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Curious about "Overall Mix"


justindfox

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you are in real double edge sword territory. 

 

I find its best to see if you can ask one of the higher ups if anyone wants anything specific from the audio dept, it will also help in flushing out how professional their post process will be.

 

A good tip is to set up a mono mix headphone pre set, If it sounds decent to you, chances are post won't be able to make it sound much worse.

 

I always feed camera when it isnt too much of a PIA, it helps with syncing, watching playback, and help if TC drifts. It can save you if you god forbid forget to push record. Whats cool about the 633 and 664 is the ability to send different mixes to  different cameras, even if you are not recording them.

 

good luck, if you find a perfect solution to this widely debated topic, I'm all ears.

 

my last two cents: when handling my own post i usually dump the R channel and pay closer attention to cleaning up the iso lav tracks. theres always something that needs a bit of fixin'

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Great post, Alan. We worked together a couple of years ago at the Skirball and I really admired your minimalist (pre 633) set up then. And your resume, of course. I also mix a lot of documentaries and completely agree with your comments about protecting the privacy of the subjects/talent. With the "Gotcha" mentality of (some) reality shows pervasive in our culture, it's important to establish and maintain the fundamentally different code of ethics that distinguish a documentary from that. I provide a mix to camera (and Comteks) with the intention that the my mix will usually be what is used. And certainly what the film is cut to. I respect the intention behind your use of post fader isos, but it seems to me that it eliminates one of the primary functions of having isos in the first place, which, in a documentary, is when somebody enters the scene unexpectedly or talks to the people on Camera from off-camera to get their attention. When someone is out of the scene or on a private conversation, I find that I can maintain their privacy by turning off their wireless receiver. I use all 411a's, but introduced a SRB into my package last year for a documentary which had a lot of isos and, like others, seeking to lighten my rig. I found myself in a situation where one channel of the SR was in the scene and the other was not, but I couldn't kill their iso other than to turn the turn down the trim as much as possible. That's one reason I'm sticking with individual receivers. Anyway, thanks so much for posting, I really enjoyed reading it.

Paul

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This discussion is surely interesting to me. Much of this discussion depends on the type of work. Narrative/Commercial with a script that can be followed to cue mic's up and down, combined or as Crew mentions killed from the mix once lines are delivered.

Or

Non scripted Documentary, interviews, EPK, reality work where mixing mic's in and out when your not sure when someone will speak or visual body language (not meters) have to be read I order to anticipate those cues all while flying a boom and having 2+ wires going.

I work 97% in the latter of the 2 styles, and even before ISO tracks we had to mix with a 2 track mentality to the camera. Lavs on 1 channel, and boom on the other is what productions wanted, so that is the habit many of bag mixers have. I try to get creative and mix a little boom in to give the tracks some air, or if there is a phasing issue between boom and lavs I'll dump the wires and just boom. Rarely do we mix it all to one track. The exception is a live newscast with multiple lav mic's.

There is surely a fine line between the 2 especially with a mixer strapped to your chest and a boom over your head.

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I go with the headphone preset configured mono and it really helps get a solid mix to camera which is usually a split.  Host on channel one, all other lavs on channel two.  I record prefade isos as well.  The show I work on constantly has the players coming and going so they can really save me if I don't happen to see them before they speak.  If a boom gets mixed in, I'm sure to iso it also but the mono monitoring can enable me to really hear the phasing with any nearby lavs.  I try not to do that, but I can't wire everyone.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry for the delayed response. I've been swamped with work the past several weeks and being sick for several days. I wanted to apologize to those that I feel like I've "offended" in any way shape or form, it certainly was never my intention. I'll admit I'm still a "green" in the industry but I've worked and dealt with using a simple recording set up (DR-680 w/G3's), until I recently worked with an experienced sound mixer who helped me pick and choose the right gear that would be light enough for my small frame but still be an industry standard. I've tried again and again to search for things on this site but every time I search I get these weird almost broken links to the site (see attached image). I've cleared my cache, tried several internet browsers, and even uninstalled and re-installed them and still get the same results when searching. This is why (for the 2nd time now) I've made a posting and received comments on how I should search through the forums better, plain and simple I can't! I'm running on a 2009 Mac Book Pro tried using Safari, Chrome, and Firefox with all the same results if anyone can help with this problem feel free to comment or message me. Now to the ones who have left plenty of helpful comments I thank you for doing your best to explain to a newbie like me what you exactly do for certain situations and how you feel it's best done in our industry. I always feel rather intimidated to say and ask, but I've only shadowed a couple of sound mixers for about a grand total of 5 or 6 days after about 3 years of working, so with that being said and as many different clients I've had (and never received a complaint that I'm aware of) I feel like I've done fairly well for myself.

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If it's a doco project I know that I know I'll be doing the post mix on I perfer to record post fader ISO tracks and don't worry about a mix. I personally would rather have levels that are relative to each other and be able to easily drop out radios that arn't playing, like Alan. I see this as almost a hybrid between a mix and ISOs, utilising elements of both.

This is similar to my workflow when I am involved in the post editing or mixing. Often sending a phase coherent mono scratch mix to cam, and seperate custom mono mix for comteks (director, script, Dop, etc) Cam folks often veto the scratch mix and that's fine, TC slate and sync box on cam (no need for sync box if Alexa) at the least and after discussion with post, they merge the ISOs down to a mono track for picture editorial (sometimes scrapping clothy radios if they prefer. Since I check phase coherency of the mono mix, this all works well and we re-assemble my post fade ISO one pic is locked via timecode. Result is great, happy cam folks, happy post , happy clients, most flexible sound editorial and mix!
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