Hi Trebor... I'll give you my two cents as being the person who is going to deal with your audio after you have recorded it... I've been editing TV show and film dialogue for a little while now and just started mixing indie films.
First off... pay attention to the ambient sound of the room...always try to record dead space for each setup you do (each camera angle, or perspective change). Try to even get the director to make everyone stop for 10~15 seconds so you can record some of the room tone with each change in setup.
Be very aware of background sounds that come and go. Things like open apartment windows with cars driving by, or A/C that turns off and on or planes flying overhead. Try to position the mic in such a way that it minimizes those changing ambient sounds. Try and close as many windows as you can, and so on. This is why shotgun mics can be very helpful. Position the mic and angle as to reject these sounds as much as possible. Also watch for possible sources of off camera sounds. If there are noisy floor boards right where all the production crew is standing, then there will be a lot of creaking going on while filming. Try to minimize this with mic placement or even find a carpet to throw down or something.
Be very away of production sound effects (a.k.a. PFX). Things like glasses clinking, footsteps, etc. Since this is an indie film, you'll want to try and record as much of that as you can because there will probably be no foley involved...but you also want ot make sure the production sounds aren't drastically louder than the dialogue.
Outdoor scenes are always a nightmare for post sound editors. Try and use some Lavalier mics if you can for outdoor shots.
Remember, anything you record on a track is married to everything else on that track. When mixing the movie, if the dialogue gets too quiet and the mixer needs to turn the volume up, all the glass clinks and footsteps and cars driving by will get louder as well. If the actors are really good, they'll inherently make production sounds around their lines instead of during their lines (things like putting a glass down or closing a door or using a fork on a dinner plate). When that happens, the dialogue editor can separate the noises from the dialogue and everyone is happy! But since it's an indie film, you can't expect the actors to do this all the time. So most likely they'll make a bunch of those sounds while they are talking (or another character in the scene is talking). That's why it is imperative that you try to minimize the pickup of those sounds while maximizing the pickup of their voices. Sometimes there's nothing you can do...but for the most part you can use creative mic placement to reject ambient sounds and focus in on the actor's voices.
If you can find a multitrack recorder, record a boom mic, and lavaliers to different tracks. Whatever you do, DON'T MIX the different mics together onto one track. As a dialogue editor, we've found major problems on the boom mic that were avoided by switching to the lavalier mic (which didn't have the problem) or vice versa. If you combine them while recording there is no way to fix any problems. If you are using a stereo recorder, have the boom on one channel and the lav on the other... or if you are just using lav's have one on the first channel and the other on the second. Never combine them. And!!! Always watch out for clipping and distortion. I can't tell you how many indie films I see that have distorted production tracks. Make sure you're not clipping!
SYNC IS ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT!!! Sync is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR JOB!!! If the audio doesn't sync to the video, first off the video editor will shoot you. Second the dialogue editor will shoot you. Everything needs to be recorded with timecode to make sure the sync is 100% accurate. The camera man should be able to feed you timecode (hopefully). Use the timecode that is being printed with the film/video.
Also, remember that all movies are shot and mixed at 48KHz/16bit. Make sure your recorder is set to that sampling rate and bit rate. And finally, like someone else said, don't do any processing on the audio whatsoever. Keep it as natural as possible. If you are going to be using an external preamp, make sure it is as clean as possible. Transformerless designs work best. No Tubes! No Warmth! Also, sometimes I see production mixers recording with a Hipass filter on to try and get rid of the mud below 80~100Hz. That's fine but just make sure it sounds good. I would always err on the side of caution and not use it. It's easy for the re-recording mixer to slap a hipass on while mixing.
Good luck and have fun! Make sure you document EVERYTHING!!! Scene number, take number, time code, if it's a pickup (p/u) in the middle of the scene make sure to write what line number in the script (if the script has line numbers) or what spoken line you are starting on), also try to reference what reel of film/tape they are shooting on (if you can). The more info you can write down to help the video editor when transferring the video and audio into avid, the better.
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Topic: Any advice on recording sound for a film (Read 9571 times)