[Ty Ford]

Hello Jiri and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

You might get an answer to this here, but it would probably be a good thing to try the Pro Tools DUC.

https://duc.avid.com/

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

Great advice Richard!

That’s exactly how I’d do it.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

OK.

Here’s the thing. The point is, he should want good lighting and good sound. To get that, the crew needs to work as a team. Lighting being able to work around boom issues.

Some years ago (here I go again) I was on a commercial shoot. The next setup was for a guy to come through a door we had built and give some lines. I set my boom on a locked down rig and went to talk to someone. When I came back lighting had put up some light and were calling “boom shadow.”

Because I had worked with these folks before, I said. loud enough so everyone could hear, “That’s not an audio problem, it’s a lighting problem. But if you want I’ll go wire the actor and get yucky lav sound instead of using my Schoeps.” I took my wireless rig back to wardrobe and wired him up. By the time I got back, lighting had figured out how to light the scene without the shadow. I felt like I had graduated from “kiddie school” and thanked lighting for working with me so we could get the best sound.

I told them to expect me to fight for every INCH closer I can get the mic, because the sound will be better.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

Hello Ryan and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Is this with many different people on different shoots?

Is it about getting good sound or keeping the microphone out of the frame?

I get the occasional weird request and usually ask for clarification. If where I had the mic sounds better than where they want it, I’ll hand them the headphones and let them hear the difference. Then say, “so you want your position, not mine, right? I just don’t want you blaming me for bad sound when you hear it in post.” (said always with a smile, btw)

Years ago, back in the days when cameras recorded to tape, I was hired for a typical convention shoot to feed house sound to a camera. My mixer was line out. His camera was line in. I set tone from the mixer and set his camera to record it at -20. When the show started, I was hitting his camera with -10 peaks. He got very upset and told me to lower peaks to -20. In the moment I agreed to, but told him that it would under record the audio and cause noise.

He later emailed me that the beginning was RECORDED TOO LOUD AND WAS DISTORTED. The only thing I could figure was that somewhere in his post system, there was a mismatch; a line level feeding a mic level. I told him to put the tape into the camera, plug in headphones and listen. Since I was listening to his camera through the camera return circuit on my mixer, I knew it would be fine. I sent him a copy of my book and never heard from him again. Yay!

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

Sorry, I don’t know how HoC does that with tracking shots.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

yes, you probably can’t change the lighting from that of the master shot.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

Per my original comment, you want a tight pattern and less reflection.

Anything you do to achieve that will help.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

Hello Ryan and welcome to the Cow Audio Form.

You’ve heard some good ideas. Hopefully here are some more.

First, a shotgun is NOT the mic to use. It will pickup reflected sound. You need a supercardioid like a Schoeps CMC641 or Sennheiser MKH50.

Yes, lay down blankets and have talent stand on one if possible to catch the first bounce of floor reflections. You can also use C-stands with arms to hang other blankets just out of frame. Get as many as you can and try to form a 180 degree semicircular barrier around the front of the talent.

I don’t know what your lighting setup will be but hanging a 20’ x 20’ silk over the talent will damp sound from the walls and ceiling.

You could try a cardioid lav, but I get that you want to boom the shot.

OK, here goes. In the series “House Of Cards” they do a very neat trick. They don’t use lavs.
The stand ins come in for lighting. When lighting is done, the set is emptied of people. The camera rolls X number of frames with no one on the set.

Talent comes on set. The boom ops are also on set and in the shot. They roll, allowing the booms to get plenty close. At no point can the talent walk in front or behind the boomers. In post, they bring up that first footage of the empty set and use it to mask out the boomers. There was a question about tracking shots. The “House Of Cards” post team said they could handle that as well.

Other less technical fixes include, inflating small balloons with helium and letting them rise to the ceiling. With enough balloons, you can cover the ceiling and reduce sound bounce.

One solution will probably not work if the environment is live enough. You may need ALL OF THEM.

How’s that?

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader.

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

No.

Please send me a link to tyford@tyford.com. Set your link to unlisted.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog

[Ty Ford]

Hello Patrick and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Yes, the embedding process here is just plain weird. I can usually wade my way through it, but hopefully the new “face” for the Cow will make things easier. I think we’re supposed to see that before the end of the year.

Choose the right-most icon – File Upload.

there are about 3-4 steps after that allowing you to name and choose the file and hit upload. After the upload a new screen appears that seems to want you to fill in stuff and post it. BUT also on that screen there’s a link. Copy it and paste it in your post. I’ve just done that process to see if I’m right. Here’s my pasted link.

12681_01tyfordcommlvodemo.mp3.zip

I previewed it and it looks like it worked. How about trying that?

When I click on the link I get send to a very uninformative page, but there’s an icon of a computer disc with a down arrow on it. If I click on that icon, the file will download to my computer.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford’s Blog