionf from incorrect levels, or the mic could go faulty itself. Don't wait until Post to discover that. For sticking to skin without harming the actor, toupee tape is useful as it comes off easily, or if you need something a bit stickier than that, a hypoallergenic surgical micropore tape is good.

10 years, 5 months ago - Ryan Laccohee

Vampire clips are very good, I used them all the time when working with presenters, and never had any noise problems.

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

hiss would be in the electronics itself i suppose?

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

Yes. That and no time means you deal with the acting which ever way feasible before the day!

In our setting there were also studio mics behind the cam, meaning anything like the sound of a cable touching something would have been heard quite loud. You might say then don't move, but I had to move the camera, so that was another risk, beside the wooden floor. That said, I should have asked another person to wear the headphones, hoping they won't get bored sitting in the other room all day. Levels are all I checked prior to the shoot, that at least worked all right.

Thanks for these and the tape tip! The interference point is good to know for if and when I'll have radio mic. Here we had cables hidden everywhere :).

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

It the first. Noise from clothes or rubbing.

10 years, 6 months ago - Andy Partington

Hi - professional sound engineers spend their working lives getting better at dealing with such problems. As mentioned, a decent shotgun on a pole is very helpful if possible given the shot, Rycote undercover/overcovers can also help (Dr Scholl moleskin can be a good substitute for this sometimes). Some clothing materials just generate a lot of noise - not much you can do about this if you have no influence on costume. If you do, get them to wear cotton rather than synthetic fibres if possible. It's also possible to hide radio mics in other places away from rustly clothes - tie knots, hair etc, but these take a bit of practice and skill to do.The most important thing is to have someone on set monitoring the sound in good headphones while you're recording - that way you won't get to post before discovering the problem. Preferably a trained sound person whose only job is to concentrate on that.

10 years, 6 months ago - Alève Mine

(I had decided to leave out headphones to avoid any additional cables, time and noise - and discomfort.)

10 years, 7 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

http://www.rycote.com/producttypes/undercovers/

These do the trick, or at least help. They are pairs of sticky pads, one against the body with a soft one on top.

10 years, 6 months ago - Jeremy Lintott

are you talking about noise from clothes etc.... rustling and scraping or are you talking about hiss ??