Need help for a zany driving scene!

[Izen Ears]

  Maybe some of you big-timers can help out an up-and-coming mixer here?

  So this is a scene where there are 4 band members riding in a car, one of them is flipping through the radio.  Suddenly he hears something, he yells out "Hey that's us!" and they all start to sing along, one of them playing his harmonica to the tune.  Then, we see another guy in the car behind them (just one guy), and he's also singing along to the same song on the radio.

  Here's what I've been told about what they want:

QUOTE:

the goal is to record the production sound sing-along, to be

seamlessly integrated with the track for transition purposes.

...

we are not currently thinking of using a trailer.

...

we want to be free to roam back and forth on the camera car with an

arm, and ideally not spend a whole day screwing around with trailers.

END QUOTE

  So it seems to me that the camera (hopefully just one) will be on an arm on another car, free to swing around from one picture car to the next.  Hopefully this other car will be big enough to put my cart on and have a genny.

  Here's what I don't know:

- if the windows are up or down (I'm guessing down)

- if we're going to rig a hostess tray

- how far away the camera car will be from the picture cars

  Here's what I was thinking about doing:

- A recorder in each car hard-wired to plant mics:

  - FR-2 in the car with just one guy (Schoeps mk41 dashboard or gearshift area plant)

  - PD6 in the car with the 4 guys (CUB mics for the front and back, cardioid mic plant in center)

  - Deva on the car camera car with me

- Transmitters for each mic to be fed by the line outputs of the in-car decks (I'll need line-to-mic adaptors for this right, any suggesions for what brand?), with sharkfins on the camera car for the Deva to get both cars' mics. 

- High powered transmitter living with me/Deva on the camera car for transmitting the playback song to both the in-car decks and the talent.

- One receiver in each car set to the same freq to get good quality playback track, also tracking to each in-car deck.

  - Headphones amp in the car with 4 guys, each feeding a hardline ear bud to each so they can adjust the volume so they can hear it over their singing.  (I feel the Phonaks are way too quiet and I bet we can conceal a clear non-squiggly ear bud on everyone)

  That way they'll definitely hear the playback loud enough (they're going to be singing loud thankfully!), and the playback guy will be living with me on the camera car and able to feed me a clean track for ref.  Also I'm safe with all hard-line mics, the weakest link being the playback which has to be wireless to maintain control.  If the Deva receivers have dropout everything's still there on the in-car decks, timecode synced. 

  I should have 3 Zaxcom TX-900AAs that I'll definitely use to record the mics in the cars, but I like the idea of having fully independent multi-track files and not having to deal with downloading the zax files.  By the way we're doing this in New Orleans.

  So any of you ever had a similar scene?  I HATE doing non-process trailer car stuff, and I always tell the director and producers that I cannot and will not guarantee that the sound will be recorded properly if I'm not there to hit record and monitor the recording.  Usually they want to save money, but this time I think it's a style thing where they want to roll around the cars.  (IMHO it's a bad idea to ever have actors driving/slating/hitting record.)

  If any of you really want to talk or correspond with me about this I'd really appreciate that, I'm on another job where Internet is spotty all week.  My number's 201.906.9064 and it's izenears-at-gmail.

  Dan Izen

[FSBELLA]

Izen,

one thing that stands out to me is the 2nd car w/the single driver. it seems from yr description, that you can record him singing anytime, and just have him pantomime for the shot. also, the actor in main car w/harmonica. if it  is not clean for any reason, you can probably record that part separately.

playback thoughts:

re: the phonak earwigs. just did this setup. my client had the song xfered to a ipod. so you feed the ipod into a M-216 tx (stereo mini-stereo mini) now you get the actor who seems to be the most tech savvy (who knows how to hit play on the ipod) the good thing here is you have the earwigs as close as possible to the M-216 tx. also, you get a PR-216 set to the same freq.or ch. as the earwigs and put that directly into one of your multi tracks inputs.(mini-mxlr)

or as you stated, use the coiled earbuds w/ea. actor getting a PR216 instead of a phonak if you go that way.

recording thoughts - hardwired:

if you do not want to have talent hit record on the Deva w/hard wired Mic's (lavs or cub-1's etc) directly into the recorder. (I don't really blame you)

then try setting up a recording rig in the back of the car or trunk. (no NOT you)

my buddy worked on a comedy cop show called Reno 911 (sorry for name dropping, but if it worked for them it can work for you) were he would place a recorder in the trunk, h.w. Mic's plugged into it, then hit record and away they go. a custom "pick n pluck foam worked great for housing such a setup. like your foam kit when you purchase a 1600 pelican, a little gaffers tape and a furniture pad for extra padding underneath. they would drive off, sometimes with him at base camp or recording another shot. when they drove back, he would quickly playback and verify a recording.

recording thought- wireless:

if you can get some high powered tx's for talent, then Mic them up and send to your multitrack recorder. it might not be a bad idea to get yourself a multicoupler w/batwings etc. it seems you will be some distance from the car.

gd luck,

ps,

let us know what setup you chose and how it all worked.

[Izen Ears]

  Thanks for the suggestions!  I'm afraid the Phonaks just aren't loud enough, they're singing loudly and a dude's playing a harmonica...

  I like the idea of leaving the decks in the cars and letting them roll, but it could be all day...  Also the playback's got to come from the camera/sound follow car in order for me to get a clean feed for the director/dailies and sync track.  There's a lot of issues, foremost being actors are going to be driving!!  Scary scary!

  I might just make production rent three high-powered tx/rxs and feed playback from camera truck on one, then feed a rough mix from each deck and not worry about using any other wires...  I'll have some Zax TX-900AAs so I can use those instead of 250mA txs to transmit the mix from the decks.  I can't rig sharkfins onto the picture cars because we'll see them.

  I don't want to use the Comtek BST to transmit playback because the sound quality sux.  Plus their in a car with the windows down and they'll need serious volume, so that's why I want to use a Lectro receiver with a headphones amp and use hard-wired ear buds so they can hear it and adjust the volume and hear it at a decent quality...

  Anyone else have any thoughts?

  Dan

[FSBELLA]

Izen,

quick thought,

if you do rent the high powered tx systems (or any others) make sure you let them know what freq.blks you are on and the ifb's. Avoid the zax freqs. and seperate the lavs and ifbs across the spectrum.

also,

I meant that you would have the bat wings in your follow van. (not picture car)

as a backup measure, you might want to have recorder decks in both the follow van and the picture van. that way if you do get out of range, you are always recording in the van w/the deck in back.

later,

[Don Barto]

I just came off of 2 1/2 months of a similar setup—similar but with only 3 people talking (and some bad unaccompanied singing now and then) in a top-down convertible, no playback.  The high-powered transmitters are a great idea—I only used a 100mw unit for the monitoring feed and would get spotty reception when we got more than about 75 feet  from the picture car—things certainly change when the transmitter and receiver are both rolling down the street in different vehicles!  If at all possible get the transmitter out of the trunk—like maybe velcroed onto a bumper, or on the backside of a headrest or seat back if that will work better picture-wise.

The biggest shock (no pun) for me was in trying to work around all of the lighting gear that suddenly appeared in the car and in the trunk—many Kenaflows and ballasts and huge inverters and marine batteries and cables carrying God-only-knows-what.  With only 3 actors, I was fortunate to get a spot on the back seat behind the driver for my sound bag.  The one time I tried putting my gear in the trunk, there was a tremendous amount of heat build-up...from the inverter and the video decks all crammed into the tiny Mercedes CLK trunk (the video decks were for a pair of windshield-mounted HD lipstick cams.  Hopefully you will not suddenly have that added complication.)

"Light the Rocket!" is what Sam Shinn the DP and I would say to each other whenever we rolled...for good luck, and to verify that we had put the HD decks and my 744 into record.  Fortunately we would only roll for an hour at a time.  As the picture car would pull away and Sam and I would scramble respectively for the camera car and the lead car, there was very much a sense of the fact that we had just launched a self-contained, self-operating probe vehicle—not unlike a Mars lander! 

Audio quality is something I couldn't really access as we were driving...because of the unreliable RF monitoring situation that was caused in part by my only using 100mw transmitters, and also by the fact that the only thing left for me to listen to was an IFB receiver...but I could tell if I had 3 working mics (hidden body mics into Lectrosonics 400 series transmitters —because we were in a convertible, and because sometimes the picture car would stop on-camera and the actors would get out and walk around and deliver lines as everything continued to roll) and I could tell if there was wind or clothing noise.  That's about it.  The camera car got very solid reception throughout on their IFB receivers (one going into the camera for reference audio, another feeding a remote Audio Speakeasy for the driver/director)—they were always very close to the picture car. Too bad there wasn't room for me that car—a  Mercedes 500 SL.

Bottom line, I would definetely use 250mw transmitters, and would consider something more RF capable than IFB receivers if the distances to be covered are excessive.  Depending on the car and the shots, jockey for a good spot for gear and antennas in the picture car.  Work with lighting to find out ahead of time what gear they will be putting in the picture car.  All of that said, you may still not have great monitoring all of the time—plan to check playback often, in fact, take time-of-day notes as you are riding so you know how to quickly get to problem spots that you may need to checkout when you get the opportunity—a good reason to jam everything to your own wristwatch!

I got used to doing our setup after a few times out.  Yours sounds a bit harder because of the playback element.  Maybe you'll get a few dry runs?  Our first hour of shooting was a complete bust due to a last-minute change of frequency on one of the video transmitters in the picture car—I didn't realize the hash I was hearing in the monitoring feed was "going to tape" as opposed to just being a part of the spotty monitoring reception.  Show the actors how to kill the playback audio themselves in case they get a lot of RF interference.  And despite all of the 2-way RF links you will have working, count on using walkie-talkie between the director and the actors—it always works. 

Good luck,

dB

[studiomprd]

well, what happened??