Matthew Freed

Films typically rely heavily on one or more booms. Plant mikes are also very helpful. Lavs in actors frequently present more problems than they solve but can be useful in wide shots or when an actor has a line far away from the boom. "Well, the thing of it is, you'll be adding in so much later on. FXs, ambiance, music, ect and often times the recorded dialogue won't be of high enough quality, requiring an ADR session (which needn't be as expensive as you think). When I was working on the bolex doing audio, we'd record a scratch track on the day, then i'd re-record the actors in a closet, with coats to dampen sound, later on and lay it in. Just required a laptop with video playback of the day's audio and then them re-recording it. You could also even just put headphones on it." Contrary to what you seem to think properly recorded dialogue for films is rarely replaced. If the dialogue is not of high enough quality then you should try hiring a professional, experienced sound team. You'll be amazed at the positive results. "One of the biggest problems you'll have with audio you get on the day will be the hums, buzzes, cars passing, sneezes, squeaking floors, ect... Most of which, if you can't cut' round will need to be rerecorded." Those are location problems, not sound problems. Big difference.

Good sound isn't cheap or easy, but it is possible and it happens every day on productions.

I know this is an old post but I have to put a response. First, the misconception that most or all audio is replaced in post is just downright stupid. Real productions hire experienced and skilled sound teams who mix and record the sound properly so it does not need to be replaced in post. Very, very few actors are food enough to truly recreate the emotions. Sometimes ADR is needed and it is a necessary evil but it is by no means a large percentage of a professional movie. As for how long does an ADR session take? It depends on how good your actor is at nailing their emotions and lines. And how good your audio editor is at piecing it together. You know the best way to do ADR? Don't have to do it. Hire a good, professional sound mixer who knows what he or she is doing...budget properly for it and listen to them on set when they tell you it can't be fixed in post.

As Phil said, you can record the TC from an external generator on to one of your two available audio tracks on the H4N but there will be negative consequences for that. Denecke and Ambient make stable, reliable timecode generators. You can pick up a used Sound Devices 702t for pretty cheap these days. It has a built in Ambient timecode reader/generator and you have the added benefit of a professional recorder with two channel recording capabilities and TC is written in to the metadata. Timecode is not cheap, especially accurate and stable timecode.

I realize this is an old post but some light needs to be shed here. A Zoom H4N can record up to 4 channels of audio. They take the form of two stereo interleaved WAV files. One file is the on board stereo mic and the other file is the two XLR inputs. You can plug one lav mic into XLR input 1 and your second lav mic into XLR 2. Input 1 shows up as the left channel and input 2 shows up as the right. You do not have separate gain or volume controls for 1 and 2. The gain and volume controls affect both channels. Will this work? Kind of. Will it ssound good? Nope. The H4N is a lousy little recorder and far from professional. It can be useful in a pinch when you need a disposable recorder that may get blown up from recording explosions. Nothing audio related at Radio Shack should ever be on set. Ever. Behringer is half a step up from Radio Shack. When a sound mixer records multiple mics and people to one channel it is because he/she knows what they are doing and they are actively mixing the microphones. They are not simply setting the level and leaving it. And you do not want an omni mic overhead. A couple cardioid or hyprcardioid mics are more appropriate. Lav mics are typically omni but shotgun mics, VO mics, etc are very much directional.

What is the purpose of the mic? Dialogue on set? Voice over recording? Inside? Outside? It's like asking "what lense should I use?"

I don't know much about the union wages but non union day rates are between $550 and $650. Gear is ALWAYS extra. A good sound package for ENG (bag work) costs around $30,000 to buy. Film packages are upwards of $100,000. Gear rates typically start at a couple hundred per day for a boom, two wireless, small field mixer and audio being mixed straight to camera via cables. Additional wireless lavs, wireless camera hops, TC sync boxes, IFB kit, etc are al a carte and generally hired/rented as production needs them. And keep in mind...not all audio gear is created equal. A Wendt X5 mixer is a 5 channel field mixer but it's a piece of crap. A Sound Devices 552 or a Zaxcom Nomad 6 are also 5 and 6 channel mixers, respectively, but sound far better and are light years better and more capable in the field.

Do you personally want to be a sound mixer for films? If yes, start investing in good audio gear. If no, don't bother buying any audio gear. Your money will be far better spent hiring a skilled, knowledgeable, and experienced sound team. Mixing and recording sound properly for a film takes far more than a shotgun mic and a recorder with XLR inputs. It takes a lot of specialized equipment and, more importantly, people who know what they are doing. Hiring a "green" sound mixer will only yield bad audio and bad habits. Neither of which serve you in the long run other than hopefully teach you what not to do. If your aim is to be a producer you can be served well by learning a bit about each department, what goes in to a PROPERLY run set, and where and how to allocate the budget. A producer gets to be a producer by experience not by simply adopting the title.

Bit depth, sampling frequency, and frame rate are three completely different things. Bit depth (16 bit or 24 bit) gives you dynamic range of your audio. Think of it like how clear your blacks are on a video camera. The higher the bit depth the more dynamic range you can record (which is a good thing). The sampling rate is how many times per second the audio recorder snaps a "picture" of the analog sin wave. The higher the sampling rate the more accurate the audio recording. Music recording is standard at 44.1khz or 88.2khz. Audio for picture is at 48K or 96K, sometimes up to 192k. the Nyquist theory states that sampling rate must be twice that of the highest desired audio frequency to be captures. So, if you want to record an audio signal at 20Khz then you have to sample it at 40khz, minimum. Frame rate on your audio recorder must be set to the same rate as your camera. So, if you're shooting 24 fps on film then set your audio recorder to 24 fps. If you're shooting 24p on video then set your audio recorder to 23.976 fps (it has to do with the digital conversion of the picture and I don't fully understand this). If you're shooting at 30 fps film, set your audio recorder to 30 fps (either drop or non drop depending on the camera settings). Same with video. 29.97 for video. There are no prosumer cameras on the market that adequately record audio. The circuitry is very poor and is generally an after thought. After all, they are tools for recording pictures, not audio. An audio recorder will yield higher sound quality and more control over the audio signal.

On its own your ARRI camera is accurate. On their own any audio recorder is accurate. But, you need the two devices to be accurate TOGETHER, which is where timecode comes in. Timecode was a pretty big step forward in helping to sync audio and video and it saves tremendous time in post production when using FCP, Avid, or any other non-linear editing system. Here in 2010 it is absurd to be shooting anything without using timecode. To be spot-on with your audio and video or film buy a good audio recorder (Sound Devices, Zaxcom, etc) and jam timecode from the recorder to the camera while ALSO using a timecode slate or dumb slate. This will give you two methods of syncing the audio and video together. Using only a slate will tell you that the sync point is locked but that doesn't eliminate drift over a long period of time. Timecode jam helps eliminate this problem. No two timecode crystals are created equally so therefor their clocks will be slightly different. Now, this may only be one or two frames over the course of the day but any amount of difference is unacceptable.

Yes, spoken like a truly ignorant camera op. The slate serves PRODUCTION first, not sound. The slate serves the purpose of visually identifying the scene to the camera and providing a visual and audible point of reference for the camera and sound to be synced TOGETHER. Your pretty pictures are pretty useless without sound. Well, unless you want a guy playing an organ at the front of the theater...