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Jeff"s "Simpler World" thread


Philip Perkins

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Production sound rigs have certainly become more baroque  during my time working (early 1970s on).  I mentioned in an earlier thread that when I started, FILM sound done on location was a very different field than VIDEO or MUSIC sound done mostly in studios (video was too much of a hassle to use on location for much in those days).  The gear was very different, the people were very different and the expectations quite different as well.  Now all location audio is more like video and music audio--much more equipment intensive, and much more complex.  In the late 1970s there was no such thing as an audio mixer designed to be worn over the shoulder--that kind of portable audio was done on Nagras, and the 4-series mono Nagras didn't need much in the way of peripheral gear to do a simple job.  (We attached guitar strap brads and a battery pack to a Shure M67 to do portable audio on 3/4" and 1" video shoots.)  Now there are a huge number of choices in mixers, and the average sound person's bag-rig is a highly sophisticated (and quite expensive) combination of technologies, that generally rent for little more than the gear costs, over time.  Film sound, what is left of it, esp. on features, has become equipped the way we used to do concert recording.  Did we do this to ourselves?  I  think that, in part, we did.  We wanted to make more usable recordings while the time and tolerance for getting good audio on location dropped a great deal.  When we showed that we could respond to complex multicamera situations with the application of more wireless mics and multitrack audio, that suddenly became the norm, regardless of budget and equipment available.    On the larger jobs I work on now (film or video) the assumption is that anyone in front of the camera who even MIGHT speak is wired, and may have their own track, and that no allowance for boom mics, plant placement, rehearsals or anything other than positioning the actors and then starting to shoot will be tolerated.  My main boomista and I have had to become adept at subterfuge and disguised delay tactics in order to even get mics on everyone and a boom that can even just get ambience and a slate.  But we still try to boom the shot anyhow, even if if annoys the camera celebrities--we want them to know we're still here.

Philip Perkins

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