Recording Demolition & Explosions

[jason porter]

Hi

I have a doc shoot coming up where I will be covering a few different building demolitions and mining explosions.  Having never really recorded FX before, does anyone have any advice on mic type (dynamic, I assume) placement etc...

Thanks

-Jason

[old school]

Hey Jason, I have recorded many movie explosions which never,(seldom) sound like they will on screen, and are different than the real thing that you are doing, but if I were about to do your job, I would use as many tracks that I had available, say up to 4.  With a selection mic's at different distances from the explosion. A dynamic mic close(sm57?), maybe two spread apart if they are large structures and you want stereo image. A good condenser back further that can handle a high spl. Then in the way back, a good figure 8 that would face the explosion and demolition and the reflection off the environment. Most sound editors would be happy with that. I'm sure there are many other combos, but that is my gut feeling from what I gather from your post. If you need to feed HD Cams, I would mix and pray that the A2D and mic pre holds up but rest well knowing I had a number of good tracks that post could use. Good luck.

CrewC

[Noiz2]

Jason,

I would get as many mic's and recorders as you can out there.  You could probably ask for folks on this list and poss the DUC.  Depending on where you and the demolition is I bet you could get a few folks to help out recording as long as they get to keep/ use their recordings.  I know a number in the Bay Area that would go for that deal if they were available.  I often go off on FX collecting trips just to build the library, but you don't come across buildings comeing down all that often.