Christian Film Production Tips :

Hello everyone, hope you had a great weekend? When last did you go to cinema? They are really common these days, so when last did you visit one? Do you take yourself to be too religious to visit a cinema? Can you please drop all those dogmatism and legalistic (Christianity by laws) Christianity and enjoy yourself a bit. Don't be too hard on yourself, take time to cool off and relax your nerves with a soft drink and popcorn in the cinema hall.

If most of us have been to the cinema to see a standard foreign film we will know that most of our sound can only be appreciated by our local audience home and abroad. The fact that people call to tell you that your movie has been a blessing does not mean that it is good enough because there is room for improvement.

Today I can temporarily conclude the discussion we started weeks ago: Lapel microphone. I said temporary because all the topics I have taken so far will be reviewed over and again because I am still learning and growing, so the more I give, the more I learn from those who are better than me and the more I share it. Remember, we know in part and we prophecy in part.

Lavalier microphone have great advantages and disadvantages.

1. Your talent can freely move with it.

2. A one man band operator can shoot without any problem since he doesn't need a boom swinger.

3. It get the microphone closer to the talent.

4. Clear signal can be achieved from low frequency and high frequency (depends on the quality of your microphone)

5. It can be easily hidden from the camera.

And some other advantages I can't think of right now.

Now the disadvantages

1. It can restrict your talent. Since your actor will be conscious of the mic, it may affect him psychologically.

2. It can limit the creativity. If there is a fight scene, lapel is definitely not an option.

3. It can easily generate noise through the rumblings of the cloth. If you are to use lapel microphone, you can only wear cotton or wool since linen and other fabrics will generate noise.

4. It can give fake sound. Imagine someone inside the room talking to someone in the sitting room, and the shot is on the person in the sitting room, the sound from the lapel mic will be completely fake and Un acceptable by cinematographers.

5. The sound sample from lapel microphone is not as strong as that of a boom microphones and that is why some cinematographers don't use it for film.

And some other disadvantages I can't remember for now.

Please note, I am talking from the view of a filmmaker.

Lapel microphones that are good for good production are few and really costly. The Sony ECM-77, Sennheiser MKE-2, and the Sanken COS 11 are tiny barrel mikes that aren't a whole lot bigger than the diameter of the mike cable. Specialty mikes like the TRAM, Crown GLM series and Millimic have flat capsules which make them much easier to hide without losing high frequencies. They can cost more than $300 apiece, but their usefulness and durability often justify their price. If you want quality sound and you want to use lavelier microphone, try to incorporate boom with it, hardly will you see a cinematographer use lapel microphone alone for a film project but several times they use boom alone.

Sorry it is this long, we go into another aspect of sound production next week monday though I will quickly touch how to properly fix your lapel. Thank you for your time.

Remember, you can share and feel free to ask your questions. If you have missed any of my past post please go to Christian Film Institute page and like our page. Or you check my blogxtianmovie.blogspot.com, till next week Monday when I shall be coming your way again, keep your God-given dreams alive and remain blessed.

Christian Film Production Tips :

Hello everyone, hope you had a great weekend? I sure did. Today I will like to continue from where I stopped last week. Remember we are on sound recording. I mentioned my experience with shot gun microphone and long gun, and explained their differences,  if you have missed that you can go to my blog xtianmovie.blogspot.com and update.
Lavalier microphone, lapel microphone and all other names people call it mean the same thing. It can serve variety of purposes,  and quite useful if you know how to handle it. You can use lapel microphone for interviews, news casting, documentaries, weddings and last of all filming.

There are different types of lapel microphones and you have to know the purpose it will serve for you before you make the purchase otherwise you may regret it. There are wireless lapel microphones and there are wired ones. Most wired lapel microphones are cheaper than their wireless versions. There is G2 lapel microphone and there is G3 type which is better. One of the obvious differences is the frequency. There are some microphones that are good in low frequency but terrible in high frequency. Ensure you check the honest reviews of any gadget you intend to buy before you place your money on it. Those that are bad in high frequency will allow your sound to blast and their reaction to S or C sound is terrible, you need to test it before you know what to expect from them or you research well enough. You hear some kind of stress on the letter S or C which is not good for dialogue, moreover an audio professional suppose to train his or her hear to detect all these. You can test what I am saying by picking up one or 2 movies and listen to the dialogue well.

I made a huge mistake some years back, I found a cheap wireless 4 in 1 lapel microphone on Amazon and I bought it after reading the reviews, then I didn't know the difference between G2 and G3 wireless, I imported it and took it to film location which I later regretted. The microphone reacted to the power line vibration and was giving us distorted sound all through. We packed it aside and made use of the boom microphone. There are some cinematographers who do not believe in lapel microphone at all because it produces interview kind of sound but in my opinion, it has lots of advantages and disadvantages. I decided to make use of it but with a caution. I saw one of my mentors Peter Jackson use it in the Lord of the rings but not in hobbit. He used it because he needed a wide shot and the demented king on the set was supposed to talk to the wizard under his breath so lapel mic came handy.

I will still need to add another post to the issue of lapel microphones otherwise this may get too long. But take note of this, most cheap lapel microphones are too poor for filming. Thank you for your time.

Feel free to ask your questions and share. Remember, if you have missed any of my past post please go to Christian Film Institute page and like our page or go to xtianmovie.blogspot.com. Till next week Monday when I shall be coming your way again, keep your God-given dreams alive and remain blessed.

Christian Film Production Tips :

Hello everyone, hope you had a great weekend? I had a busy weekend actually as we shot another scene in Prime Suspect film, immediately after we finished shooting a TVC for a client. Now let's continue on the audio recording or capturing on location.

Please take a look at this picture, that was a set on Prime Suspect location. The boom microphone we used on this set has no dead cat on it why? The dead cat is a wind shield on that blimp and it is meant for an exterior scene especially where there is tendency of wind distortion. My last week post showed us the blimp with its dead cat on it because it was meant to cut off the wind but if not an exterior scene you don't need a dead cat on your blimp. Moreover, you can just use a normal wind shield on your microphone instead of blimp which is costlier that ordinary windshield.

To use boom microphones on your set does not guarantee a good audio. Handling the boom really matters a lot. The boom pole must be a very good one that won't generate noise through handling. There are great boom poles from Rode and the rest out there and the cable you use on your microphone matters too but you need to ensure that you use xlr port instead of Jack plug. XLR supplies balanced audio and it helps to give richer sound than that of Jack plug.

Another thing is that jack plug is susceptible to interference more than xlr. Moreover, with Xlr you can use phantom power on your mixer to power your boom microphone which is really good because those microphones with phantom power helps signal ratio of the microphone with clarity. Swinging the boom also require techniques, so try to learn it and don't just assume that you can swing a boom if it is just to carry it. If your boom is also giving you bad signal, check if the battery of either the mixer or the boom is low and change it or check if there is any problem with the cable.

There was a time we were shooting a movie and the boom swinger complained of noisy interference anytime he placed the boom up but the sound was good anytime he placed the boom down and that could have happened if the microphone is bad or you connect the mixer to electricity and not battery. Another thing is that this could have happened because the boom swinger is not wearing shoes or slippers. Whichever it is, try as much as possible to get the best sound. We will discuss lavelier microphone next week.

Thank you so much for time and for all the birthday wishes you are all amazing, feel free to share and ask your questions. If you have missed any of my past post please go to Christian Film Institute page and like our page or go to my blog. Xtianmovie.blogspot.com. Till next week Monday when I shall be coming your way again, keep your God-given dreams alive and remain blessed.

Sola Adeaga added 3 new photos.

Christian Film Production Tips :

Hello everyone, hope you had a great weekend? Sorry I delayed till today, I needed to load this picture to explain some things.... I directed an advert few days ago for a client, and we recorded sound at a very noisy place which is the situation we find ourselves atimes. I know that some of you who are into production must have had same experience on the field.

An elderly American who has been following this post commented last week that shoeps microphones are the industry standard in US which I agreed with and explained to him that the price of that microphone is too high for some people in Africa. Though even in US, people use sennheiser microphone and high end rode microphones. But the best shot gun microphone is shoeps. Based on research, and experience of those who have used it before, they testified that that microphone is the best compare to the rest. Google it yourself, and you will see that the price for a good shoeps mic is higher than the price of most cameras we use in africa, since our major cameras are now dslr.

We currently have four boom microphones, two long gun sennheiser me 67, one shot gun sennheiser mkh 416, and another shot gun mic. Why do we have this? In Holywood, most movies are shot with more than two microphones. The purpose of those microphones are different. Shot gun microphone especially the good one like sennheiser mkh 416 and shoeps can capture clean audio from 20 people sitting round the table with a good field mixer. It has wider range of coverage compare to the long ones like ME 67. While the Long gun microphones can capture and narrow the range to a particular person or spot even on a long range. But these microphones cannot work alone without the wind shield. So today I will like to talk about how to record a clean sound in a noisy place.

First is to try to do your shoot in a quiet place. Secondly, you can approach whoever is making the noise politely and plead that you are shooting a film. Thirdly, check the place out before you go on set since proper preparation prevent poor performance. Next, go with all that you can to give you great audio. If you check out one of these pictures, you will see where the boom swinger was holding the boom microphone on the fish pole. There was so much noise at that venue, but because the client also want little ambience on the dialogue, we went there with sennheiser ME 67, a blimp and its windshield which some called deadcat. This will keep away the wind and cut off most of the noise. The fact that we used ME 67 which has ability to narrow its coverage to the talent on set made it good for us. We used the mixer to also gain down the noise and we got the microphone close enough without disturbing the shot. With this, we were able to do a good job with our multi cam shoot.

I share the same date with my senior boss Shola Mike Agboola, so give a shout out to us tomorrow 9/9 as we add another year.

Thank you for your time, if you have missed any of my past post please go to Christian Film Institute page and like our page. Or you check my blog xtianmovie.blogspot.com, till next week Monday when I shall be coming your way again, keep your God-given dreams alive and remain blessed.