What are you choices for low profile shoots on the go?

[Chad Peter]

Not that I'd ever attempt such a thing...

 

I blinked and the past five years flew by.  I'm about to jump on a plane and shoot a low-profile feature in Europe.  Last time I did this was in Australia, and setting up cameras / getting the boom out wasn't as big a deal in the wide-open outback space - but this time we'll be "stealing" a few scenes in some busier locations and I'd like as little a footprint as possible.  Feels like technology has advanced about twenty years in the past five - how would you approach this type of shoot?

 

Curious what everyone's go to would be.

 

--Chad

[Olle Sjostrom]

If id ever attempt such a thing I THINK id go for lavs only, prep the actors far in advance, make sure they sound good, record on the txs and have my small Nova, or similar, rig either visible or not, like in a backpack. I guess that depends on the level of stealth though. A boom is great of course, but sometimes it's just in the way. Especially if you're trying to be unintrusive. 

One time I filmed a scene in a park that needed to be on the low. So I just gave up on the boom, got the time to really get the lavs to work and was allowed that time. I sat on a bench with headphones on, all the gear in a backpack and just let that roll. I mixed using the app basically, occasionally I reached down in the bag to adjust some things. I just looked like a dude with a phone and headphones sitting on a bench with some weird bag and another guy with a monitor and follow focus next to him. No one cared... no one cared about the dude with a camera filming two actors arguing over and over again. 

This was 9 years ago so gear is smaller now. 
 

Video village were in a car on the sidewalk.

[Ben B]

I shot a short film "undercover" in a Carnaval a few years ago. Everybody is dressed up in costumes and party in street all night long.

The whole crew and cast was dressed up as well. I used lav only on the cast. Thanks to the costumes i could hide the lav in plain sight and got great dialogue. i had a MS rig in my hand to get as much sync ambiance as i could. The sound ambiance was pretty special there so it helped a lot to match the background in the edit.

The camera was also hidden under a costume and nobody noticed anything (the alcohol helped as well i guess...).

 

You could also rig every cast member with a Tentacle trackE or similar and have some sort of small stereo mic rig on you for maximum low profile.

[Sebi]

+1 on the bag setup

 

Another "stealth" option for capturing ambiences might be lavs instead of a handheld stereo-setup. I once did a shoot with the actors being radio-miked plus two 4061s rigged to my backpack and plugged in directly to the recorder via XLR-adapter. Having the backpack between the mikes gives it a good separation and nice stereo-field.

 

If range is a concern you might want to avoid blocking the receiver antennas with your body. You could consider attaching the antennas to the straps of the backpack. This way you can face the action and the receivers will still get a fair signal even though buried in the backpack...