Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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Just because there are SO MANY new folks here that follow these threads, what you’re seeing here is the reality of audio production.
You start with the basics, and as you practice, you keep coming up against issues that you hadn’t had to consider before. I remember well the project Waaaay back in my career where I had to dump camcorder audio forever. Up to that point I’d been in relatively RF quiet locations and had gotten away with unbalanced audio extensions for my simple interview mics. Then I hit that location (which happened to be FULL of aquariums with little motors and fluorescent lamps – and everything BUZZED to hell and gone.
I had to pull the plug on the shoot and rent a camera with balanced mic inputs and do REAL audio. Once I faced that – I had to bite the bullet and buy a whole new camera and started collecting balanced audio equipment – much of which I still have and use today.
This is the STANDARD path from amateur to professional. You do the best you can – until some problem crops up that only better tools and learning better techniques will solve – then you either stop growing or re-invest and move forward.
That’s why there’s NOTHING wrong with using prosumer gear – or with asking for help on places like the Cow. But it’s also why when you’re confronted by concerns about a problem – and those who’ve been working professionals tell you there’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” to solve it – you’re free to choose what someone may opine is the “wrong way” but if you do, you can’t complain if something goes wrong later on.
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1. Product photograpy is a specialized craft and few people can simply buy gear and do this at a high, professional level.
That said…
2. Search on Tabletop photography for general setup and lighting requirements.
3. If you’re going to INTERACT with the screen, things become much harder.
The primary issue is that the screen is backlit and most LCD displays are VERY bright and at a VERY high color temp – typically over 6000k. So you’ll need to match that with your talent/keyscreen lighting.
HMI’s are a good choice here.
But it’s STILL going to be a battle between the ambient light of your set – the light coming off the iPad – and the light you’ll need to keep the talents hands properly exposed while against the light of the screen.
Finally, in most product shots, the hero (the pad in this case ) is artistically placed (either square to the viewer or at a pleasing angle in use) and ROCK STEADY while being used.
This typically is acomplished by a hidden rig of stands, arms and mounting brackets that FLOAT or HOLD the pad in the correct position relative to the camera – and the talent works around that position.
Again, this stuff is NOT easy to do at a high level of quality.
If you’re serious about quality results, you might want to partner with someone who understand’s product photography. The kinds of folks who will gladly take 90 minutes to properly rig what’s necessary to knock out ONE stray highlight or shadow that they don’t want on the product.
If you’d like, take a look at the Appriva Pay spot on the front page of my web site: http://www.newvideoaz.com – it’s similar to what you’re trying with a touch screen interface phone.
It took about 8 hours to rig in the studio. About 3 hours to shoot. And many hours in post – much spent on stuff like getting the finger/shadows believable when the hand is making choices on the phone.
Good luck.
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Dude,
You ARE driving. And inevitably if you keep doing that – all the mysteries of driving well will reveal themselves.
By all means, keep pushing for more knowledge – but yeah, also remember that while theoretical knowledge is always useful and may even be critical in some circumstances, it’s practical knowledge that usually gives you the real edge in the real world.
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Rodney,
It seems we’ve had different experiences.
In rough terms, the difference between a mic level input and a line level output is around 40db.
So I guess it depends on the attenuators you use. If you’re expecting, for example, a 15db in-line attenuator to make enough difference, you’re correct, it simply won’t. OTOH a 40db pad should match this circumstance well. I know a LOT of music stores sell pads that end up at around 30db top end – and this MIGHT not be enough to get the job done in normal circumstances – particularly if you’re recording something like a rock band.
My XLR accessories box is ALWAYS stocked with at LEAST a pair of 10/15/20 db pads – AND a pair of 20/30/40 pads – it’s typical to use one or the other as needed, but I do remember shooting a really weird performance that involved a jet engine powered go-cart and, IIRC, I was worried I’d have to stack the 40 with another pad in order to get the level coming out of my Sennheiser MD-414 large diaphram dynamic wrestled down to something a mic input could handle!
Turned out The 40db pad worked fine by itself.
That’s sound for ya!
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I’m not commenting on the equipment issues here. Just the tendency of people to get caught up in concerns about using the “right” equipment.
Do you ever wonder how Elvis became a star in an era without transistors and integrated circuits?
Do you ever wonder how all the radio and tv song hits happened before the japanese electronics industry was re-born after world war II?
Do you ever wonder how it was possible for economically disadvantaged kids to fall in LOVE with the same great songs as everybody else when all they could afford for listening was a cheap transistor radio?I’m not trying to say that quality recording is unimportant – not at all.
The point I’m trying to make is that while equipment and recording technique and a thousand other things are important. The are NOT the defining issue when creating lasting artistic work of importance.
My advice to the original poster is to go find ONE shure SM57 and ONE shure SM58. These will cost you under $200 total is you shop on Ebay. If you can’t find “original” ones – don’t worry about it. Just buy what you can afford.
Have the singer sing in to the SM-58 which has a slightly better pop filter and has been used for hundreds of thousands of to 40 and even top 10 performances – and use the SM-57 to record the guitar. DO NOT worry about putting them in the scene. Who are you tryiing to fool? It’s a RECORDING. Everybody understands that mics are involved. If you want to make the recording the best it can be – get the mics close to get the best recording. Simple.
The point is that if the PEFRORMANCE you’re recording is worthy – a decent recording of it will also be worthy.
If the performance is less than worthy, the finest mic in the world will NOT make the performance better. And if trying to make a performance better is the point of your work – accept that and pull out the auto-tune software and don’t worry about who or what you’re recording – knowing that you’re going to re-build everything in post anyway.
Equipment doesn’t make artists – equipment records what an artist already is.
If the artist is killer good – a recording with a cassette recorder will ALSO be killer good. Ask anyone who’s listened to the Allen Lomax recordings of artists like Leadbelly.
ANYthing you record on today will be a thousand times better than his gear – and his artists shined through just fine.
Just sayin.
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I don’t know many sound practitioners who don’t carry a pair of line to mic level pads in their audio kit.
Go to the B&H or the Markertek catalog sites and search for 20db XLR inline pads.
They’ll not only solve this problem, but many others when you go to take a “line feed” in a hotel ballroom or other FOH situation and find the level is wrong.
Basic kit.
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Rodney,
I heartily agree with everything you wrote. Including, by the way, the realities of ENG work and the necessity of sometimes accepting that what you can get — is what you can get.
Perhaps one of the reasons that I’ve been so vehement in this discussion is because it’s so hard for newbies to understand reality of what I’ve come to think of as the CURVE of QUALITY.
Let’s assume a project where it will take a skilled practitioner 10 hours to get a first cut that’s OK –
In my experience to improve the quality of the work by 10 percent might take TWICE THE TIME. And to get from GOOD to EXCEPTIONAL might take a whole week! The pursuit of quality is nearly always along a difficult curve of diminishing returns.
So how are we going to DISCIPLINE ourselves to push beyond being just OK when there’s a PENALTY extracted for taking the time to be better than just OK?
Many don’t. They just gleefully take the easy way and let quality slide. They prize “cheap”, work on little margin, don’t pay proper taxes or for insurance or business licenses and work out of their Parent’s bedroom and with a 5dMkii they claim that their work is “JUST AS GOOD” as the big players work. Hell, maybe it is! But it’s also unsustainable.
Doing audio on a 5d without double system, strikes me as a clear sign that someone has decided that OK is good enough. And I don’t quibble that sometimes that is precisely true. But it’s also a TRAP. If your STANDARD becomes OK – then you’re willingly leaving yourself stuck in the great pack of OK.
And I suspect that the next generation of men and women who are going to find their names on the credits of the GREAT work 10 or 15years from now – and hopefully retire satisfied with comfortable bank accounts and fond memories are NOT going to be those who stop trying at OK. Because OK is way too easy these days. Any knucklehead who can afford a 5d and read these boards can get to OK in a jiffy.
Every still photographer who starts playing with their DSLR’s “movie” feature is potential competition in OK. Every 15-17 year old with indulgent parents or grandparents is potential competition in OK. There’s GOT to be something that keep the rest of us pushing beyond OK.
I make one small stand against that idea of OK with my dismissal of on-board 5d audio.
Again, I’m NOT saying it’s EVIL, or that it can’t be justified. Simply that I won’t make it MY standard. And so I won’t waste my time trying to learn tricks in order to make it something it’s inherently not.
Yes, it MIGHT be OK in many circumstances. But OK is simply not the standard that I aspire to.
YMMV.
Simple as that.
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Christina,
Successful keys are often about geometry.
And the geometry is about limits. You have a limit as to room height, width and depth.
You have more limits depending on the kind of shots you need. A full length single person stand-op shot requires a much different geometry than a sit down two shot.This might help you understand some of the issues that aren’t particularly obvious when someone comes to green screen design for the first time.
Imagine that you’ve set up a camera 5 feet above the ground. You take a string and you run it from the camera lens to the head of a person standing six feet from the camera. If you extend that string to the wall behind them, it’s going to be MORE than six feet above the ground. And if you allow an extra foot of headroom at the SUBJECT, that string will hit the wall EVEN HIGHER. The GEOMETRY of the “shot cone” expands such that elements like how close or how far you position the camera from the green screen AND how much room there is between the camera and the subject ALL change shot geometry.
And that’s just height. Think of depth as well. If the talent is standing six feet IN FRONT of the GS and you want a HEAD TO TOE shot – you’ll likely have to extend the green area ON THE FLOOR for 8 or even 10 feet out to allow you to light and key the space in front of your talent.
And the more you pull you camera back to get the floor in frame, the more green screen space you need on top AND on the sides of your key screen.
The truth is that green screen areas get big FAST when you’re designing them. So if you’re smart, you’ll get the camera and lens combination you’ll want to use for your work. Take it outside – point it at a big wall, and measure how much width, height, and floorspace you’ll need to prep to get the kind of shots you want in your set. That will help you understand how to design your GS area more than anything else.
Better to get surprised by marking distances and angles on paper, than to find out that you’ve put your ceiling lights too low and they’re cutting off the useful geometry of your key.
Hope this helps.
Good luck.
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Without hostility or ANY combativeness –
Danny, just to put you at ease….
Answer 1, YES, I’ve followed Tramm’s xcellent hack since it was in Beta. (And I’ve shot with the 5d itself since about 4months BEFORE he announced ML. Great work, his. Too bad his talent will likely never be adequately rewarded since Canon added enough of what he accomplished in his evolutions in their second round firmware upgrade to make it’s functional inconveniences (like the re-boot issues) problematic to many producers like me.
As to my overall “qualifications” to discuss audio for video I’ll leave those for others to expound upon.
But, since some here seem to be calling me out for lack of understanding and experience, allow me to reflect back to you a reality acknowledged by BOTH the Juicedlink AND the Sound Devices web sites.
“Throttle back the 5d’s noisy pre-amps to the maximum amount possible by setting the audio level to one click above FULLY ATTENUATED.”
Responsible manufacturers who understand audio are ALL saying exactly the same thing. The circuitry in the 5d is SUB STANDARD and have to be set to BARELY pass a signal if the self noise profile of the camera is to be diminished.
Look, if YOU feel comfortable with the 5d as the repository of the MOST CRITICAL COMPONENT of your hard work (THE CRITICAL AUDIO TRACK) that’s just fine with me. All I’m saying is that I moved on. And I’d argue that the VAST majority of working 5d users have done the same.
From my watching on Chris Hurds board – Tramm has less and less time to work on trying to keep up with this stuff. And as the new cameras come out – particularly the newer DSLR/Camcorder hybrids there will likely be a diminishing market for any solution.
Until we see, we have to make choices that let us work TODAY.
I have.
Feel free to make your own.
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I’m not going to beat this to death. I’ll just tell you two TRUE stories from my career.
I was shooting a relatively famous boys choir and taking a feed from the FOH mixer for the soundtrack. I heard clear, noiseless singing and a beautiful rendition of the voices. So smiling, I handed my headphones to the music director. He listened for about half a second and got a horribly stricken look on his face. “I’ll fix that IMMEDIATELY” he says in a panic and runs to the console and starts twisting knobs. I keep my yap shut and after he gives me a “thumbs up” I put the headphones back on – and suddenly there were midrange and bass sounds from the choir that I HAD COMPLETELY MISSED HEARING. The MORAL? At that point in my career, I hadn’t really learned how to LISTEN to a choir (or really, any complex audio signal with UNDERSTANDING), so I never knew anything was missing from my mix.
Story two involves hearing my audio work the first time in a commercial theatre. These were before the days that I was able to afford my studio and good speakers. I’ll never forget the AWFUL 60hz HUM that came on before the dialog track ever started – something the 3″ speaker on my TV had completely hidden from me during the mix.
Yes, I’ve seen and heard not just DSLR but lots and lots of CAMCORDER shots hit television and the local news and even national broadcasts. Sure you can mostly hear the dialog. But that’s NOT the same as developing a QUALITY audio workflow that can go anywhere without embarrassing you as a producer.
You guys want to keep working in a way that works just fine for now – but never actually addresses the process of making your audio tracks AS GOOD as your video tracks out of something like a 5d – then fine. Free country. Go right ahead.
I suspect that somewhere down the line, you too will have EXACTLY the kind of experiences that I had where my failure to understand more than “it’s clean, so it must be OK” in audio terms led me to moments of professional embarassment.
At that point, you’ll go one of two ways. You’ll keep “making do” with sub-standard audio systems constructed around inadequate breakable non-locking mini-jacks and unbalanced to balanced gizmos that suck up money because the CAMERA isn’t equipped for grown up audio – or you’ll learn that the risks of embarrassment are something you wish to put behind you.
An H4n costs under $300. Cables, real mics, and accessories will probably stretch that to around $1000 to make audio something you don’t have to EVER apologize for.
You don’t want to invest that – and the time to learn to operate with appropriate tools ALL THE TIME as insurance against failure – great.
Rock on.
Perhaps you’ll NEVER face a client or customer who DOES know how things are really supposed to sound and doesn’t like that mini-pin crappy solder joint crackling that developed after a month of using on-camera mic input on your 5d.
Luck be a lady and all.