Hi, I thought it might be of some interest to fellow forum members if I wrote a short report on my first feature gig here in Scotland. Please excuse my amateurish blunders, or at least go easy on me'
I just got back from a 5 week (low budget) indie shoot from a first time Dutch director. We shot in the North of Scotland mostly in and around a small town Called Forres. (where by the end of the shoot the locals basically wanted to lynch us..) I was the sound crew, and worked from a bag.
My kit list was:
a 744T - + Ambient lockit box
dual lectrosonics SR series with sanken cos11s
MKH 60 + panamic boom
sennheiser G3 camera hop and iem.
that was basically what I used for the whole shoot!
I had a back up 2nd unit sound kit (non hire)
SQN 4S, Fostex FR2, sennheiser416
+ bits and bobs including a rode NT4 stereo mic.
Firstly as you can see I wasn't actually 'production sound mixing'. I was limited to recording iso's.
The only thing I could do, was to reroute the scratch track every now and then if the noise floor from wind or whatever was too high.
The shoot was almost all handheld, a day of steady cam and a few lively music sessions.
There was lots of unscripted dialogue, and used mostly non-actors, many local 'characters' from the pub 'The Eagle', which was a bit like the wild west. In these parts, it felt more like we were recording a reality tv show. But this was the directors intention, to mix documentary with fiction.
The protagonist was a small time criminal that goes on the run from Amsterdam and ends up in small town Scotland. He basically is 'the outsider'. We shot a lot of him walking. Through forests, towns & beaches etc. (I work mostly as a sound editor in post production, and think these shots would sound best in a foley session). There was a stampede of footsteps following us - the director,creative assistant, 1st ad, camera assist etc. But looking back at the audio rushes I mostly managed to limit the bleed, and always when possible got a wild off camera. At one point I tried attaching one of the lavs to the actors boots, and was quite happy with the recordings.
Lav mounting is not my speciality. I used exclusively RM11s, and was generally happy. The lead actor had a slightly pronounced chest which gave a natural cavity, and the lead female had boobs. This more or less worked. A few shots where the protagonist was running off shouting, or there was just too much ambient noise, I always tried to always run wilds. If the actors were wearing many layers of clothing, I would try to mount the lav not too deep (in button holes/scarves etc). When shooting car interiors, I mounted the radios on car visor/mirrors and got decent dialogue, though some cars are noisier than others.
I did have the lectro TX's gain set at full. and sometimes had to push the RX levels too. I tested different setups, but as I was recording on to channels 3&4 of the 744T I needed all the level I could get. This sounded ok to me.
I love the sound of dialogue recorded with my MKH60. I find that if recorded quite hot, the mic lends itself really well to a little natural gain, and delivers nice rich dialogue.
The 744T was great, reliable and very easy to use/configure. The stop button, was a bit sticky, so occasionally at the start i was rolling for a long time past the CUT!
The ambient lockit box was also entirely reliable (the camera was a sony F5), and the only thing that occasionally went wrong was when the camera hop RX ran out of batteries or after a break I forgot to switch it back on. And I used way too many AA batteries, my green conscience was battered. (as was my food).
In general, I was always thinking of the recorded tracks and how they would appear/sound for the dialogue editor. Using this as a reference point, I tried my best to get everything, and am relatively happy with my audio rushes.
Mostly the shoot was a complete blast! I'm not sure if such a good time would be had on much bigger shoots, we were a crew of around 12 and the evenings were spent drinking whisky and dancing a lot. (in a caravan park).
Thanks for listening... feel free to slaughter me
