Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

Hi Guys

I did a nightmare beach wedding (from the audio POV only) on Friday.... howling wind hitting the couple straight on so nowhere to place the lav at all to shield it from the wind and even lots of foam didn't help.

I reckon the only thing that would have worked would have been a full blown blimp complete with a very hairy dead cat!! I'm wondering now if it would be visually poor the zap a blimp behind the couple or just to the side so one could get some decent wind cut ??

Has anyone done a beach windy wedding and used a blimp?? Does it look a bit odd in the images ??

Chris

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

I haven't had it howling, though it was very brisk, to put it politely.

I used a pocket recorder on the groom, who, instead of a suit, wore a button up linen shirt, no tie. *sigh* His collar wasn't an option (too soft), so I ran it inside his shirt, and had the head stick out just a tiny amount, since they didn't want to see it.

I use a Matchstick Microphone, which is tiny, then paired that with a little tape around the head to help avoid it rubbing against the shirt.

I got lucky, since he stood with his back to the wind.... mostly.

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

You could try hiding the mic behind some of the fabric (like they do in the movies lol). Looking on Google I found this example that could work:

Hiding a Lavalier Mic | Videomaker.com

I'm generally skeptical of miking underneath clothing because you're more likely to get the sound of fabric rubbing. However, I know people who have spent a lot of time getting REALLY good at placing mics underneath clothing so I think with practice it can certainly be done very effectively. Also, I would rather have some occasional noise from the mic rubbing on clothing than constant noise from the wind if it's as bad as you described.

I've also found that it helps to give the couple a heads up prior to the wedding that in this particular situation there's probably going to be an excessive amount of wind and while I'll do my best to protect against it, there may be some wind noise in the video. This will at least let them know not to expect the same quality of audio that they would hear in a cathedral and they might be more understanding if they hear some wind noise.

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

Thanks Guys!

Yeah they were well aware of wind noise and the PA mic had the same issue. I was simply wondering if a decent blimp on a stand behind them would work better? Audio levels would of course be down but they would be a lot cleaner.... Most of the rare beach wedding I do, the couples listen to me and I often reverse the bride and groom positions so his back is against the wind but here sadly it didn't work ... as much as I hid it it still got zapped! No big issue though!!

Chris

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

Rode lavalier has a great furry, highly recommend.

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

We did a HORRIBLY windy beach wedding last summer...rode shotgun mic on the stand with a furry on it up front. I asked the minister to speak into it as a normal mic, and then turn it towards the bride and groom for the vows. Looks a little out of the ordinary, but man did it save our audio. Here's the highlight:

Kim & Brian - 07.19.13 on Vimeo

You can see from the waves how windy it was. We had the groom mic'd with a lav too, but that audio was unusable. Ever since this, I swear by the furry...to the average person it just looks like a funny mic on a stand, and for the value of the audio we got, I would say it's worth it.

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

Hi Katie

Nothing wrong with that at all! Yeah I ended up using the PA audio as it was a lot slightly better than the lav on the groom! That's pretty much perfect and at least you get decent audio! You can also lift the audio level in post which is much easier than trying the impossible feat of wind noise removal!

Chris

Re: Beach Wedding - Mic off Groom
 

I had a similar issue at a recent wedding on the bench. Crazy wind noise the entire ceremony. I managed to make it useable in post by adding a remove low frequencies filter (in FCPX), some noise reduction and some timely audio fades in & out. You can still hear the wind a little but this is about 80% better than the original and the couple were actually amazed at how it came out because they assumed the sound would be horrible hearing the wind coming from the speakers during the ceremony. I had a lav mic on one of the brides (it was a same-sex wedding) & the officiant but the better sound came from the DJ line in, which was what I ended up using.