Microphone advice in a city environment

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If you don’t have a boom-operator, then your next-best choice is putting a lav mic on the actor.

The transmitter “box” of a wireless system does not make noise with movement (if you are not “out-of-range”) but its possible that the lav mic itself will pick up clothing noise if its not carefully placed on the actor.

There are several lav mics that can be connected to any brand of wireless transmitter that offer designs that reduce the incidence of clothing noise.

As an example, Google for “Tram microphone” and “Countryman microphone” and read the info at the links.

[David Jones]

IMHO, use your shotgun on a boom pole into channel 1, and the wireless Lav into channel 2.

[Mazuroo]

Anders,

Use both, that way you always have a backup. Regarding the noise with a lav, put a nice, thick foam wind screen on and tuck it under their shirt (just not under a jacket or scarf). The great thing with video as opposed to live sound is that you have much more head room to EQ and boost gain in the final mix. Every TV show now has the actors wearing RF for outdoor shots. Take a look at one of the 70 Law and Order spinoffs, you can always pick up the bump of the beltpack (yes, we saw it Mr. President) in the small of the actors back and sometimes even the mic element on their chests. You should experiment with mic placement for each shot, so bring a pair of high quality isolated headphones to listen to your takes. Dont worry about have perfect audio in the can, fix it in mix. Hope this helps.

-tim

[Anders H]

Thanks for the help. I used a boom and a wireless lav and it sounded great for the first day of shooting. Much better than previous projects and time will be saved trying to work out audio problems.