Hiding a lav mic on a child with tight clothes

[Blaalyd]

Hi

 

First of all sorry if my english isn't perfect.

 

I have had a couple of jobs with a child wearing "close to the body" t shirt. I can't find a good way to hide my cos11 on her. Either it shows through the t shirt, or it results in rustling noise. I have tried a lot of different concealers and tape. I have considered the hair but I find it hard to place a mic in her hair when it is pulled back in a pony tail. 

 

Any idea?

 

Jesper

[Constantin]

Regarding a mic in the hair: talk to the hair/make-up people and ask them to do it. A pony tail is actually not bad, because it can hide the cable - to a degree. But they know how to best get a mic in, they will usually have some experience with this. 
 

on a t-shirt something to try might be the neck seam or line or whatever it’s called. It’s fairly easy to mount a mic there (sideways) and to tape the cable along the seam round the back. 
 

For both these rigs a smaller mic wpuld be ideal. A Countryman B6 or a DPA 6060

[Rick Reineke]

+1,

a B6 (or other sub-miniature mic)  in a tee shirt neck seam.

[John Blankenship]

One method is (with wardrobe's cooperation) to open a slit in the seam in the back and thread a B6 inside the seam to the front. This eliminates the need to run tape around the inside and has less chance of it coming loose with movement. 

[VASI]

Sorry if I will be off the topic,

 

But for me is: Child = No wireless

 

I don't know if I am correct or wrong, but that's my pov regarding child and wireless. 

[Constantin]

6 hours ago, VAS said:

Sorry if I will be off the topic,

 

But for me is: Child = No wireless

 

I don't know if I am correct or wrong, but that's my pov regarding child and wireless. 

I disagree. Children need to be wired. If you have an adult and a child in the frame, the child is much further away. They also don’t have trained voices and may get distracted by the boom. 
the above mentioned mic on seam method allows us to mic the shirt before anyone even wears it and so the child may not even be there. For other mounts I always make sure I explain everything and that the parent and caretaker are there in addition to wardrobe. It’s no big deal

[BAB414]

19 minutes ago, Constantin said:

I disagree. Children need to be wired. If you have an adult and a child in the frame, the child is much further away. They also don’t have trained voices and may get distracted by the boom. 
the above mentioned mic on seam method allows us to mic the shirt before anyone even wears it and so the child may not even be there. For other mounts I always make sure I explain everything and that the parent and caretaker are there in addition to wardrobe. It’s no big deal

Also, you want to do everything possible to ensure you get the performance since ADR with kids could be difficult or impossible. That's why I almost always wire them in addition to the above mentioned reasons.

[Dalton Patterson]

One suggestion, Production Insurance. 

[soundchris]

Most kid´s clothes like jeans or jeans jackets are usually stiffer than grown up ones, because the manufacturers don´t reduce the thickness of the fabric, when they make them. So kids produce more rustling noises than the big ones. Thats why my first choice would be a boom. But because most of them are amateurs and you can´t rely on them, I always wire kids.

[Constantin]

1 hour ago, soundchris said:

Most kid´s clothes like jeans or jeans jackets are usually stiffer than grown up ones, because the manufacturers don´t reduce the thickness of the fabric, when they make them. So kids produce more rustling noises than the big ones. Thats why my first choice would be a boom. But because most of them are amateurs and you can´t rely on them, I always wire kids.

That‘s very true, I‘ve had the same experience 

[mclaindigital]

I just worked a narrative short with two kids 8 and 10 with this exact situation using COS11ds. I was wishing I had brought some B6s or DPAs. 

I had decent luck with the collar seam area - rigging the cos11d sideways. My main hurdle was hiding the pack (Lmb) - I ended up rigging it behind their head on the backside of the shirt collar(!) and hiding it and the antennae with their long hair, which worked better than on their waist for certain scenes as their shirts kept riding up to reveal the tx - and a waist strap wouldn't have worked since the shirts were too tight. Both my thigh and ankle straps are huge for their lanky bodies, and most scenes had them walking through. 

I also tried using two tiered layers of moleskin as the base, then another layer of moleskin over the mic with the capsule hanging over the edge, then I used the curvy brackets that come with the Bubblebee lav conceler and used those on the moleskin rig for protection against the shirt rubbing, and that worked pretty well! Seemed to be just slightly thinner than the Bubblebee. 

+1 on using smaller mics. Live n learn.