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Location Sound for Film -
A Panel of Experts Share Their Daily Encounters

Two JPG photos of this meeting

written by Aurika Hays and Barry James

The PNW Section met at Jack Straw Studios in Seattle on May 18, 1999, to hear three experts share their experiences in the field of sound for film. As these industry experts are on call at all times, Doug Tourtelot was unable to attend, but Charlie Tomaras and Scot Charles showed as scheduled.

Chairman Rick Chinn began the meeting with the AES mission statement and membership information. Many students were present, as they were attending the meeting during a class being held at Jack Straw. The audience was encouraged to visit the AES website to get more information about future AES events as well as section information.

Throughout the evening, both Charlie and Scot spoke of the many challenges in doing sound for picture. The biggest challenge lies in the clients' emphasis that "picture is king" and that sound has only a supporting role. Film crews set up their equipment with great care, paying attention to details such as the visual aspects of backgrounds, lighting, camera angles, etc. and then expect sound to "just happen," and not get in the way of the picture. There are frequently compromises which must be made in order to keep the sound "invisible." Optimum boom placements may be overruled because of shadows, or wireless mics must be placed in less than ideal locations in order to remain out of the picture. This attitude persists in both Location Sound for Electronic News Gathering, as well as in Film Sound and Post Production.

The first half of the meeting featured Charles Tomaras, who focused on Location Sound for ENG (Electronic News Gathering). Charlie had just returned from Neah Bay after the momentous whale hunt, where, of course, it had been raining As he showed and discussed his 4 cases of equipment, he remarked that his favorite aspect of his job was "getting the moment."

To "get the moment," various obstacles must be overcome. Location sound goes onto Betacam via wireless transmission from Charlie's $4200 Cooper CS104 mixer. Wireless microphones, which he carries in great abundance for redundancy purposes, provide mobility (no more 15-25 ft long cables!) and make the subjects more at ease with speaking in front of a camera. Charlie passed around one of his favorite microphones, an AKG T1 lavalier dual diaphragm microphone which he likes especially because it has a removable capsule, so it is easy to replace the capsule if it gets covered with sweat without having to remove and reattach the microphone again.

Unfortunately, wireless microphones have their own set of problems, including, of course, rain and RF interference from a number of different sources. Charlie described how he and others in the industry need to "stake out" a claim and guard their frequencies. Charlie protects himself and the equipment he carries from the rain in the Northwest with a cleverly designed poncho with a plastic cutout in the front that allows him to see the panels on his mixer. The mixer is also enclosed in a case, which he wears over his abdomen. It contains side bags for receivers for the camera and extra microphones. Since mobility is extremely important, the equipment is powered using a lithium battery distribution system.

A question from the audience regarding how one gets into this kind of business as a student brought to light the difficulties with breaking the ice and the need for extreme flexibility, equipment savviness, and luck. Charlie noted that there was only one female in the Seattle area that did this kind of work. He also remarked upon some common beginner mistakes, such as putting a microphone on the wrong lapel, resulting in muffled audio.

The subsequent presentation by Scot Charles was more oriented to film sound and post production. Scot opened with an anecdotal bio of how he progressed from a music major to rock drummer to PA guy to recording engineer to an "in-demand" location and post production sound engineer and designer.

For location work Scot uses a (well used) PSC cart featuring a Sony MXP-61 mixing console which has proven well suited to his field work. He sports an array of Lectrosonics wireless mics, which seem to be the most popular for field recording despite the existence of a number of fine wireless units from several manufacturers. Scot speculates this may be partly due to the fine attention to ergonomic details in the Lectrosonics product such as functional clips, easy battery replacement, and suitability for field repair. He will frequently make use of a small Yagi antenna which he can attach to his cart to handle one half of the diversity system wireless, with the stock antennae serving the alternate frequency.

Scot's extensive experience in the field was clearly apparent and his willingness to share his knowledge with his peers showed the mark of a true professional. He provided some basic tips such as always trying to capture 30 to 6O seconds of ambient, or wild, sound which can prove useful in post production. He suggests attempting to get the director to allow this sound to be recorded at the beginning of the shoot to avoid the noise level which occurs when shooting has ended and the grips begin breaking down the set.

Scot also shared his working knowledge of time code and the caveats presented due to differences in video standards and film speeds. It is important to understand that there are no video frames dropped in 30 fps drop-frame time code referenced to 29.97 fps NTSC color video - it is only frame counts which are dropped. The NTSC standard for color television specifies a frame rate of 29.97 fps. The fact that this is not a whole number of frames per second results in the actual frame count being off by 108 frames over the course of an hour. When using 30 fps drop-frame code, frame numbers 0 and 1 are not counted in the first second of every minute (with the exception of minutes 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 - so the correction is 108 frames as desired, instead of 120 frames). This allows the time code, at a frame rate of 29.97 fps, to agree with actual clock time. The producers like this because their programs can end on the hour, and it's easier to work the commercials in. Scot also explained the technique of pulli ng original audio up by 0.1% before shooting music videos on film where the talent will be lip-syncing. This is necessary because when the film is transferred to video it will be pulled down by 0.1% to bring the 24 fps rate of film in line with the 29.97 fps rate of NTSC video.

The meeting closed off with an active question and answer session, and everyone left with an improved understanding of the equipment, techniques, challenges, and pitfalls of location recording for picture.
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Last modified 11/4/2001