Shooting my Entire RED Picture M.O.S.?

[Tom Lowe]

After returning from my 3-week location scouting trip to some really remote and beautiful places, I am getting some evil thoughts in my head. :)

I am planning to shoot my RED feature next Aug/Sept, all natural light, totally outdoors, in places like Yosemite National Park and Lake Powell. The picture only has 3 actors, and a very small amount of dialog. It's a simple, beautiful ménage à trois roadtrip love story.

The picture will concentrate on visuals, like a Bresson film, or the Leone/Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns. People sometimes forget that with Leone and Bresson's pictures, you are often like 20 minutes into the movie before anyone even speaks. So it's my intention is to shoot a picture focused on stunning visuals, with only a few really good dialog exchanges, damn close to a silent film, like those Leone/Eastwood films, or like Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood, with a few poetic voice-overs here and there, ala Terrence Malick. Like In the Mood, there will be quite a few overcranked shots, too, so those are gonna be MOS anyway.

My whole budget is 200k, but I am hoping/planning to dedicate a disproportionate amount for Sound Design and ADR/Looping after the shoot.

SO...... Could I conceivably shoot the whole picture -- 30 days of principal photography in remote locations -- completely MOS? Maybe just using an onboard mic on the RED for reference? To me, this would cut out one expensive crew member, and free us up to concentrate on visuals. A lot of shots will be cutaways of beautiful rivers and meadows and lakes and such, so I suppose those will be easy for a sound designer to pull out of a stock sound library?

In a sense, it would be like sound designing an animated film, in that there would be no location sound. I'm pretty sure this is how Leone did it, although his ADR work was crappy. Hopefully the technology has progressed a bit since then!

So, for a 90-minute feature, with a relatively small amount of dialog, and a lot of outdoor, car-driving, waves-lapping-against-the-lake-shore types of sounds, do you think I could find someone to do the looping and the sound design for like 10 or 15k? Maybe a house willing to work with me? An up-and-coming sound designer looking to gain experience? Would a guy like that conceivably have access to a large library of sounds?

http://home.earthlink.net/~boomsound/smallvista.jpg

[Russ McDonald]

That his the worst idea I have ever heard in my professional career, In fact that would be in the top 5 of bad production planning choices of all time.

Having said that, it is your film. Best of luck my friend, and don't let anyone stand in your way.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

You know technically every film is mostly done Via ADR and post sound work so this isn't exactly abnormal.
It will just be more work.

[Tom Lowe]

That his the worst idea I have ever heard in my professional career, In fact that would be in the top 5 of bad production planning choices of all time.

Having said that, it is your film. Best of luck my friend, and don't let anyone stand in your way.


heh, i figured i'd get a lot of responses like this. could you expand on why -- specifically -- you think so? i make threads like this here to learn, and to pick the brains of people who have more experience than i do.

[Jason Murphy]

It's not the worst idea I've ever heard, and it's certainly doable (Italian studios did it for years, though you can certainly tell from watching Italian movies from the 50's and 60's that the ADR left a bit to be desired in terms of syncing with lip movement), but I'm not sure I'd recommend shooting entirely MOS; it's going to present some pretty major challenges. For starters, foleying all the sounds is going to be a bitch.

If the dialogue exchanges are that important (and it seems like they should be, or why would they be there?), you're going to want to get a good clean recording of them on set. It's very difficult to get the right emotional tone doing ADR; sound designers and actors almost always will say that the takes from the set are better (at least from a performance standpoint, if not from a technical one). At the very least, even if you do loop it, you'll have the original take as a reference.

Don't know how much you know about recording sound yourself, but you might want to pick up a handheld solid state digital recorder yourself like a Marantz PMD660, and go out and begin recording sound and building up your own libraries of wild sound or other effects for use in your movie. Just a thought that seems like it would go well with everything else you're doing here.

But certainly, I'd take caution with doing the whole thing MOS. You'll most likely spend much more time (and therefore money) in post trying to construct the soundtrack if you do. And if it's not done well, or your post budget runs out halfway through the soundtrack, it'll be a problem. An audience will pick up on bad audio much faster than a bad image.

[Russ McDonald]

Tom
I shot Eddies Night out in 10 days for 50,000 in HD I say that because I want you to know, I am a hardcore indie.

The response to your question it is going to take me a little time to type,so I will be up in about 20 min.

[Jason Murphy]

This isn't completely on topic, but it's definitely a very helpful read. Filmsound.org is a pretty decent online resource for all things, well, film sound.

http://filmsound.org/production-sound/openletter.htm

Edit: Added another useful article linked from Filmsound.org about doing audio on a low budget indie.
http://mixonline.com/sound4picture/film_tv/audio_freak/

[Mark B.]

If you know for sure that you don't want any real-time sounds, then I don't see your idea as being a bad one. I had a similar idea for something I was thinking of shooting, but my plan was to take a good off-camera microphone to collect environmental sounds when I wasn't busy operating the camera.

But then I'm kind of a sound guy at heart, hanging around the middle of nowhere with a microphone isn't such a big deal to me.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

You really shouldn't use anything from sound libraries it's a better idea to go out with some sort of sound recording device and recording everything you can think of from scratch.

[Tom Lowe]

It's not the worst idea I've ever heard, and it's certainly doable (Italian studios did it for years, though you can certainly tell from watching Italian movies from the 50's and 60's that the ADR left a bit to be desired in terms of syncing with lip movement), but I'm not sure I'd recommend shooting entirely MOS; it's going to present some pretty major challenges. For starters, foleying all the sounds is going to be a bitch.

If the dialogue exchanges are that important (and it seems like they should be, or why would they be there?), you're going to want to get a good clean recording of them on set. It's very difficult to get the right emotional tone doing ADR; sound designers and actors almost always will say that the takes from the set are better (at least from a performance standpoint, if not from a technical one). At the very least, even if you do loop it, you'll have the original take as a reference.

Don't know how much you know about recording sound yourself, but you might want to pick up a handheld solid state digital recorder yourself like a Marantz PMD660, and go out and begin recording sound and building up libraries of wild sound or other effects for use in your movie. Just a thought that seems like it would go well with everything else you're doing here.

But certainly, I'd take caution with doing the whole thing MOS. You'll most likely spend much more time (and therefore money) in post trying to construct the soundtrack if you do. And if it's not done well, or your post budget runs out halfway through the soundtrack, it'll be a problem. An audience will pick up on bad audio much faster than a bad image.

Jason, I've boomed a couple of features, so I have a good working knowledge of the sound dept. I have a lot of good friends who are mixers. I just can't see dragging a mixer and boom op up a 2-mile trail at Yosemite to record two lines of dialog beside a lake. Plus we want to keep our "footprint" super small in these National Parks and other such locations.

Then again, I agree with you about losing the emotion of a scene. That is the biggest factor working against my new idea. The other factor I worry about is someone trying foley or match the very specific sounds of someone splashing in the water in a river in Yosemite or something. The problem is, I don't know anything about ADR or sound design.

adobeone, thanks, i look forward to your thoughts.

[Jason Murphy]

I just can't see dragging a mixer and boom op up a 2-mile trail at Yosemite to record two lines of dialog beside a lake.

Clearly, your hypothetical mixer and boom op are not nearly hardcore enough. So much for their indie cred. :sarcasm:

[Tom Lowe]

Clearly, your hypothetical mixer and boom op are not nearly hardcore enough. So much for their indie cred. :sarcasm:

LOL.

But seriously, would you want to try to drag a sound mixer and boom op two miles up some twisting canyon at Lake Powell on a pontoon boat if you didn't absolutely have to?

[Jason Murphy]

LOL.

But seriously, would you want to try to drag a sound mixer and boom op two miles up some twisting canyon at Lake Powell on a pontoon boat if you didn't absolutely have to?

No, not really, but I guess the question is: is it absolutely necessary? Ask two different people, you might get two different responses.

On one hand, it's a pain, and you might be able to dub the two lines just fine, and save yourself (not to mention your poor bedraggled sound crew) the work (and maybe money). On the other hand, I've heard "I wish we'd taken the extra step and done that thing right on set" a number of times. I don't think I've heard anyone regret putting a little extra effort into getting a better result, painful as it may seem at the time.

Incidentally, doesn't have much to do with sound for an indie, but given your love of Malick, thought you might like this article, too, Tom. It's on The New World's sound mix.

http://mixonline.com/sound4picture/film_tv/audio_natural_sound_new/

[Tom Lowe]

Of course I have read that, my friend! You underestimate how much I worship Malick. :)

The New World showcases, IMO, the best sound design ever. It is my model. One thing about Terry's pictures, though, if you read a lot of articles about the editing and such, is that Malick talks constantly through his takes, giving his actors guidance. Of course, his budgets are huge enough to cover it all with sound design and ADR. If you have a university guy roaming the woods of Virginia for 7 months trying to get a specific bird call, you can do anything. :)

Maybe the best option for me is to hire a mixer and boom op for the small handful of intense dialog sequences I know in advance we are going to shoot. The problem is, how do you get a guy to drive from LA to Yosemite for 3 days of work, or get a guy to show up at Antelope Marina in Arizona at Lake Powell for two afteroons? :)

I suppose it could be done, though.

[Jason Murphy]

Maybe the best option for me is to hire a mixer and boom op for the small handful of intense dialog sequences I know in advance we are going to shoot. The problem is, how do you get a guy to drive from LA to Yosemite for 3 days of work, or get a guy to show up at Antelope Marina in Arizona at Lake Powell for two afteroons? :)

Make disparaging comments about their indie cred. :sarcasm:

EDIT:
Failing that, pay them lots of money.

[Tom Lowe]

Make disparaging comments about their indie cred. :sarcasm:

Believe me, when you are trying to talk a crew into hiking 3 miles, each way, to get an MOS shot of two actors sitting beside a lake, SHAME is my most often employed weapon. :)

That's why I always include the words "No Cupcakes Need Apply" in my craigslist crew postings. :)

[Mark Thorpe]

For that kinda work look for ex-military types. A quick 1 to 1 on the gear and off you go.

[R Fogg]

I swear to god the entire first half of Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalgia was shot MOS. I don't think you even see a mouth move for the first 20 minutes (and there is dialog). It allso harkens to the 50-60's italian studio films (edit-oops already mentioned.)

I had a very similar idea and to me the key to doing this successfully is to not subordinate the soundtrack to the picture. Free the sound-track from the tyrany of the image, but do it self-consiously. Create some dissonance between the image and the sound. I want to see that film. However, if you want a movie that sounds like a normal movie and you have budget constraints I think you gotta go the normal route - at least for the dialog scenes. Take a little edirol digital recorder along and record environmental sounds for your sound designer to play with.

Disclaimer: background is heavily experimental film

[Steven Parker]

I shot a picture last year on the Wisconsin River, near Spring Green - not exactly Yosemite, but we were out in the sticks for sure. Our one-man sound dept kicked ass: ENG-style mixer, boom, and the occasional couple lavs. We were in canoes on the river, deep woods, plus some parking lot/bait shop dialog scenes... he covered everything, just like a full dept. An older guy, too.

I mention this because you can find heroes like him if you look around (PM me if you wat his contact info, he's out of Chicago); I also mention it because you never ever get the sounds of Yosemite off of a CD you bought. The weather, the mood, the exact location, not to mention performances... I feel your pain in terms of budget, but I think it'd be a mistake to not be getting amazing wild tracks right alongside your amazing visuals...

That was a 200K picture too - and they never could have afforded building sound in post...

[Cam McGrath]

Tom, you could just hire something like a 3 channel Sound Devices 302 mixer, a Sennheiser 416 and a set of headphones (or two) and do it yourself...it ain't that hard. Record straight to the camera. I'm sure there'd be a spare set of hands even on a small indy to boom for ya! Not the best scenario but certainly doable. I've operated a jimmy jib and mixed sound simultaneously before and that does suck.

I'm also one of those go anywhere, do anything guys but way too downunder to be able to help you out!

cam

[Russ McDonald]

Tom
The first question you have to ask yourself is? Am I storyteller who just happens to own a kick ass camera, and have the skill to use it? Or are you a DP with Directorial aspirations?

Of the two IMO number one is the best way to be, when you shoot a feature.
The first axiom of film is, it’s not about you; it is and always will be about the audience.
They don’t come to a feature film to see stunning visuals. They come to emotionally connect to your characters, and then they will fallow them anywhere.

I assume this film is your dream come true, and it’s for the world to see that you can do this filmmaking shit, and they should give you truck loads of there money to make your next one. You don’t get that with strong visuals.

That is the problem with most films today. They are made by mostly music video Directors, who do incredible 6 to 10 min visually stunning sequences. But they can’t sustain an emotional core for a full feature. Your story is a love story complicated by a love triangle, between human beings. Not gigantic hunks of granite. No matter how impressive Half dome is. If you want to be the big man on campus, and get other peoples money, you have to have film Execs come out of your screening and say. “We can make some f**king money with this thing.” And that’s exactly what I want for you… To do that you have to create moments with emotional weight, an actors are the only way to do that.

When you start shooting your movie, those moments are going to happen, and it’s going to be magic, It will not be in the script, it will be organic, and if you don’t have a mic to capture it, you’re going spend hours in post trying to artificially recapture it. You could get lucky and get really close. But I assure you you’re going to kicking yourself in the edit bay, and you will never do it again. You will in the end spend three times the money in post and ADR, than you would have spent in location sound. Remember you’re the boss, hay sound guy while we set the next shot. Go down to the lake and get me some lake wave sounds. That way you go into post and you have it all.

And all that money you saved it going to go into your festival marketing budget, getting a PR guy that can build buzz, and get you sold. A then when you getting your Oscar, you’re up there thanking your Mom, your agent, your crew, and your actors. Then you’re going to thank your old pal Adobeone. From saving you from making the worst mistake of my professional career.

Then I’m going to raise my champagne glass in your honor; hell I might even get a little misty.

[Tom Lowe]

For me, it's not really about the budget. I have sound mixer friends who would do the whole 30-day roadtrip show for like 6 grand or whatever. For me, it's about keeping the crew small and freeing the "image." Crew wise, shooting in a National Park like Yosemite, you have to convince the Rangers you are a small "film school" crew shooting a "not for profit" short. I've done this many times before at places like Joshua Tree, and the less people and equipment you have standing around around, the less likely they are even to bother you in the first place.

There is a reason why no great film has ever shot in Yosemite... because you have to do it real low key, which is part of why the RED is so awesome. To the average Joe, it's just a "video camera." But we know better. ;)

Also, on the Visions of Light cinematography documentary, a lot of legendary DPs claimed that the introduction of sound into film production in the early part of the last century severely limited the power of the image and camera.

Also, if I saved 6K for a mixer, it's that much more I could spend on ADR and Sound Design.

This is just a hair-brained idea, and I probably won't do it, but I do thank you guys for sounding me out on the idea.

[Jason Murphy]

I swear to god the entire first half of Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalgia was shot MOS. I don't think you even see a mouth move for the first 20 minutes (and there is dialog). It also harkens to the 50-60's italian studio films (edit-oops already mentioned.)

I had a very similar idea and to me the key to doing this successfully is to not subordinate the soundtrack to the picture. Free the sound-track from the tyrany of the image, but do it self-consiously. Create some dissonance between the image and the sound. I want to see that film. However, if you want a movie that sounds like a normal movie and you have budget constraints I think you gotta go the normal route - at least for the dialog scenes. Take a little edirol digital recorder along and record environmental sounds for your sound designer to play with.

Disclaimer: background is heavily experimental film/experimental music

RFO - You just made my evening. You just name checked the filmmaker (and the film) that got me interested in movies to begin with, and just described a movie I want to see (or make at some point).

As an aside, Tarkovsky's films had absolutely incredible sound design. Stalker and Nostalghia especially.

On another note, a friend of mine made an incredibly complex sound film about Joan of Arc, shot entirely MOS, with sound and picture working more or less on equal levels, as per your post. What I've seen of it is amazing; you need to be willing to overlook your preconceptions about film/sound sync, but it's stunning stuff. And wildly experimental in the best way.

Long live experimental film and music.

[Cam McGrath]

Tom

When you start shooting your movie, those moments are going to happen, and it’s going to be magic, It will not be in the script, it will be organic, and if you don’t have a mic to capture it, you’re going spend hours in post trying to artificially recapture it. You could get lucky and get really close. But I assure you you’re going to kicking yourself in the edit bay, and you will never do it again. You will in the end spend three times the money in post and ADR, than you would have spent in location sound.

Aint that true...!

[R Fogg]

Hijack: Sounds great, where can I see that Jason?

[Tom Lowe]

Tom


When you start shooting your movie, those moments are going to happen, and it’s going to be magic, It will not be in the script, it will be organic, and if you don’t have a mic to capture it, you’re going spend hours in post trying to artificially recapture it. You could get lucky and get really close. But I assure you you’re going to kicking yourself in the edit bay, and you will never do it again. You will in the end spend three times the money in post and ADR, than you would have spent in location sound. Remember you’re the boss, hay sound guy while we set the next shot. Go down to the lake and get me some lake wave sounds. That way you go into post and you have it all.



I totally hear you on the first point, and I can already imagine kicking myself in the head if something magical happened in a dialog sequence. I have to think about this for sure.

As far as the sounds of gentle waves lapping a lake shore, isn't that something my sound designer could easily pull from stock sounds? Or am I wrong?

[Jason Murphy]

Hijack: Sounds great, where can I see that Jason?

Well, unfortunately, at the moment, unless you live in NJ, and know the guy who made it, you probably can't. It exists only on film and a DTS mix. There's been talk of putting out a DVD or HD/BD at some point, which I'm really hoping happens at some point, because it should be seen much more widely than it has been to date.

The movie's called Wired Angel, incidentally, directed by Sam Wells.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034088/

[/Hijack]

[Ramesh Jai]

I am not going to apologise for my ignorance because I am learning - could someone kindly tell me what MOS and ADR stand for. Thank you.

[Russ McDonald]

I totally hear you on the first point, and I can already imagine kicking myself in the head if something magical happened in a dialog sequence. I have to think about this for sure.

As far as the sounds of gentle waves lapping a lake shore, isn't that something my sound designer could easily pull from stock sounds? Or am I wrong?

Yeah but that stock sound has to be paid for, you hire the location sound guy you own the output. So next time you need lake waves it's in your library. Then you can sell it to some else.

Work smart not hard young pat-a-won.

By the time I'm done with you, your going to name your kids after me.

[Michael Schrengohst]

http://filmsound.org/terminology/mos.htm

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Movie_Making_Manual-ADR

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah but that stock sound has to be paid for, you hire the location sound guy you own the output. So next time you need lake waves it's in your library. Then you can sell it to some else.

Work smart not hard young pat-a-won.

By the time I'm done with you, your going to name your kids after me.

So this sort of begs back to my original post. Will the sound house or sound design guy I work with have access to a large library of sounds, in theory? Do such sound houses have sounds they have built up over the years and don't have to pay for on an individual basis?

BTW, adobe, you're a noob here, so don't get too out of line! :)

[Jason Murphy]

I am not going to apologise for my ignorance because I am learning - could someone kindly tell me what MOS and ADR stand for. Thank you.

MOS stands for something like "Mit Ohne Sound" or "Mit Out Sound" a (grammatically incorrect) mix of German and English. It essentially has come to mean "shoot silent" ie, shoot without sound recording.

ADR stands for "automatic dialogue replacement" and is the practice of re-recording lines that for whatever reason didn't take as desired (background noise, not clean enough, technical difficulties, lazy filmmakers, etc), in a studio over the image. Also known as looping.

[kmikami]

Do specific scenes need to take place in specific locations? It seems like it would be best to shoot all of the dialog scenes at once with your small sound crew over how ever many days, and stick to more accessible locations. Then do an extended second unit type of shoot with your actors and your camera, grabbing shots of all of those out of the way places and magical moments. Maybe for the dialog scenes shoot some wide shots MOS if a particularly beautiful setting is necessary for that moment. After hiking to some remote location with a sound crew it would be dumb to waste time shooting closeups with blurry trees in the background.

[Ramesh Jai]

MOS stands for something like "Mit Ohne Sound" or "Mit Out Sound" a (grammatically incorrect) mix of German and English. It essentially has come to mean "shoot silent" ie, shoot without sound recording.

ADR stands for "automatic dialogue replacement" and is the practice of re-recording lines that for whatever reason didn't take as desired (background noise, not clean enough, technical difficulties, lazy filmmakers, etc), in a studio over the image. Also known as looping.
Thank you. I will be using those terms very often (and freely) from now on.

[Russ McDonald]

So this sort of begs back to my original post. Will the sound house or sound design guy I work with have access to a large library of sounds, in theory? Do such sound houses have sounds they have built up over the years and don't have to pay for on an individual basis?

BTW, adobe, you're a noob here, so don't get too out of line! :)

A nood why I aught ah :angry03::) :)


Do not depend on anyone else to fill holes in your production, you will be disappointed every time. When you shoot your film you leave nothing to chance, you are there get it all. Tom you have more than enough money to make the kind of film you have planed.

The audiences today are so sophisticated, they have grown up on movies, they know instinctually when something is off, they may not know what it is, but they know something is wrong. Never give an audience that opportunity, because bubba it's a killer.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

A mic weights what 1 pound? A lightweight boom pole.... 4? A portable mixer.... about 7. Double for two people.... 24 pounds.

My Rainier pack 2 years ago: 48 pounds + water.

I see no reason to worry about the weight of a few boom poles, mics and a small mixing board. I have a friend who brought 2 large hardcover books (for options) on a backpacking trip last year. Just think of your boom poles as ice axes, your mics as crampons and the cables as rope.

If you're really worried: record stereo with a high/low and pick one in post. At least you got it then.

[Sean]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Robert Rodriguez. Or if they did I didn't see it in the above posts.

He shot El Mariachi entirely MOS.

I saw another feature as well--a horror film from Asia--that was shot entirely MOS and dubbed for dialogue and sound. For the most part I'd never have known.

I'd be tempted to get some location sound, even bad location sound, however. And then you might still have to do a lot of sound and dialog replacement anyhow. But you'll have more choices.

Anyhow, good on you Tom. Where there's a will, there's a way. Do it how you need to do it. As long as you make your movie, you're about a million light years ahead of everyone else with a video camera.

[Clayton Harper]

How about a lav on each actor and you rig the receivers on a mounting plate at the camera? Then you have dialogue and invisible equipment. Everything else is gonna be foley anyway, right?

[Tom Lowe]

That's a possibility. Maybe better would be for me to bring along a boom mic, and just run it straight into the RED. I can boom op myself or I can get one of my guys to do it, for really important scenes. That's an option, I think. Good idea!

[Brad Hawkins]

Why not use a couple of Sennheiser radios and countryman mics and then you'll only have to ADR the portions that have static or are otherwise unusable.

I know that many of Altman's films were shot this way and the quality of those mics and radios are really incredible. At the very least you'll have a guide track that should sound much better than a shotgun mounted to the camera.

[EDIT] Just saw that lordnumberzero beat to the punch!

[Tom Lowe]

Possibly. But a lot of our dialog sequences would be better suited to one boom mic. I think that might be the way to go.

One boom mic, run straight into the RED, and hope for the best, without a mixer?

[P Andersson]

years ago i filmed a short where i wanted it all silent and no talking, but the best scenes were improvised and had some actors react so strongly that they started talking,

should have brought microphones,

[Joel Kaye]

Possibly. But a lot of our dialog sequences would be better suited to one boom mic. I think that might be the way to go.

One boom mic, run straight into the RED, and hope for the best, without a mixer?

You don't need a mixer. You can map 1 boom to all 4 audio tracks and set the gain at different levels to capture whispers to shouts.

You can probably rig your boom to velcro strap to a tree branch or get propped up by a rock or tree stump. Or just place it right in the scene and hide it with nature.

The other thing I'd do is bring a pair of mics to record ambient tracks. You could grab 2 oktava 012's and put unidirectional caps on and point them in opposite directions. Then you'll have real ambience from the location in stereo. Go test it... it'll add a lot of production value.

I'd certainly try testing some wireless mics.

I'd attempt to get the audio, but not stress out about it knowing you can ADR. You can use reverses and masters for easier lip syncing.

[Tom Lowe]

DUDE, I know how to shoot a picture

[Joel Kaye]

DUDE, I know how to shoot a picture

No offense intended. Just typing off the top of my head. :-) I wasn't sitting here thinking "this Tom guy needs a lesson". Sorry if it came off that way. I was just thinking out loud.

[Mark Thorpe]

I hear REDBOOM is just around the corner so maybe another option?....:shifty:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/55_1189828637.jpg

heh heh!

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Is that gonna come with the Red Gaffer tape?

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g214/river_felix/RedGaffer.jpg

[Mark Thorpe]

.....and a counter balance! Hey, just joshin'. Tom, I think it's a ballsy move to plan such a project. Good luck with it mate.

Cheers,
Mark.

[oldphart]

MOS stands for something like "Mit Ohne Sound" or "Mit Out Sound" a (grammatically incorrect) mix of German and English.

That explanation of the origin of MOS is rather unbelievable. The word sequence is not just ungrammatical, it does not occur in the language. There is no equivalent to the English "without" in German, so my best guess is that it would have to be some English-speaking person trying to explain it in very non-fluent German. (Actually, the with- part of without is not related to the word "with" either, according to my History of the English Language.)

[Stephen Williams]

That explanation of the origin of MOS is rather unbelievable. The word sequence is not just ungrammatical, it does not occur in the language. There is no equivalent to the English "without" in German, so my best guess is that it would have to be some English-speaking person trying to explain it in very non-fluent German. (Actually, the with- part of without is not related to the word "with" either, according to my History of the English Language.)

Hi,

My understanding was a German camera assistant speaking English.

Stephen

[Seung Han]

You should definitely record on location sound. Forget dialogue, how about recreating footsteps, breathing, grunts, moans, sighs, the sound of clothes, the sound of bodies moving fast, wind, water, animals, bodies touching, hitting, rubbing, sounds coming from props, canteens, camp gear, backpacks, flashlights, cooking utensils, camp fires, a character searching his pockets, shuffling his/her feet...it could be an endless process in post.

Once on a short film I had to foley a character walking down a hall into an apartment in one shot because you could hear the DP, boom op and mine's footsteps...that took a full day in a studio before I was happy with it but miserable because of $$$$.

On a low budget, good sound becomes much more important than good images. Do not go down this treacherous path. I have been through it with bad sound, and I have so many Indie Filmmaker friends who have as well. It is absolutely not worth it to do anything MOS... If you pay anyone well in your crew it should be a PRO SOUND MIXER. Everybody else can take a cut, defer pay or share in profits, but find a good sound guy and pay him well...

[Seung Han]

DUDE, I know how to shoot a picture

I guess you were more asking specific questions about using sound libraries?

I wouldn't, working in post I always found them generic and uninspiring. Often I would foley myself in a booth for TV shows and commercials, never happy with stock sounds.

I couldn't even imagine recreating every sound for a feature film shot on MOS. Just sounds like a nightmare. I've had major sound issues in post on 30 sec pieces, and have been to hell and back on short narrative pieces running 4 minutes. 70 minutes plus...No way...

[Dominic Jones]

Hi,

My understanding was a German camera assistant speaking English.

Stephen
The versions I've heard have all attributed the saying to a German director during the "transplant" of German talent to the US in the 30's. Of course, a German director (or AC, for that matter!) would probably have got the German correct and said "Ohne" rather than "Mit Out"!!! It's a good story though!...

My favorite backronym for MOS is "Mixer Outside Smoking", but I think the most likely real origin is either "Minus Optical Sound" or "Motor Only Sync". I prefer the "phoney" versions, personally!

And re: the original point, whilst dialogue looping might not be an issue, as many people have noted foleying an entire feature from scratch will be a nightmare - I've done a full foley of a 7 min film shot entirely MOS on an old Arri 16ST, and that was a killer - 12 times that work would (a) be a lot more costly than recording I'm sure and (b) a whole lot less fun! My advice - at least record atmos and diagetic audio, even if it's a relatively inexperienced (read cheap!) operator that you get...

[Jim Hoffman]

Howdy - I am a sound designer/mixer.

Yes it is possible to recreate the sound of an entire movie. I have done it. It takes an incredible amount of time to get to even the most basic levels of acceptability when dealing with on screen actors and dialogue scenes. Scenes of nature are easily recreated if you have a reasonable library which any good sound guy should own. But dialogue scenes are a different. There is so much going on that it takes real talent, time and finesse to make it believable. Good foley work is key. A good mixing ear a must. A reasonable space to record in, especially if this is all taking place outside, is needed to create these sounds so they don't sound like they were recorded in a small room.

The biggest difficulty I have always had is with the actors and recreating the scenes/emotions/performances that were originally captured. There is a subtlety that can easily be lost when out of the environment and in the studio. So much is in the hands of the actors... so it doesn't really matter what technical wizardry can be performed.

The process of recreating the entire soundtrack is very time consuming. While it is done, you want to make the best movie you can and sound is one of those things that separates the men from the boys. You want to focus your energies on making a great movie... not salvaging what you can. I always say you can't put an asterisk on a film that says *you wouldn't believe what we had to do to even get it this far. Anything you record when you film will be helpful even if it is used only as a reference for the sound designer or actors.

Most often it is the budget and or time that hurts projects like these. 90 minutes is a lot of work.

Good Luck - make the film you want to make!

[Russ McDonald]

I have been busted by a PM from an person who will remain nameless, and I must make a public disclosure.

The trailer for Eddies was MOS Tom, but is was a pain in the ass to post.

[Seung Han]

Don't boom your own production. Hire a pro sound mixer and a good boom. You should focus 110% on directing, not swinging a boom mic around. You don't want to be distracted from the task at hand when you can just hire at the very least a young kid who wants to work hard on a film set...

[Tom Lowe]

I hear REDBOOM is just around the corner so maybe another option?....:shifty:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/55_1189828637.jpg

heh heh!

LMAO, problem solved!

Thanks, guys. I think I will just go ahead and hire a mixer and boom op for the whole roadtrip/show. The more I read these answers, including those from the likes of Hoffman and Seung Han, the more I think my original idea to shoot MOS would be a mistake.

One of the reasons I thought I might be able to do it is because my picture truly does have only a small amount of dialog. The problems I fear more are the ones being mentioned about trying to match foley. If I'm showing a closeup of someone cooking breakfast on a camping stove in the mountains, that could be a huge pain in the ass to do in post sound. How many sound guys are going to have stock sounds of a Coleman camping stove's pump-up valve?

[Jim Hoffman]

at least you give yourself a choice. You can then spend your time and money sweetening.

[Steve Freebairn]

At the bare minimum record sound straight to the camera.

[Adam C Lubkin]

Tom, why not leave the camera crew at home, bring a crack audio team to get you stellar tracks, and use stock footage for the visuals? hehe

Have you considered bringing a sound designer on early and letting him/her determine your audio needs?

In the parks, can your audio crew check in separately, as simple hikers/backpackers (perhaps packing food and clothes for the rest of you while you carry their gear) and then meet up with you on the trail?

[HD Hildebrand]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Robert Rodriguez. Or if they did I didn't see it in the above posts.

He shot El Mariachi entirely MOS.

I saw another feature as well--a horror film from Asia--that was shot entirely MOS and dubbed for dialogue and sound. For the most part I'd never have known.

I'd be tempted to get some location sound, even bad location sound, however. And then you might still have to do a lot of sound and dialog replacement anyhow. But you'll have more choices.

Anyhow, good on you Tom. Where there's a will, there's a way. Do it how you need to do it. As long as you make your movie, you're about a million light years ahead of everyone else with a video camera.


I'm with Sean - I too was going to mention El Mariachi being shot MOS. You seem to know what you're after, now it's up to you to make it work. I am a proponent of great sound, but I'm also a proponent of making things happen - even if it is against all odds, ground rules, or public opinion. Guess that also explains part of my admiration for Red.

One thing though - you have inputs into the camera, why not at least record a guide track. It will aid in post (ADR/looping/foley).

Cheers,
Dale

[bradvr]

Have you considered bringing a sound designer on early and letting him/her determine your audio needs?

Absolutely agree with this one! Get your sound designer involved in Pre-pro and then you can adjust your crew to meet your needs. I for one, would at least rig a radio mic or two for nat sounds (lav and boom) as the need arises. Even if you use for reference tracks, it will make the post sound much, much easier. This is all assuming that Red will have audio recording active, otherwise you have to add a double system recording to your package. BH

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Apparently Rodrieguez didn't record any of the sound in post he did a separate take on set for sound fx and dialogue in order to save money on film which would be wasted on slates.
He just manually synced the dialogue in post and cut away if it didn't sync, he knew which shots wouldn't sync up in post so he had already worked around this in the shooting process.

[J. Bernard Vallon]

Tom,
My initial reaction was like a lot of people, that this is basicly a bad idea BUT - I made a short horror film once in which the best take of the most important shot had no sound that was usable, so we had to use the dialogue from another take. It matched up, but it was really eire. Kind of surreal. You couldnt tell it was dubbed, but it just didnt look quite right, and in a horror film, it worked really well.

Dubbed dialogue has its own aesthetic. It isnt wrong per-se, but make sure you like it and think it is appropriate. It might serve to distance your audience just enough from the film, or make your characters seem a little unnatural. Do some tests.

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

The idea that on an indie project people would pay like $500 or more to have someone boom for them is really laughable to me. Almost any film school student who isn't a moron knows how to hold a shotgun mic properly to get nice production sound. On an indie project the beauty is you aren't bound by the numerous absolutely inane, stupid Hollywood crap, like unions, for instance, where you ask a guy to move a case and he can't move it because it's not his job or some crap. That kind of attitude will get someone kicked off my set. If you have a few spare hands, you can teach someone how to boom properly (if you know how yourself) in not too much time, and if you always make sure (as you should) to have plenty of takes and coverage, you should always have some good footage.

The only way I'd pay a guy $500 per day to boom for me is if I was doing a $50 million film where every hour of the shoot costs such an insane amount of money that we simply cannot have anyone but a complete professional doing the audio because it has to be PERFECT. But when you're on a small budget project that's almost never the case. Most people I know don't think it's rocket science to plug in cables, move lights, set up dolly tracks, use the boom mic, etc. I can do all of that (I'd rather not, though), my friend can do all of that, it's really not that difficult. The DP is the position that is worth every penny of what a good DP charges. Nothing is more important than getting a great image, IMO, and you can't skimp on that. But it's hilarious to me this industry will pay everyone else so much money to do simple jobs that your average Home Depot employee could pull off with 8 hours of training.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

$500 + a day for a BOOM op?! where did this number come from

[Tom Lowe]

That's probably not far off from what union boom op guys make. Maybe more.

I definitely will involve the sound designer in pre-prod if I can.

[number6]

Yeah but that stock sound has to be paid for, you hire the location sound guy you own the output. So next time you need lake waves it's in your library. Then you can sell it to some else.

Work smart not hard young pat-a-won.

By the time I'm done with you, your going to name your kids after me.

Adobeone, when you first posted in this thread I thought you were just a horse's patooty fharting oats. But your second post made sense.

I also can understand Tom's position about not getting throun out of a National Park where he sees a need to film. So, this is how I expect to foley my movie which i hope to begin in a year, maybe two. I oun numerous mini dv cameras that I have just hung on to since they wouldn't bring much return anyway (older Canon stuff, mostly.) I plan to put directional mikes on each one of them (to keep the camera sound out of the audio) and place them stategically around the set, out of sight of the camera. They are small (a couple of original Canon Opturas, a GL 1, maybe will use a couple of Sanyo MPEG 4 recording Xacti's). This should cover any Foley needs and possibly suffice for 5.1 surround. This amount of gear should be easy to carry and should not alert any picky Ranger that Tom's crew would be a danger to the natural beauty of the Park. If either you or Tom (or anyone else) see a problem(s) other than less-than-perfect sound from a mini dv etc. camera, I would be interested in hearing what it or they might be.

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

My objection number6 is that you need to pay 3 union boom guys $700 per day otherwise you aren't really a professional. People have to eat, and since everyone else in the entire freakin' world makes like $125 per day, you should understand a union boom guy eats special food that requires he make $500 per day at least for a job that's not even as difficult as cleaning toilets. Come on number6, be professional! ;)

lol, just joking with you. I have basically zero tolerance for the way the big guys make movies or anything else. I think it's laughable.

[ZzzZZz...]

just boom the small dialogues yourself you lazy bastard... M.O.S. sucks. It always have and always will. And don´t get started with fellini or herzog, because the mos is definately not what makes their movies great...

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Yeesh maybe I should move back to the United States become a union boom op.

[number6]

My objection number6 is that you need to pay 3 union boom guys $700 per day otherwise you aren't really a professional. People have to eat, and since everyone else in the entire freakin' world makes like $125 per day, you should understand a union boom guy eats special food that requires he make $500 per day at least for a job that's not even as difficult as cleaning toilets. Come on number6, be professional! ;)

lol, just joking with you. I have basically zero tolerance for the way the big guys make movies or anything else. I think it's laughable.

You're right, of course. Didn't mean to starve anyone. Besides, the extra people could become bear food! Bears gotta eat too!

[Russ McDonald]

Adobeone, when you first posted in this thread I thought you were just a horse's patooty fharting oats. But your second post made sense.

I also can understand Tom's position about not getting throun out of a National Park where he sees a need to film. So, this is how I expect to foley my movie which i hope to begin in a year, maybe two. I oun numerous mini dv cameras that I have just hung on to since they wouldn't bring much return anyway (older Canon stuff, mostly.) I plan to put directional mikes on each one of them (to keep the camera sound out of the audio) and place them stategically around the set, out of sight of the camera. They are small (a couple of original Canon Opturas, a GL 1, maybe will use a couple of Sanyo MPEG 4 recording Xacti's). This should cover any Foley needs and possibly suffice for 5.1 surround. This amount of gear should be easy to carry and should not alert any picky Ranger that Tom's crew would be a danger to the natural beauty of the Park. If either you or Tom (or anyone else) see a problem(s) other than less-than-perfect sound from a mini dv etc. camera, I would be interested in hearing what it or they might be.

If you have the gear sounds reasonable to me, I'm not a sound engineer. Make sure you wirelessly mic yourself since you'll have all that behind scenes footage for your promo pack, and the DVD bonus features.

A two car garage in the boones isn't the ideal Foley stage, but it works in a pinch. Use good mics you would be surprised.

[Jim McKinney]

The idea that on an indie project people would pay like $500 or more to have someone boom for them is really laughable to me. Almost any film school student who isn't a moron knows how to hold a shotgun mic properly to get nice production sound.



I'll have to vehemently disagree with this one, Jonathon. Imho, the boom op is one of the most important people on the whole production, and just as important as the mixer. Actually, the mixer and boom op should function as a great team.

A good boom op is such a delight to work with, and a bad one can be a terrible curse. Ditto, once you get to post.

As for Tom's particular project, he might actually want to forgoe a full sound team, but I'd recommend that he catch it. Imagine having to loop Martin Sheen saying: "found a toaster," in Badlands.:whistling:

[Jim McKinney]

. . . that he should catch it with a one man sound team. Or maybe have "someone" boom it, notwithstanding my opinion to the contrary that generally someone "very good" should boom it.

[Tom Lowe]

jimarri, I totally agree with you about having someone experienced on boom. booming was one of the ways i first got myself on to movie sets, and it took me a good 10 solid days or so of booming AFI shorts and various projects before I really got decent at it. Having a noobie on a boom can be a big nightmare.

One thing I was thinking about is asking one the young film school guys who is going to be working on my project to pick up a few boom mic gigs between now and then off craigslist, to get some boom experience.

[Seung Han]

Yeah, I think you are making a good decision getting a professional sound team.

As far as El Mariachi is concerned, I think whoever bought it probably paid a grip in post for sound. I heard hundreds of thousands but I could be wrong.

Anyway, I really like your ideas for the film, having a love triangle in an epic setting, sounds original and very cinematic!

[Chris Pickle]

Don't shoot MOS. You will literally want to kill yourself in post. You will be sitting there, and then boom, you'll say "that's it, I can't do this aymore" You'll take a gun a splatter your brains all over the sound studio or maybe your basement.

Someone else will be required to clean up the mess. They'll have to go out and buy some industrial cleaner or hire some professionals - and it will be a messy job. Hopefully there's no carpet, cause forget it. They'll just pull it out and replace it - but only after trying to bleach out the mess from the concrete floor. If it's a wood subfloor, well, that'll have to come out as well.

Some poor SOB will be on his hands and knees scrubing his knuckles to the bone and wonder why they hell he's there. He'll have no idea it was all because you shot a feature MOS and tried to patch stuff together in post. That concept will be lost on him.

If you have a brinks truck full of money buried in the backyard, then I say go for it! :)

[Mark B.]

So you probably have visited this page already... http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/filming.htm

It indicates 1-10 people are grouped into the same location fee, $150 per day. So if you want to take a boom operator, it shouldn't add to the permit fee at least.

[David Mullen ASC]

Kubrick shot his first two features MOS and spent more money in post creating the sound for them than he did shooting them.

And there are obviously price levels between hiring no sound crew and hiring the best and most expensive union guys in the industry.

Like any movie, from tiny to large, you have a budget... and you decide how much you can afford for crew people and you make an offer and hope you can get the best person for your money, hopefully someone who normally makes more but is willing to work on the movie.

Recording sound for a low-budget movie is not one of the biggest hurdles to deal with.