Cricket noise in background

[macmorgan]

Hi Everyone,

For my short, the story takes place in the middle of winter (during a snow storm), but we're filming it inside a house in LA during summer. It's suspense, so we're shooting at night. We're faking the snow and frost with practical effects and the entire story takes place interior, we're never going outside the house for any shots. A scary thought just occurred to me though late last night as I could hear crickets chirping around my apartment. I don't know what it's like at the house we're renting, but I figure it's a likelihood there would be crickets chirping there too since it's a neighborhood.

How much cricket chirping would a good shot gun mic pic up? Keep in mind the action of our story is quiet, while there is a phone conversation with another person, a chunk of the action is a girl investigating noises and odd things going on in her house.

If the mic pics up crickets chirping, would the sound editor have trouble filtering out the noise? Just a little worried about this and don't want it to ruin the effect of our story.

THANKS!

 

[Alcove Audio]

... late last night as I could hear crickets chirping around my apartment. ...I figure it's a likelihood there would be crickets chirping there too since it's a neighborhood.

It's been pretty hot in some parts of the country, so the crickets are out earlier. And the hotter it is the louder they get*. And some parts of the country are dealing with 17 year locusts, who can be positively deafening.

How much cricket chirping would a good shot gun mic pic up?

Some to a lot, depending upon how close/loud the crickets are, if windows are open, how hot it is (see above), how the mic is aimed, how much on set sound treatment you do, etc. Even using lavs may not be a solution depending upon the aforementioned factors.

It is possible, although difficult and time consuming, to somewhat quiet the crickets for short periods of time using high-pressure water hoses - you spray the lawn, bushes and everything else in the area (25 to 50 yards, depending upon how loud the crickets are) with LOTS of water to simulate a heavy rainfall. They will "wake up" 5 to 10 minutes later, and you have to spray all over again. Be warned that this does not always work.

If the mic pics up crickets chirping, would the sound editor have trouble filtering out the noise?!

It will depend upon the "toys" s/he has, but even with great software like iZotope RX2, or even Cedar, it is difficult and very time consuming to eliminate crickets; it is much easier to "pull them back" or make them less prominent than to eliminate them completely.

Crickets can be even more difficult than traffic - they occupy the same frequency range as the upper part of the human voice, especially females and children.



Your best option is to isolate the room(s) you are shooting in from outside noise as much as possible. Use sound blankets over the windows to reduce outside noise. On one shoot we closed the outdoor window shutters and stuffed sound blankets between the shutters and the windows to reduce crashing surf and seagulls, blanketed the door leading into the room(s), all the doors and windows in adjacent rooms, plus the doors from outside, even if those outside doors were relatively distant from the room in which we were shooting.

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* Crickets chirp faster as the temperature rises; the hotter it gets, the more frantic they get.

Just for fun:

To convert cricket chirps to degrees Fahrenheit, count number of chirps in 14 seconds then add 40 to get temperature.

Example: 30 chirps + 40 = 70° F

 

[macmorgan]

Wow, thank you for all the info! We're planning to visit the house we're renting at night this week to see if we hear crickets there. The owner doesn't think she's heard crickets from inside her house, so here's hoping she's right. It doesn't sound like an easy problem to solve and while the sound blankets would be helpful, we also need the windows to be visible and open as a light source, since in the story the power is off and we have light coming thru the windows.

If the cricket noise at the house is bad, we may need to consider waiting for the temperature to cool in a couple of months and shoot then.

Either way, thanks a lot!

 

[Alcove Audio]

When you scout the house (preferably with your PSM) bring along a decent mic and recorder - keep the mic between all of you while you discuss whatever it is you need to discuss. You can listen back with the post sound person/team and ask if they can suppress the crickets sufficiently to maintain the illusion that it is wintertime.