Recording dialogue around a campfire.

[harmonica44]

I was asked to take over audio, since the director has not been able to record around a fire, without getting too much noise from the fire. I was wondering how could I do this, without possibly getting the mic and boom too close, as I do not want to overheat it, or anything of that sort.

I was thinking I could get ask the director to use his long lens, and make the actors look like they are closer to the fire than they are. And then I could get the boom mic, further away from the fire, but would this work? He says he is up for it, but I don't know if he will do practice shots before the shoot, so I want to be able to have the right solution before shooting if I can.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Sweetie]

Yeh, thanks for handing out that advice.

My advice makes you rich.

While it was an oversimplified list of options, you can only do what you're allowed to do. If the powers that be decide they know better than the hired hands, they pay for it in the end. All you can do is warn them about the consequences.

Then again, you're at the point in your career where you can walk away from jobs and leave the idiot filmmakers to their own devices.

 

[Beatlesfan1225]

I am not directing this, someone else is, I am just working for her. If it were me directing I would have come up with my own solution and had time to plan it out.

And thanks for the advice. She doesn't have the budget to rent lavs, express from Vancouver. But I will tell her all the other options and we will get lots of takes and wild dialog, away from the fire. I cannot figure out how to do the fake fire in time unfortunately. Thanks.

My question was rhetorical, I understand you're not the director To be honest, though, it doesn't sound like yours is much of one either.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

My advice makes you rich.

If only!!

Additional work of course incurs additional cost but the vast majority of the time (for various commercial reasons) I'm just passing that cost on to the filmmakers and not actually making more profit. It really is a loose/loose situation for everyone; it costs the filmmakers more, I'm having to put in longer hours for which I'm hardly earning anything and the end result is still poorer than it would have been had the production sound been easily treatable.

G

 

[harmonica44]

Okay thanks people. Well I had the DP shoot with a long lens to make the actors look closer to the fire than they actually were, thus being able to get the actors further away from it. Not the best option, but the best the producer/director were prepared for since they wanted a real wood burning fire. I think the DP might have had a problem with, since it dictated his craft, oh well.