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Tips and tricks for recording interior car dialog?


OneLouder

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  • 2 months later...
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" do you use one or two for two people sitting in front of the car"? "

yes

What he means is... "It depends".

Sometimes one CUB sounds great and sometimes two CUBs is the right choice. It all depends on the car, the actors, the action, the background noise, the placement, etc. Sometimes CUBs are awful in a car. There are simply no rules for recording in a car.

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I just did this last week on a short film: boomed from back seat, held between the front seats, mic pointed rearward, and then roll the boom left or right depending on who was speaking. Worked surprisingly well.

I often do that too, am happier with the sound then lavs on the visor.

Grant.

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I have mostly had the " CUB is Awful" experience... Not the sound I am trying to get at.... But, it can be a "another track" option if need be...

As Robert said, it really depends on the car and the other 20 things going on.... The puzzle is always different....

First time I put CUBS in a car I opened up the faders..sounded thin and way too ambient for that setup..immediately pulled them down and put the CMC's in there.

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+1 to what Vasileios and roundbadge say --- even though lots and lots of people use the CUB-1 for interior car work it should not be considered any "standard." I am in the camp of those who find the CUB-1 not the proper choice for use in car interior scenes. The standard for me is planted Schoeps CMC641 (one or more as needed) or DPA lavs on the actors. On rare occasions I have used a lav on the visor, usually a DPA, but this is a last resort and only appropriate for certain kinds of shots.

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Like Mark, A Few, Hunter and Jeff, my best experiences in cars come using regular cardiod or hyper-cardioid mikes aimed effectively by a boom operator from the back seat. My second best experiences come from good mikes rigged on bendable arms from the transmission tunnel area.

But sometimes those options don't work for one reason or another.

To improve Cub-1 performance, I recommend having a plastics shop cut two pieces of plexi, each about the size of a car visor, or just a bit smaller. The plexi is easy to mount even onto visors that are tape resistant from Armor-All. One can wrap tape around the visor and affix it to the clean plexi. The Cub-1 is designed to be used on a hard surface that acts as a resonant field. The plexi provides that resonant field to some extent. As a remedy, it's not as effective as a desktop or kitchen counter but it's better than a padded visor. Results from this sort of rig can be quite good - depending, of course, on the twenty other factors that govern these things.

David

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Like Mark, A Few, Hunter and Jeff, my best experiences in cars come using regular cardiod or hyper-cardioid mikes aimed effectively by a boom operator from the back seat. My second best experiences come from good mikes rigged on bendable arms from the transmission tunnel area.

But sometimes those options don't work for one reason or another.

To improve Cub-1 performance, I recommend having a plastics shop cut two pieces of plexi, each about the size of a car visor, or just a bit smaller. The plexi is easy to mount even onto visors that are tape resistant from Armor-All. One can wrap tape around the visor and affix it to the clean plexi. The Cub-1 is designed to be used on a hard surface that acts as a resonant field. The plexi provides that resonant field to some extent. As a remedy, it's not as effective as a desktop or kitchen counter but it's better than a padded visor. Results from this sort of rig can be quite good - depending, of course, on the twenty other factors that govern these things.

David

+1 to plexi. Substantially improves Cub-1 performance.

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Second the "cardioid near transmission tunnel" idea. That's where I have gotten the best results, usually with a Neumann KMF-4.

I've also mounted them to (usually both) visors. With visors up one can even place them right in the middle of the shot without anyone noticing.

When lav-ing talents in a car shot you always need to think about where the seat belt will be.

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Right.... and thank you to those that didn't both with the blindly obvious.

What I perhaps should have said in my initial post was that I am planning a setup that will be un-monitored. I need to rig a number of identical cars where the mic is set, the talent gets in the car and hits record. Using radio Lavs to a drive in the boot (trunk for you guys) is at this stage not possible.

Previously I have rigged cardioids with swivel heads but this is not a workable solution this time.

What I was after was an informed answer as to whether it is "better" to use two cubs over one; I understand that two may be better, but for me it doubles the "setup". If using one "sucks" then I can either look at setting up two, or move on to another solution.

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  • 4 months later...

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I've been pulling my hair out on a recent shoot

2 actors in the front seats of a Range Rover on a proper lo-loader. Alternating windows are down depending on which side of the car we are shooting. Very busy, reverberant London streets and seemingly a complete lack of suspension on the lo-loader.

Are you guys able to get crisp clean usable dialogue with car windows down? Is it radios only?

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Hey Andy, have you had the chance to see/hear the shots at dailies or over speakers, or even from video assist in a quite location? I'm often shocked at how much better it sounds than in my headphones. My question is not meant to offend, just curious. Sometimes Lavs are the best answer to how but I've done the majority of my process trailer shots w one or two open mics (Schoeps 41's).

CrewC

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Best results in any noisy situation generally come from having mikes as close as possible to the people speaking and this favors radio mikes.

 

However, in the specific situation of a moving vehicle with an open window, sometimes the results are better with a mike (or mikes) on a flex arm coming up from the transmission tunnel. This normally yields a mike position below the open window and the closed doors shield the mike (to some extent) from the noise outside. This technique has become harder to employ with the tendency to use multiple cameras on tow shots - one of the cameras is likely to push the frame lower than you'd like. But sometimes a bit of negotiation can get you close enough for OK results.

 

If you have time and access, spraying the springs, bushings and other suspension parts with oil can help with the suspension noise. This is best done with the car on a lift so the suspension parts are hanging down and one can better get the oil into joints. If at all possible, have transpo attend to this for you.

 

David

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Hey Andy, have you had the chance to see/hear the shots at dailies or over speakers, or even from video assist in a quite location? I'm often shocked at how much better it sounds than in my headphones. My question is not meant to offend, just curious. Sometimes Lavs are the best answer to how but I've done the majority of my process trailer shots w one or two open mics (Schoeps 41's).

CrewC

No chance yet Crew. I know it can often be a revelation once you get to hear it all back through speakers rather than heart-attack inducing headphones, i've not had any complaints as of yet so hopefully all has gone ok. 

 

I went into this project with production already defeated to the idea that they would have to ADR a fairly large portion of the film due to some of the location choices. My main aim has been to try and go above and beyond to try and get as much production dialogue into the final product as possible.

 

Our setup in the car was 1 x 8050 on the open window side and 1 x 8040 on the opposite on noga arms so that we could move them as and when the shot required. In hindsight the 40 was too wide but we had to go with what we had. I'd really wanted to keep away from radio mic's, the seatbelt situation has burnt me in the past. I guess we shall have to wait and see.

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  • 1 year later...

Great thread.

Speaking of redundancy: I stuck a Zoom H1 to the sunglasses holder of a vehicle recently (w. snot tape) and the results were great. Driver and all three passengers sounded crystal clear. The passengers in the back naturally spoke louder.

 

Not my first plan of attack but I won't hesitate to stick it somewhere in a car as a safety.

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I've been doing a lot of doco's where rig time is minimal. We can take up to 20 mins to rig gopro's but not wait an extra 1min for me.. My latest trick is a mkh40 from below attached by the gearstick or there abouts, depending on the car of course. Very happy with the sound!

Usually the cam op is in the rear travelling along with talent shooting over their shoulders, he'd rather have headroom then shoot lower so this seems to work, at the moment.. Never had any luck with lavs on talent and these days under NZ law I'm culpable if they have an accident, get injured and I said no to having safety belts on. Often I drop the bag in the rear seat and chillout somewhere else while they do the driving as space is a premium in the smaller vehicles.

 

Grant.

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DPA SC4098 either with hardwire adapter between the seats, or on a tx unit...

compact, sounds great...

OR.. Sanken Cubs in headliner.. pre rig tx and cub on thin sheets of plexi, wedge them or joe's sticky stuff them to headliner... or near sunvisors.

Bag in car for free driving... wiring harness to car when its on a trailer.. use jumpers to go through door openings...

usually seatbelts on cast interfere with body worn lavs..

I have also gotten good results with AKG 417 lavs hidden in ceiling of car... or on visors.

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