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I cant believe this just happened. Entire days work for nothing, Remember kids details.
Hello friends, I am going to be quick and to the point. Firstly this was completely my fault, as the audio guy its my responsibility for the final output of the audio no matter what happens.
I did a gig the other day and in which I thought everything was going well. Sound was good, recorder was good, like all of us I have a habit of checking things dozens of times and all was good.
I then happen to walk by the camera (this is a XDCam the op is a fantastic op with many years of experience) and noticed the volume bars were moving. I found this to be odd since my mixer was powered off at the time. Upon closer look I noticed that the camera was set to use front on board mic instead of the back XLR inputs I was plugged into. Many curse words were said. I can not believe that both of us missed that for a entire day. The only thing I do not get is the fact that I sent tone several times throughout the day, do not really get how he set his levels to match the tone without noticing but that is beside the point. The only good news is there is a couple more days of this shoot so I can “redeem” myself a little.
Sorry, there is no real point to this topic other than to serve as yet another reminder to check EVERYTHING 2 or 3 times during a shoot.
On a side note, I hooked up the RET monitor for the producer to listen so I could not monitor from my mixer. The producer never put on the headphones.
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24 Replies
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Hi Donnell,
Thank you for sharing this. A wise engineer once told me that one can never be too careful whether in the studio or on set as we are always a knob away from disaster.
Alain Koffi Sessi
Sound Designer -
Tough lessons
Id have wanted
1) the camera man wearing cans all day.
2) a return feed off the camera to cans by me, so i could hear what the camera was recording, and i would have wanted to hear my tone back from the camera on this.
3) A safety back up recording at my mixing position as Ill presume that someone will let you down if at all possiblepeter
Post Production Dubbing Mixer
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Yeah, its an extremely tough thing because of how simple the solution is. Although I would never shift blame and again I am ultimately at fault no matter what, I do have to ask.
On most shoot I do not notice the camera, hell I rarely even plug in the tails I usually set them next to the camera and tell the op to plug them in. Its your camera I dont want to be responsible for any settings to get switch. How did you set levels to tone without noticing you were not getting tone? Its a mystery to me. But again its not really his problem its mine.
Just a really tough thing to happen. When things go wrong like that it messes with my psyche for a long time. I wont be able to sleep for the next 3 days until the gig wraps and probably a couple weeks after awaiting the fallout.
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You mention about tones!!
Ive come across many cameras (XDcam/ Digi Bets etc etc) that have an internal menu setting, whereby when the cameraman selects BARS (quite usual for line up part of the process) the camera will generate its own INTERNAL tones, not look at your input tines.
Might that account why the cameraman may well have lined up tones (that the thought were yours) to the meters correctly, but then when he switches back to camera mode he records front mics???possible??
Peter
Post Production Dubbing Mixer
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You know that makes sense, although later that week I found out that most of the personal there thought I was recording completely independent from the camera so he probably thought he didnt have to worry about it. Although its still odd since I plugged in tails straight to the camera.
It is what it is, a screw up by me.
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Having been at both ends at various times, and more times than I care to remember, it’s always a team effort. Every link in the chain is mutually responsible for cross-checking and finding/fixing errors. More recently for the past several jobs I’ve been at the camera end, and frankly I lay more blame at that end for the job you described because he was responsible for being sure that he was receiving and recording the right audio. If I’m at the camera, I can’t blame you if I didn’t set my camera’s audio input to the right source, that would be my error. Note to camera op: if you hear sound through your headphones from nearby people or objects, you’re recording the wrong audio.
Joel Servetz
RGB Media Services, LLC
Sarasota, Fl
videobyjoel@aol.com
http://www.rgbmediaservices.com -
Hello Donnell and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
Giving your only means of verifying what was going to the camera was your mistake. If the producer was not using the phones, no one was driving the bus and it ran off the road. If you want to provide monitoring for anyone in the future, get a headphone distribution amp.
I am truly sorry for your pain.
Regards,
Ty Ford
Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide -
Whats the lesson from all this?
I always presume that everybody else will cock it up, so when they do, Ive my own solution ready.
PeterPost Production Dubbing Mixer
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HNY Peter,
What would be your solution here?
Regards,
Ty Ford
Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide -
Hi Ty
As in my 1st post in this thread. Had i been there Id have insisted1) the camera man wearing cans all day.
2) a return feed off the camera to cans by me, so i could hear what the camera was recording, and i would have wanted to hear my tone back from the camera on this.
3) A safety back up recording at my mixing position as Ill presume that someone will let you down if at all possible.Peter
Post Production Dubbing Mixer
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