Lynne T Posted May 1, 2017 Report Share Posted May 1, 2017 Thanks for this, Jeff! Really amazing to see these mics and their respective boom set-ups. And yes-- we are definitely working under different circumstances these days, especially with a lot of indie cinema -- noisy locations and the advent of mumble acting. I always appreciate when I get to work with actors who have a theatre background-- you can tell immediately as they have incredible vocal control and range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomsound112 Posted June 19, 2017 Report Share Posted June 19, 2017 Awesome pics. Thanks for sharing this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundtrane Posted June 19, 2017 Report Share Posted June 19, 2017 On 5/1/2017 at 11:33 PM, Jeff Wexler said: many of the most talented actors had learned to speak properly so that they could be recorded properly lost nowadays with 95% of actors... sad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted June 19, 2017 Report Share Posted June 19, 2017 (edited) Fascinating! I operated Fisher studio booms and also Mole booms in the mid to late 60's in the UK Imagine a long arm Fisher with a Sennheiser MKH 804 (long shotgun) a true feat of skill. Here in NZ I bought, for a company, a Fisher location boom $1,500 in 1977, what a steal? mike Pic attached of the probably only surviving Mole boom in New Zealand. It was used as a prop in a US tele movie, so I restrung it properly and set the weight balancing so it was completely usable. Edited June 20, 2017 by mikewest Photo added Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmgoodin Posted June 19, 2017 Report Share Posted June 19, 2017 Another reason for the disappearance of the boom mic is less disciplined directors and actors who didn't want to worry about overlapping dialogue with off camera characters. When Multi-track recording reared it's head on the Altman films one of the main reasons for wiring everybody and putting each actor on a individual track was so the actors and directors could relieve themselves of the responsibility of keeping each line in the clear so the scenes final timing could be determined in the edit. This allowed much more improvised dialogue and Altman's favorite trick overlapping dialogue where 2 actors would be having simultaneous overlapping lines. Trying to cut those types of scenes with single-camera coverage was always a nightmare. That is another reason for extensive ADR in situations where there were quiet sound stages and well blimped cameras where you would think it was easy to capture good production dialogue. There was a resurgence of the "Method Acting" Stanislavsky method from the 30's revived in the late 60s and 70's by Actors Studio teachers Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. This caused a lot of actors to shout or mumble their lines depending on the mood that struck them during the take. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted June 20, 2017 Report Share Posted June 20, 2017 11 hours ago, cmgoodin said: Another reason for the disappearance of the boom mic is less disciplined directors and actors who didn't want to worry about overlapping dialogue with off camera characters. When Multi-track recording reared it's head on the Altman films one of the main reasons for wiring everybody and putting each actor on a individual track was so the actors and directors could relieve themselves of the responsibility of keeping each line in the clear so the scenes final timing could be determined in the edit. This allowed much more improvised dialogue and Altman's favorite trick overlapping dialogue where 2 actors would be having simultaneous overlapping lines. Trying to cut those types of scenes with single-camera coverage was always a nightmare. That is another reason for extensive ADR in situations where there were quiet sound stages and well blimped cameras where you would think it was easy to capture good production dialogue. There was a resurgence of the "Method Acting" Stanislavsky method from the 30's revived in the late 60s and 70's by Actors Studio teachers Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. This caused a lot of actors to shout or mumble their lines depending on the mood that struck them during the take. But even with actors wired and on separate tracks the acoustic separation would still cause an editing problem when an overlap occurs. mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted June 20, 2017 Report Share Posted June 20, 2017 13 minutes ago, mikewest said: But even with actors wired and on separate tracks the acoustic separation would still cause an editing problem when an overlap occurs. mike Thank you. It is always amazing to me how often producers or directors somehow think that a lav mic on one actor cannot hear the other voices in the room, that the sound will somehow be as though they were all in separate iso booths or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmgoodin Posted June 21, 2017 Report Share Posted June 21, 2017 21 hours ago, mikewest said: But even with actors wired and on separate tracks the acoustic separation would still cause an editing problem when an overlap occurs. mike Well not entirely. If off camera people are on wires and being recorded and they pipe up over the top of the on camera actor at least you can use that take's sound because the off camera persons dialogue can be mixed in from the ISO track at the appropriate level. You are stuck with the timing of the interruption in the edit but both lines quality are usable. But if the off camera person was also off mic and not recorded separately it would destroy the take because the on mic and on camera person's dialogue would be contaminated with off mic overlap and no perfectly-synced on-mic recording to cover it with. So the solution is ADR of both characters separately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted June 21, 2017 Report Share Posted June 21, 2017 I think the solution is to work as they likely did on "Rosemary's Baby", which is to avoid overlaps from off-camera actors during close-ups, no matter how the actors were miced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted June 21, 2017 Report Share Posted June 21, 2017 Off camera actors do not always deliver at performance level or intensity from my humble experience. mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted June 21, 2017 Report Share Posted June 21, 2017 1 hour ago, mikewest said: Off camera actors do not always deliver at performance level or intensity from my humble experience. mike Exactly. If they aren't actually trying to make their on-camera colleague laugh are screw up.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted June 21, 2017 Report Share Posted June 21, 2017 Exactly, and if they were holding close eyeline by a 35mm camera they were covered in camera noise! mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ormas Posted June 22, 2017 Report Share Posted June 22, 2017 A divorcee falls for an over-the-hill cowboy who is struggling to maintain his romantically independent lifestyle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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