the sound crew

Now let's tackle the work of the production recordist and the boom operator, which make up the entire sound crew !!! There could be an assistant or a trainee, helping the boom operator with his cables, for instance. These two people aren't essential, though.

Each production recordist has his own method of working, with more or less equipment, three of which are essential : stereo recorder (Nagra IV-S or DAT) or multi-track recorder (Nagra-D), wireless mikes and a portable mixer (when the number of sources is too important to handle on the recorder itself, or simply for comfort). Sooner or later, he builds himself some sort of carriage on which he mounts his equipment securely, enabling him to quickly move from one place to another.

This picture shows a simpler system (nonetheless used for Brian De Palma's MISSION : IMPOSSIBLE) with the ubiquitous mixer and stereo recorder (here, a Portadat HHB). No multi-channel recorder on this shoot (or at least, not for the scenes when the picture was taken) but we do find the almost inevitable wireless receivers , the video monitor and an easily accessible dialogue .

The production recordist now needs a mixer more than ever before because he must handle at the same time :

		the recording of a coherent stereo mix of the boom mike and noumerous wireless mikes.
		the feed of a basic headphone mix for the video crew
		the separate recording of each sound source on the multi-channel recorder.

Even a recorder that has been 100% designed for production recording, like the NAGRA-D, which sports 4 channels of audio recording, state of the art mike preamps and 24 bit converters, doesn't offer that with maximum comfort. This is why it is most often coupled to a mixer.

The production recordist takes care of two types of sounds :

Sync sound and Wild tracks or Spot effects.

Sync Sound : name given to any recording performed while the camera is running.

- Most of the time, sync sound concerns dialogue between actors.
- But it can also be any action making noise during a scene (car, door slam, etc...)

Wild Track & Spot Effects : name given to any recording made while the camera is idle.

- Any specific sound effect, called Spot Effects (ex : it could be the same noises as the ones that occurred during a shot, but with a closer mike)
- Wild Track (outside) and Set Silence (in a closed set) : several minute long recordings, of the global atmosphere (specific background noise) around the set.
- Dialogue off camera (on some short films where the budget is too small for ADR : re-recording a poor quality sync sound dialogue)

Recording the background noise of each set (exterior or interior) where the shooting took place is essential, because it will be used to match the background noise of the different shots of a single scene, these shots being filmed in a non-serial way, with sometimes several days of interval in between. The sound editor will then loop that sound so that the sound mixer can bring it a few dBs under the sync sound background noise, levelling that background noise, hiding the little "level jumps" at the edit points between each shot of the scene.

The production recordist must therefore, for each set, ask the entire crew to be quiet for about one or two minute (more if he thinks he can get away with all that required "patience"), hoping that a good portion of this "silence" will be neutral, to make a good, undetectable loop. Indeed, if a car horn or any other noise appears regularly in the background, the audience will sooner or later notice the trick.

The production recordist also has a bit of paperwork to handle, called the sound report, as well as vocal annoucements (slates) recorded at the beginning of each tape and of each wild track or spot effect :

- At the beginning of each tape, he will record his own voice stating several technical informations (what is called "slating") : the roll N°, the title of the film, the production company, the director's name, and if he feels like it, any other useful information.

- Then he'll record about 30 seconds of 1 kHz @ 0 VU, from the built-in tone generator of his tape recorder, or mixer. This reference tone will be used to calibrate the level of the playback machine in the transfer process.

- Each recording commited to tape afterwards, be it sync sound or wild tracks, will also be slated. For non-sync sounds, the production recordist will slate himself, describing precisely what he's about to record.

EX : "spot effect for scene 54, motorcycle coming to a stop, engine idle, take one" or "silence for scene 28."

- For sync sounds, it's the clapper loader that takes care of the slates, as we'll see on the next page...