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Black Nativity


bigmaho

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Ok, have to toot my own horn.  Black Nativity opens today.  Lots of live singing (though not as much as I hoped) all recorded on New York locations.   Nice review in the NY Times today with a video clip from the director talking about one scene in particular.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/movies/black-nativity-with-angela-bassett-and-jennifer-hudson.html?ref=arts&_r=0

 

Here's the gloating part.  Jennifer Hudson was in a funny mood the day we filmed the scene Kasi talks about in the clip and didn't want to sing live, so we were playing the pre-record through loud speakers.  I still had her mic'd though (DPA in her hair via a Zaxcom xtr) and a Schoeps on a boom when we could).  Even singing at 10% she was absolutely incredible so I kept begging the director to let us do it live.  Finally I got one take on just 2 of the set ups where we gave her an ear wig for the instrumental and let her sing.  She was just incredible.  Still gives me shivers. 

 

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

 

Billy Sarokin

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Hope you get to see it.  It's a great twist on New York.  How many directors can pull off turning Times Square into a version of ancient Bethlehem (complete with camels).  It was a fun shoot to work on and amazed that it was pulled off so calmly in relatively short shooting days (often 10 hours).  All the numbers except one were recorded so it would be possible to use live vocals.  The director and the re-recording mixer (Lew Goldstein) pushed for as much live as possible.  From what I hear the studio wanted the pre-records.  Not sure why.  In the end, many numbers were skillful combinations of both, 

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I'm glad you pushed hard for recording it live, Billy. It can almost always be better than pre-records, imperfections and all. I think the main reason pre-records are requested and used is because someone else wants control, and because to many have gotten used to the sound of a studio recording, which never sounds like it looks like it should sound. Keep pushing!

 

gt

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It was funny, in pre-pro, Forest Whitaker insisted on signing live.  He was preaching and singing in front of a choir and in some of the numbers was joined by Angela Basset, Jennifer, Jacob Latimore, Tyrese Gibson, Luke James, Grace Gibson and more, so if he was live, everybody was live.  And it grew from there, if those numbers were live, why not do all of it live.  When I interviewed for the job they asked me how I would do it and gave them a number of options and said we'd probably use all of them.  These included ear wigs (which would have to be tinted because they only make 'caucasian' ones) and a good pro-tools playback guy because everyone would want a different feed, live keyboard playback through a PA and full PA playback of pre-records.  The only thing I suggested that shouldn't be done live was the church band.  I felt I could get all the vocals clean even with keyboards or music coming through a PA system but felt that a full band would complicate matters too much.  

 

My thanks to Simon Hayes who did Les Miserables for the tip on using DPA lavs.  I always had one in Jennifer's hair and it held her range beautifully.  And of course thanks to my crew, Timothea Sellars for her great wiring and add'l booming, George Leong on boom, Egor Panchenko on playback and ear wigs and Jody Elf and his crew.  The studio insisted on bringing in a remote concert recording company for the big church scenes.  There was no real need for it and and it cost production a mint, but they did make my job easier.  Jody and his guys handled recording the choir (with a combination of Schoeps wide cardiods on 'Pavoratti' stands and some smaller DPA's) and also set up stereo pairs for wide perspectives.  I gave them a rack of Zaxcom receivers so they could also get my main mics. 

 

Also have to thank Zaxcom.  The routing on this was incredible.  Everyone who had a feed wanted something different.  I also had to feed some of the mics through a live PA so the congregation could hear and interact.  I don't know how I could have done it without the digital routing capabilities of the Deva/Mix 12 combo.  Of course, all the mics were going through Zaxcom transmitters.  With the right mics they held the range.

 

One funny note.  For the climactic scene, Forest starts on stage preaching through his hand held when he is confronted by his daughter (Jennifer).  I knew he'd put down the handheld but he was still on the stage which was hard lit so I couldn't get a boom on him.  His frock was very thick so a body mic wasn't an option either, so I asked the producer if I could use a pin mic through the frock.  It would be visible, would sound great, but would have to be painted out in post.  He agreed.  The frock was black and gold, so I put the black mic on the black but the wardrobe people asked me to put it on the gold because if it was on the black (and nearly invisible) it would be ignored in post and never painted out.  So it went on the gold and was clearly visible.  It still is to this day.  Guess no one (except you guys now) noticed it.  It sounded great and saved a key part of a scene from looping.

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Curious to know if the extensive Zaxcom plug is just co-incidental :)  ?

Not "co-incidental" but rather that Zaxcom is an integral and vital part of the way Billy Sarokin works. It is no secret that Billy has had more experience than just about any of us with the full line of Zaxcom gear. It is not surprising that Billy would again be thankful for the features and functions, many unique to Zaxcom, that provide the means to do these jobs. Is it co-incidental that Simon Hayes was singing praise for DPA, for Deva, for Lectrosonics, on Les Mis? Same thing. We appreciate the companies that are dedicated to giving us these amazing tools. This "co-incidental" "plug" (as you call it) I think is much better than all the whining that goes on here sometimes.

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And I second what Jeff said.  For instance, I use Countryman B6 mics all the time for dialog but no way I was going to use them for the singing. They just can't handle the range required. When Jennifer really hit her highs the B6 would just squish her voice down.  The DPA can handle those high SPL's and so can the Zaxcom radios without any companding or compression.  It's important to know what your gear can and cannot do and use it to its utmost.  I use the B6 as an example because of it's small size I can often mount it right out in the open, so in the end, for normal dialog, it will sound better than a much finer mic (like the DPA) which has to be hidden.  My cart is based around Zaxcom.  These days there are many digital recorders that can record as well as the Deva, but I rely on the powerful digital routing capabilities, Zaxnet control of my radios (and mic pres) and the incredible redundancy of the system to pull off these complex shoots. I have yet to find a situation where the Zaxcom system cannot handle everything I throw at it.  And as you know, I am not shy in saying that out loud. 

 

On Black Nativity I was often using all 16 tracks available.  I had 14 mics working (plus 10 more going to Jody Elfs rig) and was also taking one or 2 playback feeds.  One of the more complex things I had to deal with was controlling the level of the playback  being fed into the Comteks.  With Deva I was able to route the digital playback feed (digital because all my analog inputs were being used) I was getting from Egor's Pro Tools playback to its own tracks (one audio, and the 2nd for playback time code) and then send the output through one of the faders of the Deva (since I was already using all the input and output faders on the mix 12) and into the Comtek output, so I could use a Deva input fader to control the playback gain into the Comteks.  All in all, we had 3 Comtek systems, Zaxcom ERX IFBs, and multiple ear wigs.  The output mix was as complicated as the input mix! 
 

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" The frock was black and gold, so I put the black mic on the black but the wardrobe people asked me to put it on the gold because if it was on the black (and nearly invisible) it would be ignored in post and never painted out.  So it went on the gold and was clearly visible. "

Thus another example of hiding in plain sight...

I might have actually pushed for just hiding it in plain sight on the black portion, as I doubt that it would be noticed as anything these days. --as shown by the fact that it made it into the movie, even more visible on the gold!

 

and please feel free to keep those plugs (aka field reports by users) coming!!

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Hey Billy: Great post. Glad to hear you were able to convince the production to do at least a couple of takes live. This is something I've fought for on number of occasions. Sometimes I actually win...

 

I usually manage to have better success on lower budget productions, where the production company doesn't want to pay a huge amount of money for a complex playback system and multiple earwigs. When we did some music tracks for small scene on a recent film, we recorded them in the actual location (a rail car), with a simple Schoeps stereo pair. It sounded great, and also had the ambiance and acoustical "space" of the location (which is almost always missing from pre-recorded tracks).

 

Congrats on a great show!

 

--S

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