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Just another lav story


filmfreak

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I was watching a movie today and as usual I was unconsciously thinking of boom and lav placement in most of the frames.

I was watching a scene were the leading actress was wearing a summer skirt, exposing her shoulders and back and was also wearing

a lot of jewelery as this was part of her dressing up style.

in particular she was wearing a noisy and big necklace that was sitting exactly in the middle of the natural V of her clothing, where let's say it would be

a nice place to position an omni lav.

Another issue with necklaces is that due to their big size they can add a masking effect to the lav's polar pattern.

I once had to deal with a similar situation and I decided that since the necklace had to be there , to raise it by sticking hypo allergic tape

at the back of the actresse's neck and therefore raising the necklace a bit so it wouldn't hit the lav.

I 've also red on this forum once about someone making specific necklaces with lavs already in the necklace but that's not my point.

Let's say that you need to place a lav on an actress who moves and talks on her left and right as well as in front.

What's the best way to approach the issue ?

My first thoughts are to stabilize the necklace either from the neck or if impossible by using a medical patch and then double sided tape

at the back of the necklace.

Any other thoughts or alternatives  ?

And just to condense all my lav thoughts in a single post I also wanted to ask other mixers of which are the criteria of deciding to do a 2 lavs placement.

I can understand that the most obvious reason is to cover both sides of the actor when he/she turns their head and have a smooth and

unchanged recording on both sides but my main concern is gain and how you can determine which gain level is right regarding the other mic.

How can you determine which is the gain level on Mic 1 that doesn't affect the polar pattern and gain on Mic 2 and therefore cause phase cancellations ?

And a last bit of lav paranoia ---> I red once on a thread in ramps that an "optimum" lav placement is a lav on the left vertical axis of the actor another one on the right and

a third one on the head so you can cover all possibilities this way.

Estimating around 2-4 minutes per lav placement , having to spend more than 10 minutes to wire up each actor seems like a lot of time to ask from production

solely on lav placement and also wiring up an actor in this way sounds like getting ready for cyber reality.

Has anyone applied this theory or is it just me thinking that this theory is being taken from a sci fi novel instead of being able to be applied on a film set ?

Aris

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In cases that you describe a "Broadway" or hair mount is best. A Countryman B3, B6 (the B stands for Broadway) or a Sanken COS 11 placed on the scalp and held in place with a few "bobby pins" just behind the front edge of the hair works wonders. The talent is never off mic and the lav sounds very close to a boom mic.

Eric

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