Richard Ragon Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Worst environment ever... (and best) Disneyland.. Paradise Pier.. We had to do random interviews.. couldn't use a lav, only boom. We were able to shut off the street music, but that left us with 4 rollercosters running over the pond, and a parade coming though ever few hours. Talking on the set was the least of my problems.. Over in New Orleans Square today.. maybe better today. -Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Heath Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Doesn't seem like the worst. Could be better for sound, but you are in a theme park, with roller coasters. Nothing to do but "go with the flow", that and maybe ride one while on break. The producers should of known it was gonna be noisy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Kennedy Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 I shot in a furnace assembly plant last week that was 50 ft. from a freight train shunting yard and about 1 mile from a municipal airport. We shot in the office, so neither was visible, but you sure could hear them both! My absolute worst location in at least 10 years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justanross Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Well right now I'm working on an oil rig which is basically shooting on top of the loudest gennies I've ever heard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miramontes Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 haha..sounds like the start of a "worst location ever picture thread". Justan, can you post a pic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boomboom Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 If their camera shot reveals it's a theme park then there's no issue. It'll sound like what it is. Slide a 416 in as close as you can and the dialog will cut through nicely. I did a gig with the governor in a working steel mill, which was also under further construction at the same time. The producers were happy -- even surprised -- with how good it sounded. I used my venerable 416 snuggled against the frame line and positioned to "tune out" background noise as best as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsnd Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 i think what he meant was "best location ever" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Almalvez Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 You should grab a turkey leg while youre there, nom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Well right now I'm working on an oil rig which is basically shooting on top of the loudest gennies I've ever heard. +1. Machines, aircraft, tremendous RF/radar, weather, salt spray, filthy everywhere etc etc. what have I forgotten? phil p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Feeley Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 A couple weeks ago: Drive up for an interview as across the street three tree trimmers are climbing with their saws and positioning the chipper. Luckily, we were able to work out a schedule with them and our subjects that had us suffer through only a few dozen minutes of horrendous noise. You silence more machines with honey than with vinegar... Well, most of the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whit Norris Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Several years ago we shot several scenes for a film at a local air show in Pittsburgh. The scene took place at a air show but that did not help! Best is doing car work on the stage against a green screen instead of a trailer! Much better! Whit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justanross Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 haha..sounds like the start of a "worst location ever picture thread". Justan, can you post a pic? Boom boom, just posted a pic. We actually just met. We were both on the same job together. It sucks. Production doesn't want to multi-track and are only paying to run two wires and a boom. Which most times the boom is useless. I just shake my head when they ask how is the audio. Boomboom and I were basically just getting guide track for subtitles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justanross Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 If their camera shot reveals it's a theme park then there's no issue. It'll sound like what it is. Slide a 416 in as close as you can and the dialog will cut through nicely. I did a gig with the governor in a working steel mill, which was also under further construction at the same time. The producers were happy -- even surprised -- with how good it sounded. I used my venerable 416 snuggled against the frame line and positioned to "tune out" background noise as best as possible. Yup that's pretty much what I do. It is what it is. Trust me I don't stress about it to much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rasmus Wedin Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Two years ago I did a reallity gig where we followed comercial airline crews (airhostess, stewarts, pilots..) working inside passenger airplanes. The airline wouldn't allow us to use wireless for the risk of interference, so I had to go boom only. No head room for the boom at all, passengers/crew/carts/luggage always in the way, cables getting caught in the arm rests/chairs, really cramped space, no way to move around at all and on top of that, the constant, massive roar of the engines. That was probably the worst environment I've had so far. For the best sounding gig, we were doing interviews in the jungel in the Philippines for Swedish Survivor. The jungel always sounds like a traffic jam, but one really early morning we set up and it was just dead silent. Not just quite, but like sitting in one of those un-echoing chambers. I've never heard something so quite before. The foliage dampened every word spoken and the whole jungel was asleep. For about 15 minutes, then all hell broke loose again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo Villegas Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Me too, I'm out on one of them rigs. For the second year! This morning my cameraman was commenting on how under normal circumstances what we consider in this location to be quiet would be completely unacceptable for a sitdown interview but somehow it ends up working. There are places in the rig for sure that can be completely unusable... Background noise hitting the +12 LED on my 552 and no possibility or time to put a wire. But most of the time they (we) make it work ( it's a very narration heavy show mind you). For sure it would be nice to have many more lavs at our disposal, but that's a very long discussion that isn't necessarily only the producer's fault. My point is, sometimes the locations we are in are essential components of what a show wants to tell a story about so there is nothing we can do about it and the best you can is good enough. In this cases good communication with your director (who in this case happens to be the shooter as well), and understanding what they want/need to capture to tell the story is essential. I'd say that in this particular show your sound is only as good as your director will allow it to be. Pablo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Reilly Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 So far...following unscripted interactions between a host and numerous cell tower workers wearing 5 lavs while putting on safety harnesses and otherwise clanking around when not speaking, speaking on camera or speaking off camera (2 cameras)...mixing and booming as best I could while trying not to trip on snake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justanross Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Me too, I'm out on one of them rigs. For the second year! This morning my cameraman was commenting on how under normal circumstances what we consider in this location to be quiet would be completely unacceptable for a sitdown interview but somehow it ends up working. There are places in the rig for sure that can be completely unusable... Background noise hitting the +12 LED on my 552 and no possibility or time to put a wire. But most of the time they (we) make it work ( it's a very narration heavy show mind you). For sure it would be nice to have many more lavs at our disposal, but that's a very long discussion that isn't necessarily only the producer's fault. My point is, sometimes the locations we are in are essential components of what a show wants to tell a story about so there is nothing we can do about it and the best you can is good enough. In this cases good communication with your director (who in this case happens to be the shooter as well), and understanding what they want/need to capture to tell the story is essential. I'd say that in this particular show your sound is only as good as your director will allow it to be. Pablo Why ya gotta come on here and make me look like an idiot? :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo Villegas Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Was not the intention at all! This is just what I tell myself so I can sleep at night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Ragon Posted February 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Today the Disney Broadcast engineer showed me how he can turn sounds like 'atmosphere music' on/off with his phone. We were on main street, and he said watch this.. a few pushed buttons on the iPhone, and WHAM.. background music went off on main street. He said he can control lights too.. including the castle lights. All for filming related items. Wow... that rocked. -Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Feeley Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Today the Disney Broadcast engineer showed me how he can turn sounds like 'atmosphere music' on/off with his phone. We were on main street, and he said watch this.. a few pushed buttons on the iPhone, and WHAM.. background music went off on main street. He said he can control lights too.. including the castle lights. All for filming related items. Wow... that rocked. -Richard That is totally cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 We were able to shut off the street music, but that left us with 4 rollercosters running over the pond, and a parade coming though ever few hours. It's gonna be uneven, but trust me, iZotope RX2 might be able to notch out about half of the background noise during the final mix. Make sure you get lots of room tone ("theme park tone"?) to help the editor mix and match stuff. Depending on how well I know the crew, I would ask the director, "hey, can we get some B-roll stuff showing the rollercoasters for cutaways?" That way, they'll have something to go to during the interview, both visually and to show the source of the background noise. If you want, send me a 1-minute mono WAV file, and I'll send you back a demo of what some gain-riding and iZotope can do. It's a pretty miraculous tool for certain kinds of things. You'll never get rid of all the noise, and sudden rises and falls are issues, but for constant background noise, it's pretty effective. Oh, and in worst-case scenarios, try the old MKH816 and get the interview subjects to stand still. If that doesn't minimize the noise, nothing will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsnd Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 the iZotope NR plug-in's are pretty top notch, but I tend to prefer waves znoise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edmond Smith Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 You should grab a turkey leg while youre there, nom. Nom? Really?, But I agree with the Turkey leg. and like John B. said, the audience can see it so no biggie really. "If we can see it we can hear it." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundslikejustin Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Today's location was a un-used office block - vacant since the mid 90's - (and they left most of the old stuff there. Dot matrix printers, 3 button microsoft mice, beige box computers. Nothing turns on. Sound's great so far....right? The office is at a horse and dog racing track. It was race day. Also, they had a window that they had to remove (for some reason unknown to me) and everything, including the irrigation truck, the aircraft flying overhead, the dogs yapping under our feet, the race announcers and the gene truck came flooding in. Not to mention the clients that were only interested in having their own personal IFB (when they weren't requested in the deal memo), the HUGE transmission tower next to the building that flattened all my radios (got about 6m of range at best), the RED EPIC blasting away in the corner, the low-ball rate..... whine done. time for some wine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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