MOS feature

[Niki Mundo]

I have bought my loud MOS 35mm Russian camera that would be very difficult to baffle correctly so I'm seriously considering shooting without crystal sync sound. Shooting scenes wild without sync sound but with a MD recording for what happens next..

Then after the scene is shot I have the actors listen to what was recorded on the MD then they do their lines again and re-record on another digital recorder right there so I get the location ambience and I don't have to call the actor into a recording studio weeks or months later.

 

What do you think?

[Saul Rodgar]

It could work. It's going to make it really hard on the actors, not to mention you. Unless they are very well rehearsed and blocked, it could just push things over the edge. But if you filmed it on a separate video camera for immediate playback and re-recording purposes, it could, with good luck, work.

BUT . . .

Why not just make it silent? Or why not embracing the limitations of your camera and making it in a way that albeit not orthodox, may just make it its own. The probervial "thinking outside the box" applies here. Try watching early films by Fritz Lang, Stan Brakhage, Guy Maddin, Kenneth Anger, Norman McLaren, Maya Deren, et al. "I am Cuba" may be a good one to watch, or "Viva Mexico" which had their sound added later and trascended their limitations to attain immortality. I am not saying you should make films such as the ones made by the people I listed, but they may give you ideas as to how to embrace your sync sound issues . . . Or they may just enrich your avant-garde filmmakers cultural knowledge.

[Niki Mundo]

Why not make it silent..yes.... hmm..thinking.. I don't know maybe ..because.. it .. won't ..get..distributed? Or something? Maybe I should shoot it in b/w too! and then called it "experimental" ! ha-ha. yeah wow thanks for the laugh. Make it gaureented never to be seen by anyone except for art fags.

 

Seriously, thanks for posting. I'll check out the films you recommeded.

[Alex Worster]

You do know that most films never are seen by anyone outside the filmmakers immediate family, right? You'll be lucky if these "art fags", as you so disparagingly put it, see it. This is not just you I'm talking about but everyone, statistics is a bummer. So before you go insulting someone that is trying to help you, think.

 

Yes, you are asking for trouble but it is not impossible. Nothing is impossible, not even getting distribution for a silent film.

Edited October 24, 2007 by Alex Worster

[Bill DiPietra]

Why not make it silent..yes.... hmm..thinking.. I don't know maybe ..because.. it .. won't ..get..distributed? Or something? Maybe I should shoot it in b/w too! and then called it "experimental" ! ha-ha. yeah wow thanks for the laugh. Make it gaureented never to be seen by anyone except for art fags.

 

Seriously, thanks for posting. I'll check out the films you recommeded.

 

You ask for help and reply with sarcasm and condescension? Have you no tact whatsoever? If you are so dead set in your plan, why bother posting? It seems you have everything figured out.

 

And why is it everyone who has an "upcoming film" believes it is the film of the century that Miramax is about to pick up once it's finished? Isn't anyone happy with having their films play in a few festivals anymore?

 

The next time someone is trying to help you, keep the juvenile attitude to yourself.

[Niki Mundo]

You ask for help and reply with sarcasm and condescension? Have you no tact whatsoever? If you are so dead set in your plan, why bother posting? It seems you have everything figured out.

 

And why is it everyone who has an "upcoming film" believes it is the film of the century that Miramax is about to pick up once it's finished? Isn't anyone happy with having their films play in a few festivals anymore?

 

The next time someone is trying to help you, keep the juvenile attitude to yourself.

Easy Bill.. go take a pill or something. What's up with you and Alex? Saulie didn't get offended. I just want some technical advice.

btw, I didn't say my film was going to be a miramax masterpeice, I made some comments concerning obvious commercial distribution. Some bitter bettys around here didn't get there film(s) pick up I'm guessing hmm? Did I hit a nerve did I?

[John Brawley]

Easy Bill.. go take a pill or something. What's up with you and Alex? Saulie didn't get offended. I just want some technical advice.

btw, I didn't say my film was going to be a miramax masterpeice, I made some comments concerning obvious commercial distribution. Some bitter bettys around here didn't get there film(s) pick up I'm guessing hmm? Did I hit a nerve did I?

 

 

Perhaps it's because you took someone's freely given advice literally, then slagged them while infering that anyone who watches the suggested films is gay.

 

Saulie wasn't suggesting you make a silent film, but I believe he was suggesting that you try working around your limitations and instead of trying to cover them up, embrace them. None of the films he mentioned are silent either. They just don't have a lot of sync sound.

 

Robert Rodriguez did a pretty good job using exactly the model you propose making a film called El Mariachi. One of the most profitable independent films ever made.

[Niki Mundo]

Perhaps it's because you took someone's freely given advice literally, then slagged them while infering that anyone who watches the suggested films is gay.

 

Saulie wasn't suggesting you make a silent film, but I believe he was suggesting that you try working around your limitations and instead of trying to cover them up, embrace them. None of the films he mentioned are silent either. They just don't have a lot of sync sound.

 

Robert Rodriguez did a pretty good job using exactly the model you propose making a film called El Mariachi. One of the most profitable independent films ever made.

haha, yeah I "slagged" them..here's what I got from urbandictionary on THAT word..Slagged entered the realm of slang through its extensive use in Transformers: Beast Wars (1996) predating its use in Batman Beyond

 

Did you see that scene in Office space where they totally slagged the fax machine

 

Trying to lecture me with slang from cartoon movies.

[John Brawley]

haha, yeah I "slagged" them..here's what I got from urbandictionary on THAT word..Slagged entered the realm of slang through its extensive use in Transformers: Beast Wars (1996) predating its use in Batman Beyond

 

Did you see that scene in Office space where they totally slagged the fax machine

 

Trying to lecture me with slang from cartoon movies.

 

 

Actually Niki I was trying to help you, not lecture you, which is why I suggested a film that used the exact model you propose for your own project.

 

Urban Dictionary is a US centric dictionary. The term slag or slagged has been around a lot longer than since 1996.

 

There's a definition in the way I intended it here

 

<a href="http://www.m-w.com/dictionary" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.m-w.com/dictionary</a>

(it's the transitive verb version)

 

To save you clicking through...

 

Main Entry:

Slag

Function:

transitive verb

Inflected Form(s):

slagged; slag·ging

Etymology:

probably from 1552

Date:

1971

chiefly British : to criticize harshly

 

Niki, you asked for advice. Then in a very ill mannered way, you brush off a poster's response. Perhaps you should consider that people don't have to spend time giving you their advice for free, and be grateful that someone can be bothered responding to your post, even if the advice is not what you want to hear.

[Niki Mundo]

Must we argue semantics? I just want some more technical advice about MOS shooting, instead of all this getting our panties in a bunch over who said what when- let's start fresh. I'm ok, you're not a twinkie. Alright.

[Bob Hayes]

Feline often shot his character actors with out sound. Sometimes he didn?t have dialog for them to speak so he would have them say random numbers in an emotion context and then add the words later.

 

Much of the dialog in Friedkin?s ?The Exorcist? was done in post. Friedkin came from radio and liked directing in an audio booth.

 

Timur Bekmambetov?s the director of ?Night Watch? remade a Roger Corman film called arena. Many of the actors were Russian speaking phonetic English and doing a rather poor job of it. Bekmambetov did a really cleaver job of moving the camera during dialog often missing the beginning or end of the lines. It was super effective way of disguising the lack of sync.

[Hal Smith]

I have bought my loud MOS 35mm Russian camera that would be very difficult to baffle correctly so I'm seriously considering shooting without crystal sync sound. Shooting scenes wild without sync sound but with a MD recording for what happens next..

Then after the scene is shot I have the actors listen to what was recorded on the MD then they do their lines again and re-record on another digital recorder right there so I get the location ambience and I don't have to call the actor into a recording studio weeks or months later.

 

What do you think?

First: Don't use an MD - they record in a compressed audio format and there's no possibility of time code. Use some sort of sync recorder, a DAT with TC for instance. Tascam DTRS recorders have got pretty cheap, they're probably the cheapest recorder you can find with TC. The DA-98 has TC built in and DA-88's with the SY-88 sync option are easy to find. You will need external mike preamps, a small quality production mixer will do just fine. I've never tried it but some people have used miniDV cameras as their on-set recorder. I guess you could record your scratch track sound with one and have a video reference at the same time.

 

Second: Record in sync , use a crystal motor on the camera, and wireless mikes with belt packs. You'll find that most actors are better at recreating a performance in ADR if they've got REAL good scratch track playback to listen to. It seems to help their emotional memory and therefore they get a lot closer to what internal work they were doing while on-camera. Recreating ambient sound is easy, when you're ready to roll film, tell everyone on-set to be quiet and record some room tone for later looping.

 

The reason for all the above is eventually you're going to have to sync everything up in post, whether wild or not, and you'll have a much easier time of it if you've got sync sound, just not recorded at the same time as the picture. I was involved in a project in Chicago years ago that was done sort of like what you're thinking of and post production was a nightmare for everybody.

 

Third: Get a copy of Tomlinson Holman's book "Sound for Film and Television". It's the best book I know of for reference to every step of film and TV sound from the initial recording to release formats. His book will give you a pretty good up front warning of just how many steps and how much work is involved in arriving at a final print with top quality sound on it - often in as many as four formats (Sony SDDS, DTS, Dolby Digital, and Dolby SR Optical).

[Michael Nash]

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. ADR or "looping" is a tried-and-true process. Why add that to your SHOOTING schedule and costs?

 

Shoot crystal speed, record a scratch track, and loop the audio in post.

[Niki Mundo]

Thanks for the advice.

[James Steven Beverly]

You own a Konvas so you should embrace Soviet film making techniques. The Russians shot most of their films with the intention of looping them. Most of the Spaghetti Westerns where shot silent and dialog was ADR and a lot of Hong Kong films where shot MOS. It's been done before....a LOT, BUT if you're using SAG actors the cost for ADR will off-set any savings you would have by using your own MOS package. If your cast is non-union and/or willing to take next to nothing for the extra work, you can do it BUT be aware that extensive ADR will never match exactly especially with inexperienced actors.

 

One trick is to use very little dialog, make the film mostly visual and action oriented, Also keep the lines short and have a lot of reaction shots that you can cut to when the dialog starts to drift. Sense the Konvas sounds like a blender (55 dbs) and I've never seen a decent blimp made for one plus you're probably using a KSR-1 with a 6 volt rheostat motor (I also own one of these GREAT little cameras) which is, like you say, non-stabilized and non-sync, so even if you could blimp it, there wouldn't be much point, looping is your only option. Chin up though, "The Cranes are Flying" was shot with early Konvas' and it is, quite literally, a MASTERPIECE!!! B)

[Niki Mundo]

Thanks James, your advice and criticism is always appreciated.

[James Steven Beverly]

De Nada, Chica. B)

[Guest]

How does looping/ADR work when you're using a non synch camera?

 

The speed changes constantly on the non-synch Konvas motors, so even ADR would be very difficult. I know people have posted their work through on this before but holy cow, the trouble!

 

If you have a Konvas get the newer 17EPS crystal synch motor, easy to instal, no tools required.

 

It will still be loud but at least you can do ADR with much more ease.

 

R,

[Mike Wallach]

...you could just have actors deliver lines off camera. That would be a cool experiment actually...

[GeorgeSelinsky]

I'm coming in a bit late here...

 

I did a 130 minute feature all MOS, I shot on an Arri IIc and we post dubbed everything.

 

I think there are only two ways to shoot, it's either MOS and post dub or the real sync deal. Using FFT filters is going to make your audio suck, and bad sound is a real deal breaker.

 

The great thing about MOS is that you have one less thing to worry about on the set. You don't need to worry if a truck drove by or if you're using a noisy dolly, and that's one or two less people you have to have on your skeleton low budget crew. Mind you, if you have a soundman, you need a good one just like you need a good DP who will give you well exposed, sharp images with clean tripod moves, etc. Finding a competent one cheaply isn't easy.

 

Also, these days you don't need to rent a studio to post dub. All you need is a low budget NLE system like Adobe Premiere, some sound recording software, a TV monitor, a quiet padded room (watch for that computer noise!), a nice condenser mic with preamp (can be had for under $600) and you're all set to rock and roll.

 

Granted, now you're going to have to get your actors to do extra work, and if they're not being paid or if they were jerks on the set that's kind of a bummer (be sure to have a clause in their release that permits you to dub their voice using another actor). I'm always a nice guy, I give them food and make them comfortable, so work goes smoothly and it can be very fun for them. We can work on changing the performances, adding dialog, etc. The big minus is that some actors need work and time to come up to speed of their original performance, and sometimes if you have real mouthfuls or funny quirks in your sentences (like "ummmmthat's it") then it gets very tough.

 

Then comes foley work, which initially is tedious (the footsteps is the real killer), but when you discover what you can do with it, it's quite fun and enjoyable. I had someone who had no prior film experience help by performing the foleys, and he ended up becoming very good at it and enjoyed himself tremendously.

 

I think MOS projects work out okay if you're not on a deadline and you have time to play with, when nobody's being paid by the day and you have a good working relationship with your actors. You can go out with a crew of one if necessary, shoot something, then come back and add the sound layer by layer. You have to think of each sound individually, it's actually a very educational experience.

 

But I'm afraid that as much as I enjoyed the flexibility of post-sync, I'd never rely on it to do a major project that had its funding in place.

 

I wrote an article about it with tips, read it here: http://www.geocities.com/gselinsky/nonsync.html

 

Lastly, it's important to note that most films (esp. first time films) have too much dialog in them. The less, the better.

Edited April 22, 2008 by GeorgeSelinsky

[Dan Goulder]

Lastly, it's important to note that most films (esp. first time films) have too much dialog in them. The less, the better.

Now you're talkin'.

[Paul Bruening]

A little trick that can take a bit of hassle off your head, after getting loops, is to lean heavily on L and J cuts. Let some of the dialogue roll on top of the cut-aways. I've always wondered if anyone has made an entire movie where each character's dialogue ran entirely on cutaways and reaction shots of other characters. Wouldn't that be funky? A whole movie full of talk but you never see voice coming from anyone's mouth.

 

By the way, The Gods Must Be Crazy was looped and done pretty badly. Yet, what a delightful movie!

[Leo Anthony Vale]

Wouldn't that be funky? A whole movie full of talk but you never see voice coming from anyone's mouth.

 

By the way, The Gods Must Be Crazy was looped and done pretty badly. Yet, what a delightful movie!

 

'The Beast of Yucca Flats' goes to incredible lengths to avoid showing lips during dialogue scenes.

 

'Rat Pfink a Boo Boo' is all post synced. Not that well looped and no room tone. But still entertaining.

Lots of handheld and Carolyn Brandt can move well. The musical numbers are quite entertaining.

[Paul Bruening]

These? I love "Regularscope"

[Leo Anthony Vale]

These? I love "Regularscope"

 

Scanned from your personal copies?

 

Best thing in 'Yuckie Flats' is the sheriff, in a plane, spotting a guy running in fear across the desert.

The sheriff says something on the order of: 'He must be a fugitive. Better shoot him.'

 

Regularscope, further proof that 1.85:1 is widescreen.

 

But Steckler can handhold that Arri 16S really well.