film sound advice

[rob]

howdy all,
any advice on gear to get started down the sound for film (or video) path?
is this something that you can get into with a laptop and a few mics,
or does the set up need to be more complicated than that?
does anybody know of any good books on the subject?
ahhh, so many questions,
so little time.
thanks alot.

[soundguy]

are you talking production or post production? you can get away with a laptop for post on ghetto projects but production is way more complicated.

dave

[rob]

i was hoping production,
i'm pretty sure i could fake my way though post,(of course that's yet to be seen).
at first, i'm sure it would be student type volunteer things, but hopefully within a reasonable amount of time be able to make a few bucks, depending on the learning curve.
your "way more complicated" statement makes me a little leery however.
expensive gear?
or just complicated technique?
thanks

[Current Resistance]

i always thought Sound for film was mostly post production. Except for the location sound recordings, which i would consider "production".

all you need is a decent computer with a multitrack editor (pro tools works well for sound design). Some good mics would be helpful for ADR and foley capturing.

Personally i think sound for film is simple and cheap to get into. Music recording takes a bit more gear a lot of the time. I work on film/video projects at home with a g5 and pro tools.

bada-bing bada-boom

[Current Resistance]

oh and location or production sound CAN get expensive. Shotgun mics, boom poles, portable mixer, Nagra recorder (film) or DAT recorder (video).

i did that for a while, i got bored of standing there with a pole while some premadonna director orders me around....

[soundguy]

way more complicated as in expensive gear and complicated technique. Like anything else, you can learn, but just realize what you are getting into. So far as Im concerned, production sound for picture is the hardest thing to make a believable recording of. It is really the most challenging thing to do with a tape recorder only because unless you have a very acute understanding of how to light for picture, how different focal lenghts will effect you, how a film is edited and what you need to prepare in order for the film to cut, you are really hopelessly out of control to make educated decisions in regards to how to handle the track and prepare for the next move, which is really more than %90 of the job. This is partly the reason why there are so so few decent produciton mixers out there.

When you are recording a band, you can put a microphone pretty much where ever you want, just about the only place you are controlled by circumstance is say, where a drummer might hit a mic, something like that. You are the center of focus and authority in the studio and everyone involved is generally interested in having things sound good and tend to be patient with you while you set things up to sound good. You also have the liberty, within reason, to make the record sound pretty much like whatever you want. Produciton sound is exactly the opposite of that environment, camera will always dictate where you can put a microphone and the lighting will always dictate the direction that you can move it. This rarely coincides with the best place to put a mic or the right direction to move it in to match the actors screen direction. But you have to make it sound believable. As a production mixer, you get absolutely no respect for doing the job, nobody could give a shit what it sounds like and when you are on a big picture that costs several thousands of dollars an hour to have in production, from a producers line item perspective, you holding up the shoot to get good production sound at $18,000 an hour is assinine when they can go loop it in post for $300 or $400 an hour. So, you get no respect, you get no time to work, people dont care what you do and the producers expect you to get it right under those circumstances and often blame you when they have to go loop, even though that scenario is often by their own design. Every single thing that happens for the sound department, unless you have an extraordinary relationship with the AD is a battle. Every little thing.

For many reasons, mostly politically and union related, you cant expect to work a real job and bring a computer in the field to do it. I woudlnt rely on pocket calculator as my primary media, but its certainly to the point where for something like a TV show, it could be done, and would really be the way to go, but we are very far away from that for sure... Post production is a whole different story, you can post an entire feature on an Mbox if you wanted to, thats not a big deal at all, and you dont need ludicrously expensive mics, you just need whatever mics were used by the production mixer, but nobody ever pays attention to that detail anyway, so...

dont get into production sound thinking it will be a walk in the park, get ready to get your ass kicked. If you can survive, its an interesting life for sure.

dave

[JGriffin]

nobody could give a shit what it sounds like and when you are on a big picture that costs several thousands of dollars an hour to have in production, from a producers line item perspective, you holding up the shoot to get good production sound at $18,000 an hour is assinine when they can go loop it in post for $300 or $400 an hour.

Of course, on an indie film where they don't have any money, and they didn't give a shit about production sound, you can watch jaws drop all around the room when you tell the producers that the only way to save their shittily recorded dialog track is to loop most of the scenes--even at a cut rate of $500 per 5-hour evening session, you can see the hearts breaking and wallets flying into full-on panics. I'm in the middle of this right now n a film I'm mixing, as we've done all we could with NoNoise, gating, editing, covering up with music etc. and the clients are to the point where they're ponying up the extra few grand to loop because they've got no other choice. This being a low-budget indie, of course, all the actors are scattered to the winds, have varying degrees of reliability and talent, and some simply do not have a clue about looping. One actress had a nervous breakdown right in the studio, which was fun...and she was one of the ones who came in saying "of course, I've done looping before, no problem!"

[Current Resistance]

i dont particularly enjoy it, but location sound recording IS an art form. I guess i did it for a little while so I'd know what the guys before me were going through.

[soundguy]

[quote="dwlb"
Of course, on an indie film where they don't have any money, and they didn't give a shit about production sound, [/quote]

oh man, dont even get me started...

thanks for getting me out of bed and have me stand in the rain for 14 hours to record your fucking guide track. make sure to spell my name right in the crawl.

fuck...

dave

[peachfart2000]

this may be off the topic a bit, but does anyone have sound effects disks they are willing to trade/swap?
i have around 100 gigs, here at home and i'm willing to trade/swap them or sell some to anyone who needs them. (i don't want to PURCHASE any, though)
let me know if you are interrested.
peachfart2000@yahoo.com

[peachfart2000]

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