Hey everybody, if I post some picture of a couple of filming locations, can I get some feedback? I've got my heart set on one, it's less that $200 a day to hire and think it suits the mood. 
Filming Location
- Thread starter GoldenSelkie
- Start date
Thanks! This is the one I really want, it's not the hugest space, but still 68 m2. I've visited it twice and each time, I've liked it more.
It's a pretty bright room, has a fairly benign view out the 3 windows down the side. So far the only concern I have is the size because I want to try some shots that require movement. However, the overall look is pretty much perfect.
It's a pretty bright room, has a fairly benign view out the 3 windows down the side. So far the only concern I have is the size because I want to try some shots that require movement. However, the overall look is pretty much perfect.
This is the second space in the same building. It's more expensive though still under $200 and much bigger at 154 m2. These are my pictures and it was overcast on the day so apologies for the quality.
This space is still pretty cool, but it's much darker. The view outside the windows it of a very prominent pub in my city and I'm concerned that the exit sign will be distracting. The main appeal is the size with this space.
The pluses to renting in this building are that there are toilets and a kitchenette, a lobby area for chilling out and it's a central, city location that is very easy to get to. Downsides are that it's not air conditioned and the spaces I want are on the top floor. The elevator doesn't work on the weekends when I want to shoot and it's up a heap of stairs. So I'd be asking people to haul gear up all those stairs...
Anyway, I'd really appreciate any thoughts. Thanks!
This space is still pretty cool, but it's much darker. The view outside the windows it of a very prominent pub in my city and I'm concerned that the exit sign will be distracting. The main appeal is the size with this space.
The pluses to renting in this building are that there are toilets and a kitchenette, a lobby area for chilling out and it's a central, city location that is very easy to get to. Downsides are that it's not air conditioned and the spaces I want are on the top floor. The elevator doesn't work on the weekends when I want to shoot and it's up a heap of stairs. So I'd be asking people to haul gear up all those stairs...
Anyway, I'd really appreciate any thoughts. Thanks!
Without knowing exactly what you're planning on shooting, it's a little hard for me to endorse one over the other - they certainly all LOOK nice to me.
I WILL say that it's tough to shoot more than a very brief period in a space without toilets (I've done it). On the other hand, you might want to talk with the people who will need to carry the gear to be sure that they're OK with it. Good luck!
I WILL say that it's tough to shoot more than a very brief period in a space without toilets (I've done it). On the other hand, you might want to talk with the people who will need to carry the gear to be sure that they're OK with it. Good luck!
The first thing I'd want to know is how much reliable power you can get in both spaces.
With no other information to go by, I'd think the larger space would give you more room to work, and also somewhere to put all the gear & people that aren't in the shot.
Dressing a white room will take extra work. Too bad the walls aren't raw brick.
Given the same lights the larger space won't get as hot.
Are you shooting during the day? You'll want to do a light study to see if/when the sun hits those windows. If it's a night shoot, you should do a sound study and find out how much racket the pub makes (and the hours).
I'm sure that APE & Alcove will have plenty of opinions from the sound department (Pub outside, old wood floors, large/empty room).
With no other information to go by, I'd think the larger space would give you more room to work, and also somewhere to put all the gear & people that aren't in the shot.
Dressing a white room will take extra work. Too bad the walls aren't raw brick.
Given the same lights the larger space won't get as hot.
Are you shooting during the day? You'll want to do a light study to see if/when the sun hits those windows. If it's a night shoot, you should do a sound study and find out how much racket the pub makes (and the hours).
I'm sure that APE & Alcove will have plenty of opinions from the sound department (Pub outside, old wood floors, large/empty room).
Pretty difficult to judge the impact of the size of the space without knowing a few more technical specifics about what you are shooting/what you are shooting with. Instinctively I agree with Rok that you want to scope out the space for power supply.
By the sounds of it, both these rooms are in the same building, thus you'd have the same toilet/kitchen/lobby facilities regardless? It's really just the extra space vs the air-conditioning/view/lower-level of the other one, right?
By the sounds of it, both these rooms are in the same building, thus you'd have the same toilet/kitchen/lobby facilities regardless? It's really just the extra space vs the air-conditioning/view/lower-level of the other one, right?
Could I PM you to give you more detail on what I'm trying to achieve? I'm a trifle paranoid about giving everything away before the film is even made. XD
Multiple power points in each space and the building is regularly used for performances, classes, filming, productions and exhibitions, so the power reliability would be pretty solid. However I WILL be bringing multiple power boards, extension cords and heaps of gaffer tape just in case.
Well, it's not too terrible because I'm planning on filming primarily in front of the windows, so there's only one wall to dress in the space I really want if I follow the filming angles I've tentatively planned. I figure that, so long as I don't leave dead space, the white-ness of the room could become part of the narrative. Afteral, one of the people is actually incarcerated and mental but is almost completely dissociated from reality. That's the other reason I really like the first space, bars on the windows, you know?
Yep, only shooting in the day and not making use of magic hour. I'm booking a day to go in there just to plan as much as possible in relation to lighting, sound and angles to make sure they work in the space and make filming a little more streamlined.
I hope they do! I'm expecting to have to use hidden lavs, boom mike with the furry thing on it and the classic directional mic hidden behind the vase trick. The sound has to be good.
Yup, same building and both spaces are on the top floor with the same access to facilities. Though NEITHER room has air conditioning. It's more a looks, view, size and lighting issue. The larger space is much darker, has the light up exit sign and more white walls to dress or hide with clever framing. The view clearly shows the pub and the pub's name.
The other room is difficult because it's smaller and I'd have to limit the amount of people in there at any given time.
Both are problematic because stairs. D:
The wooden floor might be problematic if it creaks. If it doesn't, some felt pads on shoes or rugs on the floor will kill the footsteps. Boom/mic almost always gives the most natural sounding dialogue if you can get it to work, hard floor and bare walls might make that tricky, some sound blankets strung up just out of shot would help (duvets if you haven't got or can't afford sound blankets). Flouro lights can also cause problems (buzzing) for all your mics but particularly a boom. Laptops, phones, computers, other electrical equipment plugged into sockets in your filming room could create noises which the mics can pick-up; alerts, hard drive clicks, other bleeps and/or RF interference. No air-con is GOOD!
Doors look ordinary rather than sound isolating, careful you don't get spill from those in the lobby area! "Dead kitty" is the commonly used term for the "furry thing" and probably not required indoors (more to reduce wind noise, protect against moisture). A fixed position "mic hidden by a vase" is usually called a "plant mic". Several plant mics, giving good coverage of the area is good. As mentioned, watch out for noise from that pub, which is more likely at the weekend. Get some shots of the pub through the window, it might provide a useful visual justification for a whole range of background sound FX (distant: Source music, screams, shouts, laughter, general crowd noise, breaking bottles, etc.) should the pacing not be ideal in the edit or to help hide faults in the prod sound.
G
Right now I need all of the input so I can balance it out and find the best compromises.
Thanks for all the information and tips, APE!
So it might be a good idea if I book each space for the smallest blocks possible, on the weekend and check all of these things with the sound equipment I'm intending to use. I can test for any and all creaky boards that way and try to work out how to manage them or look at changing my location. The fluoro lights noise is something I'd be okay working into the scene's ambient noise, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue. Though I'm beginning to wonder if I've made things too complicated by wanting these particular spaces. XD
I'd prefer not to have the pub noise, another reason why I like the smaller room because it's on the other side of the building and completely away from the pub. The film is of a meeting between two people who despise each other and needs to have an appearance of shabby elegance before deteriorating into a shabby criminal institution, so the pub noise wouldn't wash.
Yes! Include your boom/mic and recorder and record some dialogue as you will be doing when filming and/or just record nothing/room tone with the fouros on and the boom/mic up high (as it will be), move it around a fair bit and in different places within the room because ...
How are you going to "work" the flouro buzzing into anything, if it's baked into your dialogue? However you try to "work" the buzzing, you'll be "working" the dialogue as well. That's not your only problem though! As your mics move (with your actors) their positions will change relative to the lights and therefore the tonal quality and amount of the buzzing you record will vary accordingly. That will sound strange during your shots and will cause you even bigger headaches when cutting/editing between your shots. The chances are that you'll need to add additional flouro buzzing to even out the uneven buzzing on your dialogue recordings, which is OK if the buzzing is very low level but very quickly adds up to being very intrusive/amateur sounding if it's not very low level and, baring in mind how close to the lights/buzzing the back of your boom mic might be when shooting, you are likely to record more than very low levels of buzzing! Having said all this, not all flouros always cause noticeable buzzing, hence my response above and the need to thoroughly test various mic positions/locations with the flouros on during your scouting trip.
The other solution to changing locations if the flouros are a problem is obviously to use your own lighting and leave the flouros switched off.
You mentioned "ambient noise" above, what ambient noise? If not a pub, then what else instead and how are you going to "establish" it?
G
Done! I'll get that budgeted.
Ah, cool. Hadn't considered variations in intensity of sound due to movement, proximity etc.
The remaining ambient noise, in the room I prefer, is some very slight traffic noise that will be much less on the weekend. I could establish it by doing some shots of the road below, but the windows show a city skyline anyway, so I'm not sure about 'establishing' the traffic noise.
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Yep, it's exactly the same problem as with room tone, only worse because it's a specific sound rather than just relatively random noise.
Ideally, you don't want any traffic (or other) noise at all in your prod sound, just the opportunity to add some in post! Again, if it's in your prod sound you're effectively stuck with it (unless you ADR of course) but if it's not in your prod sound you can add traffic noise in post; when/where you want, how much/often you want, how loud/quiet/present/distant you want and what type you want. A distant traffic rumble for example is relatively inoffensive but a police siren, screeching tyres or a screaming (high rpm) motorcycle, even in the far distance, can add some much needed tension, drama and/or pace (if well placed) to a sequence which isn't working quite as dramatically in post as was anticipated during pre-prod/filming.
A city skyline should be enough to establish distant traffic (and possibly some other "city") noise. You'll need to be the judge of that. If you have the time/opportunity to establish it more precisely, then I'd recommend you get some footage of the road. Better to have it and leave it on the cutting room floor if you don't need it, than to need it and not have it! Obviously, if practical, shoot it in a way which won't damage the story should you decide it's unnecessary in the final edit.
G
And I think these will be my limits on professional sound production and the beginning of signs of an amateur production and budget restrictions . If I could, I'd ADR the heck out of this film, do foley, the whole deal. Buut, that's probably a bit too much unless I happen to get together an incredible team willing to do this for free. :/ So I'll make do.
It's doable. I'm shooting with post production in mind so it shouldn't be an issue to get a couple of establishing shots into the time I have.
Thanks APE.
Actually, if you could, you'd be much better off not doing any ADR at all! Even at the highest budget levels ADR is generally viewed as a last resort. It's time consuming, expensive to do right, no one really likes doing it and most importantly, it's virtually always inferior emotionally/performance wise compared to the production sound. And, at the very low budget levels, your actors are unlikely to have a great deal of experience performing ADR, compounding the problem even further!
Foley on the other hand is an essential, at any budget level! Without it, your film will not only feel dead and unrealistic, it will place it firmly at the lower end of the amateur spectrum. Many of the Foley type sound FX you'll need are pretty easy to record yourself, clothes rustles/movement, placing and picking things up, etc. Others, footsteps for example, might be worth picking up as "wilds" on location (say before wrapping for the day) or at least sourcing online.
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And that's okay, because I'm not going to do any ADR.
I have my doubts about foley because I haven't researched it and I don't know what kind of volunteer sound team I might be able to get. If I can't get a good experienced team willing to do this for free, then I'm limited by what I can learn between now and filming and by what I can find on the internet. It's a classic case of the uneducated amateur just doing what they can with what they have available.