5 Basics For Location Sound Pre Production Part 1

Hello all,
It has been a while so I shall treat you to this blog covering 5 very basic things to cover in PREPRODUCTION for your location shoot.
This is for both sound peeps and production!

1. Location scouting
Always ask questions about sound at different times of day/night in any location and preferably try and go at peak hours of traffic to assess the worse case senario. if your there at 3am on a sunday but your shoot is 5pm on a friday its going to sound very different

2. Carpet and cloth blankets
echo (revereration time) from 'live' (hard, reflective surfaces) needs to be covered or as I like to say killed to create a 'dead' (very low revereration time) room or space even if you like it that way! !
Remember lots of gaffer for air conditioning vents etc... The carpet can be for crew to walk on as they never stay rigidly still.

3. Have an arsnel of microphones
With not just cardiod boom mikes (ntg2) but hypercardiod (senn 416) and even hire in mikes on certain days that are needed. Remember directors and production people: location sound is the best investment in terms of its value of return.

4. Sound report sheets
I may post some examples later but use a sensible sound report sheet for not just your own skin but for the poor editors who can easily see in the edit whats good, whats bad and why, even write when directors over turned any desicions and even leave feedback at the end of sound takes to help other sound editors. Slate everything and try to always push to clap at the front and not the end of a take.

5. Get a boom op...
This will help everyone out from setting up rooms for sound to miking actors and allow the recordist to focus on the quality of the sound! They arn't just a fancy mike stand showing off their muscles and eating all your food but good ones are usually sound recordists as well, two heads are better than one... Or at least 4 hands are better than 2 :-)
Continue to 5 more preproduction basics for location sound.
This concludes the first 5 basics to do in PREPRODUCTION, dont be shy to share this article if you know the production can benefit from these 5, CAUSE THEY CAN :-)
Thanks,
Matt Price

Radio Mics: Sennhieser EW112p ENG G3

This is a quick video i did for a demonstration on the radio mic set ew112p G3 ENG set from Sennhieser. They are around £420 a pair and come with:

1x Transmitter

1x Receiver

1x AF Jack to XLR (female)

1x AF Jack to 3.5mm Jack

1x ME2 Microphone

1x Camera mount for receiver 

1x Tie Clip

1x Mic Head

4x AA Batteries

The first part is a demonstration of performance in an ok area and a really noisy one. The really noisy one is compared with what my phone (Samsung Galaxy S2) picks up on the recording.

HD Version to replace this one soon!

I think for the price these radio mics perform really well and are easy to tune and change settings on the fly. I purchased mine from ProAv.co.uk which i highly recommend for their customer service, all questions i had where answered and delivery was prompt (within the 2-3 day limit)

Enjoy and Thanks,

Matt Price

Q+A: What is the difference between balanced and unbalanced cables?

Cables are essencial for most of the work in sound recording because they are very reliable and durable compared to wireless systems. The most common cable is the XLR cable for connecting microphones to external devices and recorders, however what is the difference between an often more expensive balanced XLR cable compared to an unbalanced one?

The easiest way to understand the difference is the signal separation that takes place inside the cable. Common cables like plugs for a kettle have 3 separate cables inside one for ground, one for positive and one for negative. A balanced cable would use all 3 and since each one is doing equal work is balanced. However unbalanced have or use 2 of these wires which means the negative wire is also doing the work of the ground wire.

Balanced cables mean they are less susceptible to extraneous noise. Their XLR connectors often have a locking mechanism that makes the connections more reliable and more difficult to accidentally unplug. Unbalanced phone, mini and RCA connectors are not hearty and can be easily damaged and dislodged from their inputs. Balanced cables often also include a tight metal mesh wrapper that acts as an electronic shield to protect them from interference. Electricity can generate hum through a broken cable or a damaged connector. It can even arise simply by laying a power cable parallel to an audio cable. The upshot to all this is that hum in a cable can ruin an audio recording

Unbalanced cables and high impedance accessories are fine when work with very short cable runs. Also, an inexpensive microphone and unbalanced cable is almost always better than just using the on-camera microphone. In a professional situation, you want to isolate the sound source, and eliminate any potential for hum. Balanced cables eliminate hum. Using an external microphone of low impedance is best in an interview situation or when it is not possible to get close to your subject.

Feel free to ask any questions and leave comments,

Thanks,

- Matt Price