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Lavs in a mix - anecdotal


ErikG

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As viewers we are now getting so used to hearing lavs on shots where folks walk down stairs etc. and on wide shots with a lot of movement.

So when you don't get that hyper sound of bodies moving (studio shoot of a fake studio stairwell with super sounding boom), or when having to replace it all with ADR it may not match whatever you do as a mixer, simply because the end result is now to pristine. So adding in som lav grunge/noise will make it more believable.

Stupid? Absolutely?

Absolutely needed to not get the feel that the full scene is ADR, yep you bet, at times we just have to. It's not the first resort, it's the very last, and then the director says, "NOW it sounds ok, what on earth did you do?"...

Pristine audio isn't always the end goal.

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As viewers we are now getting so used to hearing lavs on shots where folks walk down stairs etc. and on wide shots with a lot of movement.

So when you don't get that hyper sound of bodies moving (studio shoot of a fake studio stairwell with super sounding boom), or when having to replace it all with ADR it may not match whatever you do as a mixer, simply because the end result is now to pristine. So adding in som lav grunge/noise will make it more believable.

Stupid? Absolutely?

Absolutely needed to not get the feel that the full scene is ADR, yep you bet, at times we just have to. It's not the first resort, it's the very last, and then the director says, "NOW it sounds ok, what on earth did you do?"...

Pristine audio isn't always the end goal.

 

Excellent topic, Erik, and one that is thought of and discussed here much too seldom, in my opinion. 

 

It is a major problem, in my opinion, that the the public and even those in our professional have gotten so accustomed to improper distance perspective (sounds close, looks far) and inaccurate acoustic perspective (sounds like having your ear under the chin of the person talking), that it is becoming the preferred sound, with all the unnaturalness and unintelligibility of a cable news "dissuasion" program. I was actually told by a young director that he preferred that sound. Amazing, disappointing, and harmful to our craft.

 

The advance of wireless mic technology (making hidden lavs more reliable and easier to hide) has actually caused a reduction in overall technical and artistic audio quality of motion pictures. Consider this Catch 22: With close mics there is less need to control the ambience of our locations, and makes it more possible to use warehouses as "sound stages", so during shots where boom mics might otherwise be used, the ambient noise doesn't allow it. Accept in closeups that could have used a boom mic anyway, hidden lavs always give the wrong perspective, and using a lav on each actor adds phasing problems that add to my #1 professional peeve. The answer is either to replace the dialog with an ADR mic worked too closely and in the wrong acoustic environment, add compression (either electronically or manually) and/or add sizzle just so the words can be understood.

 

This could be a book, so I'll stop here. But I hope this problem is discussed, understood, and acknowledged more.

 

Glen Trew

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I am sure a lot of you do this, but when I am stuck with using lavs, for whatever of a million reasons, I will sometimes use the Boom as the room reverb, if you will. I will ask the boom op to point off axis (how much, and where, varies) in the appropriate area, and I will mix it in to get the actor's reflections off the walls, etc... in whatever the environment is to help make the lavs sound more like they are in the actual acoustic environment we are shooting in, rather than their forced close perspective. Usually there aren't any phase issues because the Boom is pointing off in some other direction. Don't use this all the time, but sometimes it works quite nicely, and sometimes you just have to leave it to the post guys to remix it because the situation doesn't allow a proper real time solution.

 

CRAIG

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I have worked with a mixer from Europe on a doc shoot. I was booming and lav the subject as I normally do. The interesting way he did was: Boom was on a stereo XY setup, I don't know the exact model of the mics, but for sure they are schoeps... I assume that he used Lav as a primary audio for the subject, boom only for the ambience, atmosphere etc.  which I found very nice, but I don't dare to do.  I was booming intensively with lav as a backup or backup to each other. 

 

Hiro

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