Film Making General Audio Question.

[Todd Terry]

[Michael D. Dennis] “how to they film with a single camera and record audio continuously while changing camera angles”

Well, in short, you don’t.

The effect of that is accomplished in one of several other ways.

The most common way is lip syncing. This is the way virtually all music videos are produced, other than the ones that are obviously live performances. The sound track is produced first, and is played back multiple times for multiple takes of different camera angles, with the musicians syncing their vocals or instrument performances along with the playback track. Then it is all cut together. I didn’t watch all of it (about half), but I’m pretty sure that’s the way your sample above was done. Firstly, just because that’s the way it is usually done. Secondly, that performance sounds a little more produced and polished than one would get with a live performance in that room. There were a couple of places that the sync was off by a millisecond or two (piano keys hitting, etc.). And that didn’t sound like the upright piano he’s playing in the scene… it sounded like a larger (and much better mic’d) piano than the one we see. So, that lets me know there’s a pretty good chance that was all lip synced to playback of a previously-produced track.

If you really want it to be a live performance because that’s the sound or spontaneity you want… one way is to simply use multiple cameras.

Barring multiple cameras, you shoot the performance once in a master shot… either a wide shot, or a closeup on the main performer, or whatever (probably the setup where the main performer is most visibly seen). You then use THAT as your playback track, and subsequent takes are lip sync takes of that performance.

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Michael d. Dennis]

Thanks for your reply Todd. But music videos are one thing. How do they do it in movies? I know they record audio and video separately and they use those clapers. But what if a shot is just a second or two long? (action scenes) They still do the clapper thing to sync in post-production for that short time?

I really want to learn these filming techniques. But i’m not sure what to look for.

[Todd Terry]

Hi Michael…

Sorry, I guess I thought you were talking about music videos since that’s what your posted sample was, and since they are such completely different animals than most other types of filmmaking.

[Michael D. Dennis] “But what if a shot is just a second or two long? (action scenes) They still do the clapper thing to sync in post-production for that short time?”

In a “real” movie?… yes. Every shot is slated, and every shot that has sync sound is marked (“clapped”) as well… even a short shot. If a shot or scene is MOS (silent, without sync sound) it is typically not “clapped” but it is still slated.

Now outside of “real” movies many of us (me included) don’t always slate every shot… especially if you are a “one man band” and shooting and editing your own footage (especially if it is single-system sound) you don’t necessarily have to slate every shot because you know what you’ve got and aren’t handing it off to an editor who has to wade through it and make sense of all the footage. But yeah, you’re really supposed to slate every shot, to do it right.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com