Equipment for first short

[ixion]

first short (mystery and some suspense, have planned a couple of dolly shots, also couple of wide shots)
one actor, two locations (ext: local woods and int: bedroom), no dialogue


have:

• 600d with kit lens
• cheap tripod
• class 10 8gb 30mb/sec SD-card
• 500 bucks (I can stretch this to 1000 in exchange for my tears)

need:

• sound recorder
• mic (recording for both in woods and in a bedroom)
• xlr cable
• wide lens (very much supports the vision I have for this short, many would be scenes have and need wide shots in it)
• extra battery and memory cards? (no idea if I need them, may buy on the go)
• a cheap DIY dolly made out of PVC and wood + rollerskate wheels (doesn't count towards the budget)
• possibly a cheap DIY steadicam

I would like to rent the sound gear for this first time, to decide if I want to try this in the future and buy the stuff for myself or just hire a skilled sound guy with the sound kit. I would like to rent and try to record sound myself the first time just to get my feet (..ears?) wet.

I was thinking renting H4n + NTG-2 for the outside shoots but I also need to record inside in a relatively small room. Do I need to rent two separate mics for each occasion for the best result? Or is there a third option, kind of inbetweeny? Again, I don't use dialogue and the sounds from exterior shots are minimal (sounds of stepping in the woods and ambient noise mostly) so I don't know if I need a directional mic at all.

One more thing - should I record live or dub post? Since no one talks during the film and the sounds are minimal + I'd be willing to invest both my and my actor's time, dubbing may seem a better option? No?


Thanks and see you in the screening room.

 

[Phil_UK]

Hire a sound guy, get some lights!

 

[ixion]

I have a couple of china balls and saw cheap 500w work lights just a couple of days ago, will they work for a 3 point lighting in a relatively small room (500w for key, another for backlight, chinaball as fill)? Or is the wattage too weak, too intense? No idea for the color temps

 

[Alcove Audio]

I would like to rent the sound gear for this first time, to decide if I want to try this in the future and buy the stuff for myself or just hire a skilled sound guy with the sound kit. I would like to rent and try to record sound myself the first time just to get my feet (..ears?) wet.

Your job is to DIRECT, not to do sound - or camera for that matter.

Sound is something that most filmmakers know little about. It's very, very easy to screw it up badly and very difficult to get right. The problem that always occurs is the director - you - makes a firm commitment to capture good sound, but the commitment falls apart when they start doing their budget. YOU - the director - are not going to do the sound yourself, and a PA on their first shoot doesn't have a clue as to proper booming technique, much less gain-staging, signal flow or even what to listen for.

Even an hungry up-and-coming production sound mixer/boom-op is going to cost you $omething each day. S/he is going to have a passable sound kit (even a prosumer kit is expensive, and they will go through LOT$ of batteries) and deserves to at least have their travel expenses compensated.

So I recommend that you hire someone, and the more experienced they are, the better. Nothing can replace watching a professional in action; you will learn more during one shoot than you will reading a dozen books and endless threads.

One more thing - should I record live or dub post? Since no one talks during the film and the sounds are minimal + I'd be willing to invest both my and my actor's time, dubbing may seem a better option?

If there is no dialog what are you dubbing? Dubbing is when you put English dialog over a Chinese Kung-Fu film, for example. Up until 30 years ago or so it was also the sound mixing.

Also, if there is no dialog, you don't need to record sound on the set at all, although I recommend it. If you do not record production sound you will have to do a complete audio post - Foley, sound FX and ambiences/BGs.

 

[ixion]

Alcove Audio, thanks for the informative reply.

My native language is not english and I didn't know dubbing meant only dialogue. What I meant was doing the entire sound during production vs doing it in post, and you already answered that, too. Thanks. Hire a professional it is then.

 

[Alcove Audio]

The way sound is done on budgeted projects - and what I do for a living - is you strip out everything between the lines of dialog from the production sound. If the production sound was done properly room-tones (ambient-tone if the scene is outdoors) were recorded. The lines of dialog are checker-boarded, meaning each character gets an entire audio track for their dialog, and the room-tone (ambient-tone) gets its own track as well.

All of the sounds made by the characters - footsteps, clothing sounds, prop handling, etc. - is replaced with Foley. All other sounds - everything from gunshots to vehicles to dinosaurs - is done with sound effects. Complete ambient backgrounds are also created. It is not unusual for mega-budget productions to have over 1,000 audio tracks when score and other music are included in the track count.

BTW, the lines sometimes get blurry between dialog, Foley and sound FX. In Star Wars, for example, Chewbacca and R2D2 were created with sound FX but wound up on dialog tracks. The results of explosions - falling debris and the like - are a combination of sound FX and Foley.