Alex Donkle

Two quick things... 1. Ideally you want all your shots to be as quiet as possible. If dog barks, traffic, ect... come up on some shots and can't be resolved on set, the next step is getting clean recordings of the dog bark and traffic on set. Then add those elements into the quiet shots so that everything is consistent. Non-consistent audio is FAR more distracting than any noise you'll be adding in. (this is a common issue on sets without control over building HVAC, where it's on in some shots and off in others, so in editing the HVAC room needs to be applied to the shots were it was off for consistency). 2. Radio mics are going to fail at some point. Top end wireless fails less, but it's never fool proof. Try to always have wired solutions available on-set.

Any computer with an i5 is almost certainly new enough and powerful enough to run Pro Tools, however still I wouldn't advice it. PT is honestly overkill for anyone not doing sound 100% of the time, and the audio tools in most video editing programs has been improved enough in recent years that a decent quality mix can be created in them. Your gear will work fine, provided you have good technique. A $2000 mic with a Sound Devices mixer/recorder next to your gear will both sound the same if they're 10' away from the actor's mouth. Get the mic as close as physically possible with a boom op, in every single shot, and you can get pretty decent audio with your gear. Now, on the "Hollywood" sound you refer to... honestly most mixes leave the dialog pretty clean in terms of processing. What most people actually hear and think is the "Hollywood quality mics" is actually 2 other factors... 1. Dialog editing - John Purcell wrote a book recently on this and it's fantastic. Smoothing out room tone shot to shot, removing tinny pops and creaks, ect... dialog editing is extremely tedious work removing 1,000 of tiny sounds you'd never think people notice, but once the work is done the dialog sounds 20 times better. 2. Everything else in the mix - when you add in the backgrounds, Foley, SFX, ect... and 50-200 tracks of other sounds adding depth to even the most boring seeming scenes, the audio just sounds more "real". It's hard to explain, but a well designed coffee shop scene can easily have 30-80 tracks of sounds BESIDES the dialog tracks. All those sounds are carefully balanced during the mix to shape the scene, but it's pretty rare to be in a mix and be frustrated by having too many sounds.

Definitely a good call on getting it professionally finished. Films are not technically compressed and/or mastered like music is. They are mixed by ear, and then Dolby (if you want to use their name, they require actually doing the transfer themselves) does the process as Hal suggested with the only goal of making a good recording of the final mix. For Dolby Digital, there are VERY specific requirements on the physical room, speaker, calibration, ect... that you can mix in. Dolby Stereo I'm not sure whether they have those same requirements, but in either case you really need a calibrated studio to mix sound on any film project. In music, mastering is usually another layer of the art that adds its own tweaks. On who to contact for a low budget Dolby mix in the UK? Can't think of anyone off hand, however I would check at these two forums that are more dedicated to film post sound. Tons of guys there who can at least point you in the right direction. http://duc.avid.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8 http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-production-forum/

From what I've heard Vegas's audio section is pretty good. However, if you want a true audio post production you need to move beyond Vegas to a program that can output an OMF. OMF is basically a file that organizes every audio edit you made so that an audio editing/mixing program can read it. Without this, all you can do is hand post a single 2-channel audio file and all the audio edits you made in Vegas are locked in. The biggest reason for this is dialog editing, but it really just makes the whole process easier. Programs that currently output to my knowledge are FCP, Avid (the two standards), and more recently Adobe Premiere. For audio programs, Pro Tools is by far the standard for film/video in the US.

Well, that's problem #1. Wireless lavs are never the first option. A mic on a boom, close to the actors sounds better and more natural most of the time. The Senn G2 wireless is generally considered acceptable for pro work, but not great or ideal, however NOT the stock mic. Go for Sanken COS-11D and that'll cover you for most applications. But honestly, if you want to work in features, you need a sound guy with his own gear. A starter gear list for professional quality sound will quickly get up to $6k, and that's to start. And if you find a good sound guy, he'll have is own gear and honestly wouldn't want to use someone elses (it's more of a red flag if someone offers that).

Two quick thoughts... 1. Robert Rodriguez made this work by cutting the film to sound, such that whenever the audio drifted he would cut to another shot. Not exactly ideal, lol :) 2. Definitely record scratch audio even if you can't get the sound from the camera quiet enough. It's extremely helpful latter on, and definitely get some wild takes. It depends on the actors a lot, but with a scratch track recording and a few wild lines, your sound editor "might" be able to make it work. Try having the actors loop on-set if possible, but on the sets I've been on that seems to be one of those things that gets pushed off until 3AM and everyone just says "screw it, I want to go home" or the actors are thinking that and aren't doing their lines well anyway.

What gets me is the four year time gap in the middle of this thread...

I don't have experience working with 16mm film, and to my knowledge not many people that post here do (or at least doing sound for it) I would honestly suggest posting this question here... http://www.jwsound.net/SMF/ Jeff Wexler's blog with a lot of pro location sound guys.

Well, how much are you worth an hour? And how many hours are you working on it?

The NT4 is great for recording ambiences (birds, wind, ocean, ect...) but there's no reason to use a stereo mic on a boom pole. In post it ends up as a single channel, and I feel very sorry for whatever boom op has to have that much weight on the end of a boom all day. And recording lines a couple times after a take is a great technique when you're uncertain of how it sounds for ANY reason. This is generally called "wild line readings" and your post audio team with thank you greatly (and it'll save you money from ADR in many cases). On Dark Knight, Richard King actually mentioned how they did nearly ZERO ADR because of all the wild lines the production sound team got when they weren't 100% certain of a take.

Avoiding wind noise is a combination of placement, mic choice, and wind protection. What I usually do is running an Shure SM58 (dynamic, tough as nails mic) gaff taped to the rear bumper, one in the engine, and then a stereo pair of condensers recording in the car. That tends to work best. Wrapping SM58s in felt (as shown in the links below) makes them very resistant to vibrations and wind. I admit though, I haven't worked at race car speeds with this setup. Only FX recording. Here are some blog posts you might find helpful / interesting... http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/blog/car-fx-...ases-submarines http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/blog/car-fx-part-2 http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/blog/worlds-fastest-indian

The 60 is a good shotgun, for interior the 50 is a super-cardiod and it's a better choice. The 60 is actually the replacement to the Senn 416, but so many people have come to rely on the 416 as their "bullet-proof" mic choice, that Senn keeps making them.

The Senn's MKH line = great mics and I've never been disappointed by any of them. Senn's ME line = junk and far overpriced for their quality on all the ones I've tried.

I haven't had any experience with the AT897 personally, but the cheapest shotgun I've ever been happy with is the Rode NTG-3 (which is nearly identical to the famed MKH416 that's been the industry standard for a long time). And in my experience, B&H reviews only tell part of the story. No professional is going to speng $200 on a shotgun mic and expect to match the $1200-$2400 mics they use with it. Never used the CS1, but its big brother CS-3e is just plain AMAZING. The amount of isolation you get is honestly frightening compared to just about any other shotgun I've heard. Indoors it deals with reflections far better than it should, but it also has a bit of a high noise-floor so in really quiet rooms I wouldn't use it. (Ideally a hyper and shotgun are the minimum for any location sound mixer, but the CS-3e is the closest I've ever seen to a "jack of all trades" so to speak) On a cheaper hypers? The AKG CK93 / 300B is a very good choice, or the AT4053b. Slightly cheaper, the Oktava MK012 has become rather famous recently, as it is "Schoeps-like" in many regards so it's become fairly common to swap a Schoeps for an Oktava when using blanks on-set (less expensive mic to break). The one rather major drawback is that you're basically required to have a Rycote BBG and K-Tek KSSM shockmount on it at all times, as it's abnormally sensitive to wind and handling noise (although with both add-ons it's pretty darn good)

Using a shotgun mic in a reverberant location is by far your biggest issue. A shotgun is designed to reject as much sound as possible from the sides. Great for when you've got traffic noise, crew moving around, ect… but any reverb coming off the walls no longer sounds natural. The reason is that shotgun mics don't (and can't by design) reject sound evenly at all frequencies. So say some random mids in the reflected sound are picked up by the shotgun, but the highs are not (a broad generalization). This basically means that a shotgun mic can't pick up a natural echo. The ideal mic is the Schoeps CMC6 with MK41 cap. It's a hypercardiod, non-shotgun. The wonderful thing about this mic is that it rolls off all frequencies evenly as you get off axis from it. So if you're pointing the mic straight down at someone, then start tilting the mic they'll just become softer but not sound "off-mic" as the case would be with a shotgun in this situation. This is where the standard rule-of-thumb for sound mixers has been "shotguns outdoors, hypers indoors" And if you have issues with buzzing lights, TELL THE DP. Maybe he's can't fix them, but always ask. You don't want to be sitting in the studio explaining to the director how the DP's lights messed up your sound, and then have the DP say you never even asked him. Now on sound blankets? Well you need a TON to significantly affect the reverb of a space, and make sure you're using the thick and very heavy ones or you're wasting your time. The much more common use of sound blankets is, honestly, just quieting other sounds. Tossing one on a table so you don't hear bottles being set down, on the ground so you don't hear the gravel actors are walking on, ect...

Recording to tape at this point is more of a novelty than a quality improvement. Sure, when they first got introduced DACs weren't the greatest, but at this point the higher end equipment is built extremely well and there's no reason not to record digital except maybe for a special effect or two (mainly tape saturation, although I've only ever really used that in band recording). Sound Devices 702 is very solid, 100% professional grade ($1900). A step down would be a Marantz PMD661 with a Sound Devices MixPre mixer on the front end ($1200). Or just the PMD661 alone ($600).

Yup, I've used it and it works great. Blimps work much, much better than other wind solutions. And the Rode Blimp does a great job for not much money.

It's got a hot output, so it's an issue on a lot of cameras (especially problematic on the DVX) And it's off-axis response makes it the worst shotgun that I've ever tried indoors. (Few shotguns can handle many interiors, but the ME66 is especially bad in this regard) And there are simply a lot better values in the same price range imho. AT 4073a stands out in my mind.

Well... I hate to bring it up since it is above your budget, but the Rode NTG-3 is widely known as basically a MKH416 copy with a slightly wider pattern for novice boom ops and much cheaper. $700. You may be able to find a used one, but it isn't that old of a mic. The best deal in beginner sound is the "Location Sound Package 4" at DV Creator http://www.dvcreators.net/rode-ntg-3-shotgun-mic/ NTG-3, Blimp, boom pole, 30' cable for $1k. The Rode NTG-2 is pretty decent and a good deal, but a definite step down. Avoid the Senn ME66/K6 (terrible mic in most conditions. Their are much better deals.) And couple other places to get advice... http://www.jwsound.net/SMF/ (Jeff Wexler's board) http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=29 (dvxuser.com, with a pretty decent number of pros in the audio section)

Seeing as those appear to be rather random to compare unless you have access to both of them, why not try them both out and play them back one after the other? My guess is you won't like recording to tape.

Chris hits the main points. Although in my experience it's requested and/or preferable for the final deliverables to be at least 48/16 (although 24 is better) as 48k is used for video. 44.1k is CDs and music. Although it's true there's no difference in quality if you're starting from a lower rez.

When studying coverage of scenes, I've always been a big fan of Spielberg's style and camera sense using surprisingly long takes in big budget action movies. If you like that style at all and want to learn about blocking long shots in interesting ways, then I'd suggest grabbing "Directed by Spielberg" as it breaks down a lot of his most famous shots going into how and why many different compositions where in a single shot using actor and camera movement simultaniously. An approach I've also always liked it Walter Murch's "cut when the (good) actor blinks", which is to say that you only cut when you've expressed an idea in the shot and you're moving onto another one. Specifically, he found that he was always making cuts when Gene Hackman blinked (although that's not what he was trying to do). You want to have a purpose for each and every shot, but how you justify those shots varies from director to director. And not everything is a "super artistic" reason... Why did Cameron use a shot of the Terminator stepping on roses in T2? Because it looked cool.

For better or for worse, sound can alter the way the audience hears barfing in a lot of different ways. Have done sound design work where the director didn't think the barfing scene as shot was "sickening enough", there's a lot you can do. And might I suggest don't eat directly before playing with such sound design "opportunities".

Personal opinion, but when Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, and company first created super low budget films a while back, it was impressive and maybe did help make their stories more marketable. While it’s still very challenging to make movies for next to nothing, I think the glory of it has faded. A good movie is a good movie, and the technical elements either distract or they don’t. Looking at the site and watching some clips, it doesn’t strike me as something worth paying for honestly. Impressive? Sure (and saying that fully accepting I don’t have the ability to do what they’ve done). But I’m not overly compelled to go hand the makers a bunch of money to do a feature or create a new season. I’m more impressed by someone that created an excellent 1 minute film that could pass for big budget stuff, than someone that can make a series off the same amount of money that looks and sounds amateur. There are some people that’ll pay money for movies solely on the “look what they did for only $x amount", but the vast majority of people just want to be entertained and not be questioning why it doesn’t look or sound like a professional production. Films shouldn't have disclaimers. That's just my opinion though, and everyone is entitled to their own. Having said that, projects like that can be great to help people hone their skills and meet people.

Honestly, that's no way to buy speakers. In fact, on lower end speakers most 2-way speakers are better than 3-way because to get 3 drivers and 2 crossovers means cutting costs on component quality. Not to mention that 3 way speakers are inherently worse for near-fields since the drivers get further apart so the sound between the drivers doesn't always blend correctly when they're placed close to the listening position.