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Recording a boxing match, no booming


Blas Kisic

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After a fruitless search through old threads, I resort to ask here myself:

 

We will be filming in a boxing gym for two days, with several real bouts scheduled. I need to cover the sound from all angles, but there can be no booming whatsoever - there will be a single camera angle –very wide – but the producer wants the best possible sound.

 

We did a similar shoot a few weeks ago, which was broadcast live on TV. They had a remote truck and a number of mics, and I was able to tap into the tracks they were using for the broadcast. They had three mics (B6s, according to what I was told) on the mat and four hanging mics roughly in the middle of the mat, approximately 8' above the ground.

 

That sounded very good, and I figured I could start with a similar plan: I'm thinking of placing four PZMs on the corners (or maybe they should be at the edges between the corners?) and hang one to four MKH50s from the rafters. But I wonder if we should also hang shotguns from different parts of the area?

 

What makes more sense for the mats, PZMs or omnis? They obviously should be inconspicuous, but I want them to sound good as well. The B6s they had at the afforementioned match sounded great - I'm leaning in that direction, maybe with COS11s…

 

I'll be extremely grateful for any comments or suggestions you may send my way.

 

Thanks in advance,

BK

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No dialogue. It's an actual fight, and they want to capture all the sounds as best as possible.

Of course, I'm planning on hanging a shotgun over each corner, so that I can cover any discussion between the fighter and the corner men, but that's it as far as "dialogue."

 

Thanks,

BK

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PZMs in the corners will get stepped on and record loud footsteps.  If they'll let you rig above that would be best, like your broadcast friends (divide the ring into quadrants).  Lavs well padded up high on the corners (get the breathing), small mics around the edges, love the idea of the mic under the canvas for the big smackdowns.  Wire any person you can.  Sounds like fun.

 

philp

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Hi, Laurence.

Fischer is out of the question, as the location is a cramped gym in San Francisco. However, we will be hanging mics (probably MKH50s) from the rafters, along with a couple of MKH416s or 60s, in strategic spots.

 

Thanks,

BK

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Is it a lively sounding room? I've been in some small gyms that were very "dead." 

 

I have no practical experience to contribute here, but I've done a few un-mic'd theatrical performances and just placed spaced omni's across the front of the stage and an xy somewhere in the audience and thought it sounded very good.

 

Depending on the height of the ceiling, I think an omni flown over the center of each quadrant of the ring would sound nice, mic the coaches and ref and place an xy that matches camera perspective for stereo ambience?

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Thanks, RJBerto. Your approach seems to be the most sensible, without being overkill…

 

Unfortunately, I won't be able to visit the room until the prep day, so we'lre trying to cover our bases here.

And thanks for the stereo mic for perspective - we actually have a tetrahedral mic, which will provide the spacial perspective.

 

Cheers,

BK

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No dialogue. It's an actual fight, and they want to capture all the sounds as best as possible. Of course, I'm planning on hanging a shotgun over each corner, so that I can cover any discussion between the fighter and the corner men, but that's it as far as "dialogue."

 

That's doable. What if you put a wireless lav on the corner man in addition to the other mics? 

 

I'd vote for hanging Countryman Isomax mics (or the equivalent) over for corners of the mat, and maybe a well-placed shotgun here and there. The problem is really going to be dealing with the background noise of the building itself. I've been in a few boxing gyms, and all of them had pretty noisy fans, HVAC problems, traffic, other people working out, etc. 

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Blas, I think your plan sounds good. Wires on coaches if they'll wear them. Otherwise the corner mics should get something.

I worked a boxing match a few weeks ago, and the coach (and other corner guys) refused to wear mics. They wouldn't ever wear them, not just for matches. Booming was really tough (I was able to try). Cameras doing wides. Like Marc said, the gym was loud as hell and general crowd noises. I also had multiple cameras and a crowd that jumped to their feet and surrounded the ring for the final match (the one we cared about).

Because there was a ton of matches back to back, I didn't get to try putting mics on the corner post somewhere. That might have worked for getting the between round coaching.

I don't think you need the floor of the ring mic'd like professional wrestling or MMA does for those drops. A lot of pro wrestling setups will even put a mic under the ring to get those slams.... But that's not really applicable here.

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Sounds fun, let us know what you end up doing and how it sounds!

 

Well, I'm back from the gig. We ended up hanging two MKH50s from the rafters, and COS11s on two corner posts. No coaches, no ref, no lavs, no PZMs. Unbeknownst to us –surprise, surprise– a decision was made to shoot some POVs, some "bag training" and a "walk-through" of the gym, for which we could have used more lavs and plants but, since we only packed for what we were told we needed (the gig was in Oakland) we were missing some essentials.

 

We had a PA run to get condoms and Moleskin, which obviously saved the day, but it would have been preferable to know what to expect and deliver. Oh, well…

 

Anyway, we were stretched thin because we had to pre-rig _two_ rings. All in all I'm happy with the result, because we had some time to record ambient sounds and some wilds with the principals, which will be mixed in for the final piece.

 

Thanks again to everyone who contributed here!

BK

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What did you use the condoms for? What was the water risk?

Chris, we had to lav athletes as they trained for their bouts. They sweated copiously. The only place to hang the tx was around their waists, which got hot and humid quite quickly. We wrapped the txs in a condom.

BK

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