Biscuit Rigs on the rise? Challenges & Approach

[Michael Wynne]

Seems like the popularity of biscuit rigs (pod driven process trailers ) has been on the rise at least for me lately for me on my last few shows.  These self driving process trailers allow more flexibility for camera since they can be reconfigured easily and the camera can shoot more angles whereas a traditional process trailer with insert vehicle is quite limiting in comparison.   For me the RF workflow & challenges when mixing from a follow van ( since most of the time we can’t get on these rigs ) requires careful planning and execution since I don’t have the benefit of riding in the front of an insert vehicle which allows for more controlled workflows.   Bag drops are not practical for narrative work because providing a proper production mix, rolling and cutting are expected.  Also the biscuit rig that is being utilized a lot in my market is much louder than a traditional process trailer since the engine is under mounted and much closer to the picture car.  I’ve tried a few different type of RF & capture workflows and I’m finally starting to get a handle on what works best for me & my team and what I prefer.   Just this last week we had to rig a follow van and a biscuit rig with plants and mic everyone up and make everything work under fifteen minutes which is border line ridiculous.   It’s been a bit of a painful learning experience working with these rigs but like most things in life a bit of struggle had always been a good teacher! 

 

[Derek H]

Sounds like a pain. Have any pictures you can share?

[Michael Wynne]

17 minutes ago, Derek H said:

Sounds like a pain. Have any pictures you can share?

Sure thing, these are not from last week cause it was simply too busy for me to take any shots, but these are from the show I wrapped earlier this spring. You can see the biscuit rig, follow van antenna mounting and our approximate distance from the vehicle when working.

 

[codyman]

I hate car to car, too unpredictable.  That being said, maybe a MixPre6 + DSR4 mini bag as the "drop bag" and then still try to mix on your Cantar rig from the follow vehicle to try to get a proper mix?  Figure the ISO's on the MixPre could cover you if things drop out.

[Michael Wynne]

4 hours ago, codyman said:

I hate car to car, too unpredictable.  That being said, maybe a MixPre6 + DSR4 mini bag as the "drop bag" and then still try to mix on your Cantar rig from the follow vehicle to try to get a proper mix?  Figure the ISO's on the MixPre could cover you if things drop out.

Always like the idea of a double system, in this particular scenario the lavs were recording TC locked continuous and we gave post the heads up and they appreciated the idea.  That eliminates the separate recorder/RX.  Obviously transmitting and recording would be nice, but you’re not really gonna get good range from lavs when they’re inside a vehicle on this kind of scenario anyway so it defeats the point.

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I haven't encountered those myself yet, but it's not really my market.  Maybe the loud engine is something we need to educate producers & camera people about.  Or convince them to build an electric version...

If it's only two actors (as most car scene are likely to be), I'd be tempted to use a bag drop as an antenna relay:  Lavs received in the bag & recorded as isos, and then routed to iso outputs connected to additional transmitters with antennae that can be remoted outside the car.  In a controlled process trailer situation, dual sharkfins stuck to the roof would go a long way to improving vehicle to vehicle range.  You add a bit of latency and probably lose some fidelity, but it could make mixing from the follow van more practical.

Higher channel counts would be less practical due to the additional equipment & set up time, but maybe something could be done with stereo transmission?

[Izen Ears]

Mag mounts for all wires puts the antennas outside the car.  You can just stick em to the roof.  With those and a pair of good antennas you should be able to keep a decent connection.  It's a little weird for the actors since they can't step out of the car without unplugging their mic, but those things work incredibly well.

 

All that said if it were me with that little time, I would just drop the bag in and let the mix do whatever it wants.  If they really want a mix, that's a whole discussion about giving us enough time to rig everything.

[Wandering Ear]

I have had too many problems trying to rely on good reception in a follow vehicle for primary recording.

Even with time, unexpected things come up like seeing the follow vehicle in the side mirror so you all of a sudden have to drop far back.  My solution most of time is to record in a bag in the picture car, then send a 2 channel hop to the follow vehicle. Usually 1 mix of plant mics, and 1 mix of lavs. Then i use the receiver and a small mixer in the follow vehicle to feed ifb’s and it allows me to switch between mixes depending on what sounds best. I will also run a second receiver so i can privately dial into each transmitter for a pfl.  It’s not a perfect solution but has been  reliable for me.  A shark fin in the window or on the roof of the picture car gets me as much range as i can reasonably expect, and usually is just as good as a comtek tx. 
 

I’ve never seen one of those rigs before, but i can imagine the engine noise is a problem. What do they do for lights?  Is electric putting 2k put puts on there too?  That would be unusable. 

[BAB414]

I always drop the bag when the picture car is untethered. Automix is good enough for dailies and monitoring. RF from car to car keeps me up at night. I know people do it but it's not for me.

[Michael Wynne]

3 hours ago, Izen Ears said:

Mag mounts for all wires puts the antennas outside the car.  You can just stick em to the roof.  With those and a pair of good antennas you should be able to keep a decent connection.  It's a little weird for the actors since they can't step out of the car without unplugging their mic, but those things work incredibly well.

 

Love the mag mounts, also have the window mount versions when that makes more sense.

 

3 hours ago, Izen Ears said:

All that said if it were me with that little time, I would just drop the bag in and let the mix do whatever it wants.  If they really want a mix, that's a whole discussion about giving us enough time to rig everything.

Exactly, preemptive discussions all the way!   

2 hours ago, BAB414 said:

I always drop the bag when the picture car is untethered. Automix is good enough for dailies and monitoring. RF from car to car keeps me up at night. I know people do it but it's not for me.

I agree with this method, and for certain types of work it's the best case scenario!

[Philip Perkins]

That is a scary looking vehicle, with the driver up high like that...  This thing is allowed on public roads w/o police escort?  I did a great deal of wireless car-to-car back when there was no choice about it and it worked out pretty well.  On commercials you always have a big backfield that absolutely HAS to hear every word of the dialog (or pretend that they do between the conversations they are having with each other in the follow vans), so we had transmit even from old school low-boy rigs.  At least with this "biscuit" thing there might be fewer clanking chains, less creaking metal than with a trailer?  Good question about the lights--are they all inside the picture car?   Is the drill for this sort of shot nowadays using TX that can record, with a bag with the RX in the car that is transmitting a monitor mix to the follow vehicles?

[tourtelot]

Or the soundman could just climb in the truck.

 

Oops, dating myself and no, it's not a good idea. 

 

D.

[Michael Wynne]

On 6/19/2024 at 12:39 PM, Philip Perkins said:

That is a scary looking vehicle, with the driver up high like that...  This thing is allowed on public roads w/o police escort?  

Yes, we had road closures for this work, police on both sides with radios.

 

On 6/19/2024 at 12:39 PM, Philip Perkins said:

 Good question about the lights--are they all inside the picture car?   Is the drill for this sort of shot nowadays using TX that can record, with a bag with the RX in the car that is transmitting a monitor mix to the follow vehicles?

Very minimal lighting if any was used, mostly modifiers.

On 6/19/2024 at 12:39 PM, Philip Perkins said:

 Is the drill for this sort of shot nowadays using TX that can record, with a bag with the RX in the car that is transmitting a monitor mix to the follow vehicles?

 

On 6/19/2024 at 12:39 PM, Philip Perkins said:

 

I’d say no, post still expects the mix + ISO’s and rolling and cutting,  In this scenario, I didn’t want to tie the talent with the mag mounts, so I opted to reach out to post to see if they would be OK with me doing a continuous TC locked record capture on the LAV mics and they said it was fine.   

[S Harber]

Post doesn't care if you roll and cut so...

Make sure to tell your talent that you will not always be able to roll and cut so they should not say anything too off.

 

Drop the bag rig in the car in automix. Attach a Comtek mini mite on the top of the car and go have a nice ride in the pass van.

Easy.

This is how I did many season of Bosch which had tons of driving with a pod car.

Mixing for optimal dailies is a bad rationale for risking no reception.  

No one cares about the quality as long as things are SOLID, and post will love having a solid unbroken track on their timeline.