Production Sound Recording
Steve Nelson
situation, one we've all been in before. In light of all this discussion
what to do?
The scene is in a courtroom; we've got, say, 20 pages to shoot there. In
the courtroom is a judge, a witness stand, a court reporter who has a few
lines, the two attorney's tables, each with a couple people seated, the
jury, a few people in the audience, and the space in between the tables
and the witness where the lawyers ply their trade. It is, of course, wall
to wall dialog, to be well covered in a variety of angles and sizes,
including wide masters of all. Also it is a pretty heated scene and the
director is not too particular about overlaps, in fact he likes them
(groan!) which means we've got to mic the off-camera as well. I could be
really mean and add 2 camera coverage throughout, but I'm in charge this
time so let's say that if there are 2 cameras they will be used only with
with matching lens sizes.
Now if I'm a mixer like most I've got a decent package with a 2 track
recorder and a mixing board with almost enough faders, almost enough
wireless, almost enough other plant mics and booms to cover this should we
do the whole thing in one and everybody talks, even if I could use another
boom operator or two. I guess I split up the tracks in a way that makes
some sense as the scene progesses, but whatever I do my coverage will most
likely be a mix of lavaliers/wireless, plant mics and overhead booms.
Let's say I'm working on the cutting edge and I've got a 4-track recorder,
a DEVA, a Nagra-D or I suppose even a StellaDat mk. 2 and an appropriate
mixer (god loves me and I've got a Cameo, too!) So now what? I start to
think about multi-track as we've been discussing it: Perhaps a mono mix
for dailies and pre-fader out the individual channels to the other other 3
available tracks. Well, with the half-dozen or more mics I've got working
on the set I will surely run out of room on the recorder. I guess I could
gang them up but then I'd have to be doing a mix there, too, just to keep
it clean. Now I'm running out of hands! Let's say that I've actually read
the script in advance, discussed it with the director, got approval from
the producer and I've arranged for a DA-98 to be on hand. Then I might be
covered; using my 2-track for the working mix and the 8-track for iso's.
But maybe even that's not enough. Maybe all hell breaks loose in this
scene and it turns out I need more than 8 tracks and a wider board to
accomodate it all. Somebody wake Jim Webb from his retirement and ask him
what that's like!
This may seem like an extreme case but it is not, I'm sure, very far off
the mark from courtroom dramas (or similar scenes) many of us have done
or, trust me, will do. I hope this is a situation that helps illustrate
some of the points we've been after, including: What are our obligations
as production mixers as to the nature of the tracks we deliver and the
equipment that we carry? This example is a scene that could be planned in
advance but there are others that can evolve on the spot to exceed the
capacity of whatever gear we have on hand, if we are sticking to the plan
of one mic per track. In a scene like this it would be a luxury to just
let it ride, but what if you just don't have the real estate?
Sorry to have been so long winded, but, hey, I'm not working; does it
show? So have at it, good people!
------steve nelson, cas
Jeff Wexler
Steve Nelson at nels...@igc.org wrote on 11/4/99 8:14 PM:
> Okay Resident Sound-Meisters of either variety (prod or post): Here's a
> situation, one we've all been in before. In light of all this discussion
> what to do?
>
> The scene is in a courtroom...
We have all had to do courtroom scenes in our long/short careers, and the
scene that Steve has spelled out here is a very good example... I agree
completely that analyzing a courtroom scene is a good exercise because of
the nature of the beast.
In the "old" days, when we only had 1 track to deal with (and not 4 to 8
wireless and a compliment of plants microphones) courtroom scenes were
almost always done with a boom (sometimes 2 booms). This was also before
courtrooms (in real life) were all equipped with microphones on goosnecks,
video monitors and so on, so these things were not even an issue. Shot with
one camera by a director and director of photography with some vision (or at
least a plan) as to how the scene should play, experienced actors who knew
they had to match their action and dialog (and not just overlap with
interruptions for the sake of keeping things "real"), these sorts of scenes
went very smoothly.
Cut to today... it's a whole new ballgame... sorry, courtroom. I think to
preserve any kind of flexibility later in editorial, and to allow the kind
of "freedom" (often, read lack of discipline and planning), multi-track is
the way to go... and I agree, 8 may not be enough. Usually, with a judicious
grouping of microphones (sometimes putting 2 or more intelligently assigned
microphones on 1 track) 8 could be sufficient.
The plan of still trying to make a reasonable "mix" of all of this to 1 or 2
tracks (for dailies and initial picture editorial) and recording as much
isolated tracks as possible, is a good plan. One would hope that as coverage
commences (hopefully not done at the same time as masters with multiple
cameras) things would simplify and we could again deliver 1 or 2 tracks that
make sense and do not require a lot of explanation or apology.
JW
John Garrett
the uncontrolled nature of what you describe.
Intellimixer. I'd put the less-than-crucial [fewest lines?]
into an intellimixer and take it as one input. I've done
some of those 14-person roundtable discussion things for
multicamera PBS type shows, and I'm lucky to get a program
monitor, off in the tech room, with no window to even see
what's going on in the studio. This sounds like a job for a
gated mixer, for some of the sources.
G. John Garrett, C.A.S.
Steve Nelson wrote:
>
> Okay Resident Sound-Meisters of either variety (prod or post): Here's a
> situation, one we've all been in before. In light of all this discussion
> what to do?
>
John Garrett
>
> in article nelsound-041...@user-38ldhtj.dialup.mindspring.com,
> Steve Nelson at nels...@igc.org wrote on 11/4/99 8:14 PM:
>
> > situation, one we've all been in before. In light of all this discussion
> > what to do?
> >
>
> We have all had to do courtroom scenes in our long/short careers, and the
> scene that Steve has spelled out here is a very good example... I agree
> completely that analyzing a courtroom scene is a good exercise because of
> the nature of the beast.
Jeff's post reminds me that your original message was that
you had any toys you needed for this, so let me amend my
last. Multitrack ISOs would be better. If you have all the
toys you need, we must assume post does too. But gates have
pulled my cherries out of the fire more than once.
G. John Garrett, C.A.S.
Bill Drucklieb
In a few days time, the solution to your quiry will be obvious.
Bill Drucklieb
http://cinemasonics.com
J BainSI
>The scene is in a courtroom; we've got, say, 20 pages to shoot there. In
>the courtroom is a judge, a witness stand, a court reporter who has a few
>lines, the two attorney's tables, each with a couple people seated, the
>jury, a few people in the audience, and the space in between the tables
>and the witness where the lawyers ply their trade. It is, of course, wall
>to wall dialog, to be well covered in a variety of angles and sizes,
I'd book an extra man to look after tracking and mix a 'final' mix at all
times. My mix would be in surround compatible stereo, but that's the way I
prefer to work, you could work equally well to mono. My tape op would look
after switching feeds to tracks on the DA98 leaving me free to concentrate on
the mix. If he needed to switch mics, etc, he could do that without bothering
me. At the end of the day, if I had missed a few cues, I would expect to be
able to remix from the DA98 and replace the mixed dialogue in a way that would
match the rest of the mix. The tracks would be available in post if they
wished to remix and bring a line 'close-up' where the director had changed his
mind, or vice-versa.
I come from the TV side of the business where this was commonly shot 'as-live'
with 4 or 5 cameras. These days it would be one or two at the most, but my
approach would remain the same if the director wanted to shoot long takes.
Best wishes
--
John Bain
UK TV Sound Director, magnotherapy user & distributor
http://members.aol.com/JBainSI/
Surround Sound for Television
Dave Ellinwood
John Garrett <jgar...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:38227BC9...@world.std.com...
> This sounds like a job for a
> gated mixer, for some of the sources.
This makes sense to me. Although certainly there is some risk at any
processing in the field (EQ, compression, gating, etc.) - and that topic has
been exhausted by group a few times - I think its worth it. Let's say you
gate the bailiff and court reporter who each have only one line for example.
If you've gated to aggressively and clip the lines - oh well, you dub them
or get the line wild and cheat it. But on the plus side you have 2 fewer
open mics to deal with (mixing or not), and improve your odds of making most
of the scene sound better. Certainly in lower budget productions, lesser
characters get sacrificed all the time. The mixer doesn't have the gear
anyway so the decision is more like: "well I can't get good sound on these
minor characters without the potential of degrading the sound of the entire
scene, so let's no even attempt to record them."
Do you make these sacrifices on full budget features and TV as well? Or is
it a sin to have an on camera character off-mic, knowing that it is easily
fixable in post?
Dave
Bill Drucklieb
On 4-Nov-1999, nels...@igc.org (Steve Nelson) wrote:
>Also it is a pretty heated scene and the
> director is not too particular about overlaps, in fact he likes them
> (groan!) which means we've got to mic the off-camera as well.
First off, if a director wants to work like this, he gets what he gets.
Were only human. If covered properly, you'll probably get all of it,
between all the takes...relax.
> Let's say I'm working on the cutting edge and I've got a 4-track recorder,
> a DEVA, a Nagra-D or I suppose even a StellaDat mk. 2 and an appropriate
> mixer (god loves me and I've got a Cameo, too!) So now what?
With a Cameo mixer, which has the ability to delay signals, it would be
possible to create a "delayed gate" and make sort of an "auto mixer"
arrangement. I just checked with Zaxcom and it would be a fairly simple and
straight forward add on, if someone wanted to order it. I know what you're
thinking, there are auto mixers for a couple of grand out there and they
don't do justice... no pun intended. What I suggest would be entirely
different. It would be a delayed gate so you would be able to gate and not
loose the attack of the input signal, it's a simple matter of setting the
delay and trigger timings right.
> Perhaps a mono mix
> for dailies and pre-fader out the individual channels to the other 3
> available tracks.
Use the delayed gate on wireless mics and plants to a slop mix for dailies
only, on another machine, and you are covered there. We did a mix strictly
for dailies on some scenes of the Preachers Wife. On that one, we had
multiple character dialog, 6 musicians, Whitney Houston, and a Record Plant
Remote all going at once. A special dailies mix was the only way to go on
that job.
As for your main 4 track recorder, you would be able to assign all your
wires to 2 tracks of your Deva, or D (Stelladat-2, what's that?) and ISO
each of the booms on 3 and 4. Voila, you're covered. I doubt you'd ever
even need to go out to 8 tracks.
> Maybe all hell breaks loose in this
> scene and it turns out I need more than 8 tracks and a wider board to
> accommodate it all...
I think you are overcomplicating your nightmare scenario. However, you
could hire a remote truck if you feel you need a backup. Call Record Plant,
they were nice guys, great to work with.
> Sorry to have been so long winded, but, hey, I'm not working; does it
> show?
Well, maybe just a little. Join the club...
Bill Drucklieb
http://www.cinemasonics.com
Randy Thom
with a mix onto one or two tracks.
Overlapping dialog between principals is one thing, but if the Director is also
encouraging tertiary (background people) to talk on every take as well, then
he/she is either abysmally ignorant or stark raving mad.
Oh well, there's no abyssness like show abyssness.
Randy
John Garrett
We do our best to get all the on-camera speaking talent,
every time. Of course if they'd just DO IT the same every
time it would be a lot easier! Back to the gated mixer
question, there are some mixers made specifically for this
kind of thing, and the gates are pretty amazing. You don't
lose anything anyone says [ok maybe the first 1/2 cycle of
audio...maybe less than 1 msec.] and with some makes the
background noise NEVER changes when more mics are active.
When you have a lot of overlapping, and especially
unscripted speakers, you can sit behind your big desk and
play 'catch up' all day and never win, or plug em all into
something like an Intellimixer and still have one hand free
to self-administer craft services. As Steve Izzy once said
to me, "Sometimes you can be wonderful, but sometimes you
just have to be practical."
G. John Garrett, C.A.S.
soun...@my-deja.com
rand...@aol.com (Randy Thom) wrote:
> This is a clear case for pre-fader multi-channel send to eight or
more tracks,
> with a mix onto one or two tracks.
>
> Overlapping dialog between principals is one thing, but if the
Director is also
> encouraging tertiary (background people) to talk on every take as
well, then
> he/she is either abysmally ignorant or stark raving mad.
>
> Oh well, there's no abyssness like show abyssness.
>
> Randy
pertinent,especially Steve Nelson and Jeff Wexler on scenarios and
multi-tracking. wanted to join in,but always find that discussion moves
on,and my comments would just repeat an earlier post.however,Randy Thom
really pushed the buton for me! earlier this year I mixed a big feature
and during the one and only discussion I had with the Director
either pre- ,or during,production he gave me the following brief:
" I like to use several cameras most of the time,and I like over-
lapping dialogue.Oh! and I want off-screen lines recorded,as I find
there is often a better reading and I'd like to use it." What he failed
to tell me was that the cameras were not on matching sizes,the line-ups
were perfunctory and barely sufficient for the DoP,and that rehearsals
were anathema to him,so that Take 1 would be my first chance to find
out any problems,let alone rehearse dialogue timings and levels!Also,he
would give the talent "notes" and not advise me,so that any mix I might
have established was thrown by changing cues!
I had anticipated solving some of the problems by using a DA-98
alongside my two tracks on DAT,but I still,got caught out.I tried to
provide 'post' with as much material that I could,and hopefully backed
it with full sound reports. However,the show was a pretty miserable
professional experience for me,and in some thirty years of feature
mixing I've had a few! So,I agree with Randy,I think the Director was
both abysmally ignorant (perhaps deliberately so) and stupid BUT by all
accounts I glean from LA,the previews are great,the Studio is 100%
behind the movie,it looks a winner,and the Director is looking to be
the "flavour of the month". Ultimately,a well received movie benefits
all who work on it,but I feel I learnt more about sound on this movie
than did the Director. The problem is,he will go on to his next
project,placing greater demands on his Mixer without understanding what
is involved. I just wonder if all I have really achieved is to pass on
the poisonned chalice,with ignorant Directors and Producers out there
believing that we have the technology, which alone will produce a good
track or that it doesn't really matter,because it "can all be fixed in
Post". The Debate continues....
Brian Simmons cas,amps. > >On 4-Nov-1999, nels...@igc.org (Steve
Nelson) wrote:
> >
> >>Also it is a pretty heated scene and the
> >> director is not too particular about overlaps, in fact he likes
them
> >> (groan!) which means we've got to mic the off-camera as well.
>
>
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