Sound equipment making it in the movie...

[RPSharman]

I saw a movie tonight, big budget movie from about 15 years ago, and there's a scene where the love interest of the main character is chasing him out of a party to get him to come back inside.  As the poor, tiny actress is running in heels across grass, you see her wireless pack with a big black thigh strap slide right out of the little dress and right down to her ankle.  There it was.  Not for a couple of frames, but at least a full two seconds as she ran up, until they cut to the reverse.

It is of no fault of the sound mixer, of course, and knowing that there MUST have been video playback on this film, it's odd that this was the chosen take or the only take available for the edit.  These days it would be painted out with ease.

Just curious if any others have good stories of... "Why did they use THAT take?"  I'll try to think of one too.

Robert

[Ron Lacheur]

In Stand By Me, there's a shot of the four boys walking up to the train tracks after Teddy dodges the train. One of them has their radio mic out under their pants dangling around as they walk up the hill.

Never would have noticed it but it was pointed on in the commentary.

[curleysound]

"Fire In The Sky" is a film that I've seen many times, and only recently I noticed a wide shot where Travis the main character tells his best friend to leave. When the best friend pauses at the doorway, there is a window above it, with a perfect silhouette of a Schoeps in a PSC mount in plain view!

[Nicole Hankerson]

ATL-You can see the boom in New New's sun glasses when at the pool.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman-When the wife goes to the office and opens the glass doors you can see the boom op guy through the glass. It goes by really quick so you have to watch.

Nicole

[Cloud Wang]

i saw a whole boom pole in the film " changeling",almost the end of the movie that Julie talking to the prisoner in the prison cell,the end of that scene,a whole boom pole

saw boom shadow moving on Tom Hanks face in the film " Angels and Demons",when he talking to the girl in the lab

these two are really huge budget....

i don't mean to anyone here if they did the films... just the topic reminds me a little...

[Izen Ears]

In Stand By Me, there's a shot of the four boys walking up to the train tracks after Teddy dodges the train. One of them has their radio mic out under their pants dangling around as they walk up the hill.

Never would have noticed it but it was pointed on in the commentary.

  I have the story behind this!  I worked with Jerry O Connell (the kid who's tx fell off in the scene) and he told me before that scene, there was some problem in another scene and he called cut, some kind of technical reason he told me but I forget.  He was then was thoroughly chewed out by Rob Reiner and told there was only one director.  Then when the tx got loose in that scene, Jerry was so scared of another chastising that he just held onto the pack and then told the director later that it fell off.  But that was the take he liked so they went with it! 

  (By the way Jerry O is a wonderful and professional person, one of the best I've come across to work with.)

  Dan

[studiomprd]

so, whose fault is it when the equipment gets in the movie??

it is the Camera Operator's job to notice stuff in the frame, and report it, but ultimately, there are lots of folks who could be responsible for it being there, and lots of other folks who should notice it.

it is also interesting what the eye-brain can allow to go by, and comare it to what the ear-brain will notice about a sound issue.

I have already described in another thread my own personal "guest shot" in a movie from long ago... to notice any such problems.

[RPSharman]

so, whose fault is it when the equipment gets in the shot??

it is the Camera Operator's job

it is also interesting what the eye-brain can allow to go by, and comare it to what the ear-brain will notice about a sound issue.

I have already described in another thread my own personal "guest shot" in a movie from long ago... to notice any such problems.

I wasn't really talking about boom shadows or reflections, really.  These are things that happen in every day life on our sets, and between a boom operator and camera operator are usually sorted out, but sometimes left in the edit.

I mean something that perhaps was so blatant, that it was too obvious to notice, if you know what I mean.  An entire piece of gear in the shot.  That kind of thing.

Robert

[Daniel McIntosh]

On a tandem unit day for "White Collar", shooting in their surveillance van, their prop voice recorder was a PD4.  The scene concludes with the actor ejecting and removing the DAT tape and rushing out with it.  They could not get the tape to eject easily.  Noticing the difficulty they were having I told the prop person, then the actor, then the hand double for the insert:  You have to push the eject button, pause, then push it a second time on the PD4 in order to unload, then eject a tape from a PD4.

This was frustrating, as it was too much screen time.  It's a little easier to fix on the insert, as one could pre-"unload" the tape, but more difficult on the shots with the actor, because if the pre-unload is done too early, the tape re-loads itself.

[studiomprd]

my post has been clarified... I never actually blamed anyone, only noted that the Camera operator is the one looking through the finder, and that is the Camera op's job...

[Marc Wielage]

so, whose fault is it when the equipment gets in the movie?

I blame the post crew for not digitally erasing it, and the director and editor for not noticing it to begin with.

There's no excuses for visible mikes, booms, etc. in movies anymore. The fixes are trivial nowadays -- unless it hits the actor in the head or something.

For more than 20 years in video mastering, we always adjusted the frame to eliminate boom mikes, flags, set edges, lights, dolly tracks, and so on. Any colorist who doesn't do that is not doing his or her job, and there are many stages where this kind of thing can be fixed before the show is aired or the film is shown in theaters.

(Just saw a shot last night where I could clearly see a lav under a tight T-shirt. I also don't doubt 99.9% of the audience would never notice it. And it sounded fine.)

--Marc W.

[RPSharman]

(Just saw a shot last night where I could clearly see a lav under a tight T-shirt. I also don't doubt 99.9% of the audience would never notice it. And it sounded fine.)

--Marc W.

This I see all the time.  It drives me crazy.  For women, a good solution is to have the actress tuck the wire under the bra around to the side and run the wire down the side.  This can work for men too, taping the wire under the pectoral muscle.

I worked for Glenn Berkovitz a number of years ago, and among one of his "unusual" habits was insisting that his lavs be wrapped over/under.  I thought this was crazy, but he explained it helped keep the cables straight for exactly the aforementioned reason.  Once I started mixing, I always ask my crew to wrap my mics this way, and I truly believe it helps keep them straight.  It really helps minimize the "lav cable bulge" under T-shirt.

Robert

[Matthias Richter]

what do you mean by "over/under"?

[RPSharman]

what do you mean by "over/under"?

Like you would wrap an XLR.  Not all in the same direction, so it lays flat when you lay it out on the floor.  The same technique can be applied in a small scale to wrapping a lav mix before you put it away.

[MSheldon]

I was watching an old 80's movie on TV the other day called 3:15 Moment Of Truth (I think).  In one of the shots I noticed the mic dip into the frame.  I laughed a little and continued watching the film.  There it was again...and again.  In a bathroom shot you could see the Schoeps cuing back and forth between the actors for at least 10 seconds.  In another shot I saw the whole boom sweep across the top of the frame as it tracked an actor out of frame.  I saw the mic so many times I was, as the kids say, LOL.  It happened so many times that I assume it was a mistake made by the broadcasters or something else and not the fault of the production team.  It sure made a really corny movie much more enjoyable though.   

[curleysound]

When I was in my senior year of college, "The Green Mile" made a college tour, and we went to see it. For the first reel, I saw the boom mic a dozen or so times, and was thinking "How can this be possible?" and then when the reel changed, the image went to its proper aspect ratio, and I figured the projectionist must have made a mistake with the gate they chose.

Also, I think it was Bad Boys 2 that had an ECU shot of surveillance audio playing off of a Fostex PD-4 DAT machine. I got a good chuckle out of that. Doesn't seem like an ideal surveillance medium, but I guess it looked cool.

[joecrabb]

My personal favorite "surveillance" audio machine was from a bad movie in the mid '90's with Robert Patrick as a cop out for revenge. I think it was called "No Tolerance" or some such. Anyway, the bad guys in the film is sitting in a remote cabin by himself listening to Patrick's movements over the "police scanner". when they cut to the scanner, it's an Anton/Bauer brick battery charger with 4 fully charged bricks on it and the lights blinking green. I don't think the logo was even greeked out. Absolutely no relationship to sound in any way. It made me laugh out loud.

[Marc Wielage]

when they cut to the scanner, it's an Anton/Bauer brick battery charger with 4 fully charged bricks on it and the lights blinking green. I don't think the logo was even greeked out.

They've been doing this with video gear for years. I laughed until I choked when General Tarkin's crew destroyed Alderaan with a Grass Valley 1600-7K switcher in Star Wars, and that was at a USC student screening in March of 1977. And they upgraded it to a newer-model 300-series in Jedi. They had lots and lots of Tektronix gear aboard that Death Star (lotsa blinking lights and readouts).

I also love it in contemporary films that drag out a Nagra whenever the FBI guys are doing surveillance. Let's face it: there's no sex appeal with a solid-state recorder or a hard drive.

--Marc W.

[Christian Holm]

What about “the conversation” that's a nagra in there and a sela mixer...

And who was the DP on that one? and what happend... Jeff?

//Christian

[Eric Toline]

What about “the conversation” that's a nagra in there and a sela mixer...

And who was the DP on that one? and what happend... Jeff?

//Christian

The DP was Bill Butler and production sound was by Art Rochester.

Eric

[Jim Rillie]

"What about “the conversation” that's a nagra in there and a sela mixer..."

The box on top of the Sela mixer is a Nagra SLO synchroniser. Don't know what the tapedeck make is.

Used to love watching the display on the SLO when transferring to Mag.

Jim Rillie

[Christian Holm]

There is another pic witch I couldn't find...

I own a nagra and a sela my self

//Christian

[mikefilosa]

What about “the conversation” that's a nagra in there and a sela mixer...

That's a trusty SLO up there on the SELA - more blinkinlights than your standard III, 4, or 4.2.....

And in living color!  Maybe I can rent mine to props one day....

Mike Filosa, CAS

Atlanta

[Scott Smith]

It's been awhile since I watched "The Conversation" (one of my favorite films), but I seem to recall that the recorders were actually Uher 4000's. Don't forget the roof shots with the Electro-Voice 643 rifle mike as well!

--Scott

"What about “the conversation” that's a nagra in there and a sela mixer..."

The box on top of the Sela mixer is a Nagra SLO synchroniser. Don't know what the tapedeck make is.

Used to love watching the display on the SLO when transferring to Mag.

Jim Rillie

[hemmerlinj]

I did an indie film in NYC back in June of 09 and used a Senn e835 handheld dynamic mic with a UH400 tx for a shot where the actor was addressing the guests of the party.  Worked great.  Had the boom op swing the boom as well.  The funniest part is that there wasn't any hint of a sound system in the scene anywhere.  Not that anyone other than a sound person would think about that.