I've got two Schoeps CMC6 microphones. How would you boom them?

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi all. . .

I know a lot of people are using shotgun microphones, and they may be better for filming than my Schoeps CMC6 mikes (with cardioid capsules), but I'd like to save some money. How would you recommend I boom these mikes?

What booms, mounts (I currently have the standard plastic Schoeps mounts), and wind protection would you recommend for these mikes? (The CMC6s are pretty small microphones!)

If you think that the CMC6s aren't going to work really well for me, please recommend a specific microphone that YOU would like to use on a feature film.

Thanks much.

Stephen

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Stephen Pruitt

Hi all. . .

I know a lot of people are using shotgun microphones, and they may be better for filming than my Schoeps CMC6 mikes (with cardioid capsules), but I'd like to save some money. How would you recommend I boom these mikes?

What booms, mounts (I currently have the standard plastic Schoeps mounts), and wind protection would you recommend for these mikes? (The CMC6s are pretty small microphones!)

If you think that the CMC6s aren't going to work really well for me, please recommend a specific microphone that YOU would like to use on a feature film.

Thanks much.

Stephen

You're already half-way there. Arguably the standard boom mic in feature and broadcast sound today is the Schoeps CMC 641 hypercardioid, used both indoors and out. The classic shotgun might be the Sennheiser MKH416 but that is mostly useful outdoors only. Not to say there aren't a number of others from Sanken, Sennheiser, Audio-Technica that are also strong contenders. For that matter, the Schoeps CMIT shotgun would be worthy of consideration, especially since it's designed to match well to the sound qualities of the CMC series. So for your first boom mic I'd say get an MK41 hypercardioid capsule to mount on the amplifier in place of one of your present cardioid capsules and you've got it.

K-Tek makes outstandings boom and mounts, Rycote is a leader in windwhielding.

[Stephen Pruitt]

Thanks for the tips, Steve. . .

Since I have a pair of CMC6s, would I want to use two different booms or just one with some sort of a stereo mount?

Does the MK41 make that much of a difference vis-a-vis the MK4???

Thanks very much!

Stephen

[Cole McDonald]

Depends on what the staging of the scene is and the geographic relationship between the subjects. If you have two people standing facing each other (even cheated slightly for camera), you could mount them perpendicular to one another and shock mount them separately to be able to hold them on a single boom...if the staging is more dynamic, 2 booms may be necessary.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Stephen Pruitt

Thanks for the tips, Steve. . .

Since I have a pair of CMC6s, would I want to use two different booms or just one with some sort of a stereo mount?

Does the MK41 make that much of a difference vis-a-vis the MK4???

Thanks very much!

Stephen

Dialog is almost always recorded in mono, so you'd only use one. And yes, there is a great deal of difference between a hyper and a plain cardioid. A hyper is almost as directional as a shotgun though with a somewhat shorter reach. But unlike shotguns, it's not as susceptible to colouration in a reflective environment such as indoors in normal rooms. You could use both at once if you have two booms and two operators to handle them but that would be overkill in normal circumstances. OTOH, if you were recording music in stereo, using both of your cardioids on a stand in a stereo array would be an excellent approach. Definitely keep the MK4 capsules because there'll be time you want to use the hyper and there'll be other times where the cardioids will be just the ticket.

[Stephen Pruitt]

Wow, Steve. . . I just about fell out of my chair! I know I'm a total noobie, but that really surprises me!

Dialog is usually recorded only in mono??? What about the ambient sounds all around the actors??? I would think that you'd want all that in stereo. I'm not going to be able to recreate these sounds at a later point in time. It's the shots and that's pretty much it.

I would think that just one mike would really make for a very one-dimensional sound track.

Boy, have I got a lot to learn.

:-(

Stephen

[Cole McDonald]

Actually, when recording dialog, you don't want anything other than just the dialog...no ambience at all is ideal...all of that you add later in post as part of the *very* controlled soundscape. That way, nothing interrupts your dialog from being clear...I have brilliant clips from non-actors that I have to ADR over due to a couple harley's driving by during a line or two of dialog while shooting, didn't notice it on the set (not enough crew to keep track of it) and can't reshoot it as the place has changed ownership since and hairstyles changed afterwards etc... Each piece you capture should be pristine...both image and sound.

[Stephen Pruitt]

This is just blowing me away.

Can you gentlemen recommend a book on cinema sound that might be particularly helpful.

I just can't imagine not capturing the ambience for my film project. It would seem that I'd have to record each scene twice in order to have any hope of making it sound "real."

What a total bummer.

:-(

Stephen

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Stephen Pruitt

Wow, Steve. . . I just about fell out of my chair! I know I'm a total noobie, but that really surprises me!

Dialog is usually recorded only in mono??? What about the ambient sounds all around the actors??? I would think that you'd want all that in stereo. ...
Stephen

The final track ends up stereo but very little of it is actually originally recorded in stereo, the major exceptions being music performance, some environmental recordings, and perhaps some foley effects. In features and episodic TV virtually every sound the audience hears is consciously placed during post production, all of the various pieces being assembled one piece at a time into a cohesive whole. For example, you definitely record ambience or 'room tone' on the set but when you do, that's ALL that is being recorded - the set is silent (one trick when recording in camera is to shoot a nice closeup of the microphone to identify the shot as an ambience track). The dialog is recorded as cleanly as possible. Later in post, the ambience is laid down on its own track alongside the dialog and mixed in under it, carefully adjusting levels so it comes up slightly during pauses in speech and dips down when the actors are speaking. Door sounds, footsteps, ice clinking in glasses, virtually everything that is audible, is laid down just as purposely. And of course part of that precise placement is not only when it all occurs and how loud it is but also its position in the L-R soundstage. There's a 'pan' control on every mixer channel that can take a mono track and place it anywhere from full left to full right and anywhere in between in the final stereo track.

Book recomendations - I'd start with Jay Rose's 2 books "Getting Great Sound for Digital Video" and "Audio Postproduction for Digital Video." Thomlinson Holman's book "Sound for Digital Video" is outstanding (he's the guru behind Lucas Sound and is the 'TH' in 'THX' ). Another great book for practical location work, such nitty-gritty as how to set up levels, where the boom mic should be aimed, etc, is Dean Miles "Location Audio Simplified."

[Cole McDonald]

currently working my way through "Audio/Vision" by Chion and "Sound Design" by Sonnenschein. They seem very good, the first is more theory and the second is more technical :)

[Cole McDonald]

Depending on the type of project you're doing...I always build dialog from the pieces of each take that fits well with the story. The editor's job is to make the actors look better than they are (ask any BIG name hollywood star, they'll tell you - maybe ;) ).

I try to get ensemble sound (both or more actors at the same time) when I shoot wider shots, but when I shoot tighter, I direct the mic as close to the actor I'm shooting as possible. That way, I get pristine sound of that performance of that actor...I also use the Singles as a chance to dial in different readings of some of the key lines in a script...have them repeat it in different ways to give me choices in editing.

I use an Audio-Technica ATR55, cheap but workable. Currently, my connection setup to get it into my camera leaves it quite noisy...so I have to do tons of post work to clean the buzz out of it.

Shoot test, see what works and what doesn't, then ask questions. Once you shoot some/record some, you will have much more focussed questions. Write a 2 or 3 page script...doesn't need to be good at all, shoot it, figure out what works and what doesn't...shooting that should take a day or less when you start out. Work on just getting it "in the can" to start out. Then pick one thing to improve on and write another 2-3 page script and do it all over again...lather rinse repeat. Improve one thing at a time. Come back here with questions.

[Stephen Pruitt]

MY GOSH, guys! This is utterly bizarre!

How on earth can you ever get everything synched up???

My head is spinning. . . just when I think I'm getting closer, the goal-line moves another 30 yards back.

:-(

I'm ordering those books today!

Thanks again! (I think.)

:-)

Stephen

[Cole McDonald]

to synch separately recorded sound, you make a sharp noise on camera that you can see in frame and that is audible in the audio (this is what the slate board is for-along with giving shot information)...Any thing like two sticks hit together or a marker on a clip board, or a clap. You then line up the spike in the audio waveform of the audio with the motion in the clip.

If you record straight into your camera, you don't need to worry about synch as much...it's already in lock step with the camera.

[Stephen Pruitt]

That's not quite what I was asking, Cole. . .

Let's say you are doing a scene at a dinner party or at a restaurant. How on earth could you ever hope to capture that without getting the ambient sounds AND the dialog at the same time? And, even if you COULD get just the voices, how on earth would you ever be able to synch in sound effects for all of the clinks, chomps, etc., from the dishes and glasses and silverware???

If it was me doing a dinner party scene without any expertise at all (my current state of affairs), I'd fly about four or five microphones over the table and then run them all into a mixer and record all four or five tracks on a hard-drive (one track per microphone). Then, using your clapboard technique, I could synch all the sounds and build the sound file up in post using those four or five tracks, varying the levels as need be. But at least they would be the exact same sounds that corresponded to my video at the dinner party. Since I have the microphones and sound recording gear already, the added expense is quite low (a few new booms).

Obviously, I can't wait to read those books! I ordered four of 'em and they are already on their way!

Thanks again.

Stephen

[Ty Ford]

Originally Posted by Stephen Pruitt

Thanks for the tips, Steve. . .

Since I have a pair of CMC6s, would I want to use two different booms or just one with some sort of a stereo mount?

Does the MK41 make that much of a difference vis-a-vis the MK4???

Thanks very much!

Stephen

Yes, the MK 41 is the one you want for location audio. The MK 4 is too wide.