Shooting a scene at the beach near the sea. What are your experiences?

[resonate]

Hello all :-)

I have an upcoming shoot that will take place at the beach near the sea. The director probably wants it close to the water, the actors will go into the water at the end (we will probably cut and get rid of wires for that shot).

I am wondering which microphones would be best to achieve the smoothest consistent background.

I have Kmr81 mics, MK41, RSM 191, 416, and Cos11 and 4060 lavs.  I never shot near a sea before, just recorded the ambiences and feel the sea ambience is very hard to get right...

 

Obviously, I will try to steer the location as far from the water if not visible in the shot as possible. 

 

What are your thoughts? Any tips for working thru that?

 

Thanks!

 

Bartosz

[rich]

use your 416 on the boom, lav of choice on the cast. and use the RSM91 or MK41 for a clean sea fx track.
the fx track will help smooth out the difference between the lav mics as the cast move their body positions toward or away from the sea. maybe not for you on the day, but it might help post.
be careful how the boom is moved though. if you can get two booms on the scene, it will help keep the background noise consistent as the booms wont have to move too much. but it it needs to be one boom, you should try to avoid changing the angle of the mic too much, otherwise the background noise will change too much as the angle of the mic is changed. to put that another way, always keep the boom mic pointing straight down, even as it is moved between characters.

how much budget do they have for post?
ive seen a demo of one or other of the post tools, that literally faded down the sea noise from the mix track with no noticeable artefacts. 

[Ontariosound]

The MKH 816 was traditionally the mic of choice for beach scenes.  I had success with it years ago.   The series "Survivor" was all MKH 70's for the first season.  But as we know, lavs will isolate the voice more

if the dialogue voice levels are low and mumbly.  And you may have to be further from talent than on other locations,  DOP's seem to love long lenses on the beach.

[resonate]

1 hour ago, rich said:

how much budget do they have for post?
ive seen a demo of one or other of the post tools, that literally faded down the sea noise from the mix track with no noticeable artefacts. 

Thank you for your recommendations, guys.  I was thinking among the lines of using the wider pickup microphone, but both You and OntarioSound seem to prefer the narrower pickup mics for the job. 

As for the post, it will be on me (i have some post experience) I own a plugin called Hush - it does a remarkable job of removing background noise from the tracks - I used it on a badly recorded dialog lavs at the sea in another movie before and it does a remarkably good job. I just wanted to marinate on the best approach now that I am recording with better equipment. 

 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

My favourite beach trick is to boom from underneath, with the mic very close to the ground.  Often, the contour of the beach will block the sound of the waves almost entirely and you can record beautiful, clean dialogue from a couple centimetres off the ground.  If you raise the mic 20-30cm up, the sound of the waves will come back full force, but there's a very quiet zone along the surface of the ground where the wave noise is blocked.

This doesn't work everywhere:  If the beach is busy you'll get other sources of background, and if you are shooting right on the wave line, it's too close.  It works best if you are above the tide line, because the quiet zone is created by the convex shape of the beach:  below the tide line, the slope of the beach is generally steeper than the slope above it, and that creates a small ridge in the ground that is very effective at blocking direct sound from the waves.

 

If that trick isn't suitable, use the directionality of the mic to your advantage, and pick a mic that is very well isolated.  I wouldn't say there's one mic choice that works all the time; it's very situational, and it depends which way the actors are facing.  A plain cardioid is potentially useful for reverse shots where the actors are facing the water and the ocean can be positioned in the full null of the mic.  Works best if there's no cliffs or buildings that cause reflections to bounce back.  But I don't see a cardioid in your kit, and it doesn't work as well with hypercardioids like the MK41.

 

The opposite angle, where the camera is facing the ocean behind the actors is the toughest situation.  You need a well-isolated shotgun and keep it as vertical as you can without compromising the vocal tone.  I'd probably favour the KMR81 over the 416; I find the phase cancellation of the 416 isn't very smooth and off-axis waves can sound quite weird.

If cost is no object, this is one of the few situations where the noise cancellation of the SuperCMIT actually outweighs the weirdness of the artifacts.  The SuperCMIT is very effective at reducing off-axis wave noise (sometimes too effective).  I've shot a beach-side interview where the SuperCMIT almost eliminated both the wave noise and the sound of a nearby port.  It was so uncanny I had to mix an ambience mic back in so the interview didn't sound completely disconnected from the environment.

 

I don't love lavs on the beach, but, as always, they are sometimes necessary.  If the ocean is in shot and motivated as part of the ambience, I find the ambience part of the recording is much more natural on a full boom vs. a lav.  Lavs make wave noise sound unnaturally muffled and distant, as opposed to a good boom mic, which, when used properly, pushes the level of the waves into the background so the dialogue cuts through but doesn't change the sonic character of the ambience so much.

Oh, and bring heavy wind protection!

[resonate]

Amazing advice, thank you so much The Documentary Sound Guy!

[The Immoral Mr Teas]

15 hours ago, resonate said:

Amazing advice, thank you so much The Documentary Sound Guy!

 

+1, a great set of experience led recording technique notes

 

Jez

[DanieldH]

17 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

If cost is no object, this is one of the few situations where the noise cancellation of the SuperCMIT actually outweighs the weirdness of the artifacts.  The SuperCMIT is very effective at reducing off-axis wave noise (sometimes too effective).  I've shot a beach-side interview where the SuperCMIT almost eliminated both the wave noise and the sound of a nearby port.  It was so uncanny I had to mix an ambience mic back in so the interview didn't sound completely disconnected from the environment.

What mode did you use the SuperCMIT in?

Thanks for sharing you experiences!

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

8 hours ago, DanieldH said:

What mode did you use the SuperCMIT in?

Just the regular strength noise reduction (I think it's called Preset 1?)  The extra strength is way too heavy, and the phasing artifacts get really noticeable.