Rigging a sound guy...

[dr stilly]

I have a good sound guy with no equipment so I have decided to invest 1K into his entire set up. It is for a feature film. i really want lav mics, im assuming a decent mixer and a recorder and anything else I might have missed. At the mo I have a rode VM and zoom h1 but will prob use on camera for syncing and back up. gonna need xlr inputs obviously.

Can I grab a few starting places to go researching and hunting...

mucho thanks!

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I'd love to throw you on a no budget set/project so you can see what bits fit for you (I know this would be a complete anathema to the whole professional thing you have going on... but I was making 70k a year fixing computers and networking, and still did some pro bono work and was able to use those projects as places to try new things that I couldn't in my professional life. It may be enlightening (or perhaps a little discouraging) to see how the other half lives here

I'm not totally ruling out the possibility of doing some pro bono work! My current situation is that I've just opened the doors on my new audio post facility. I've got an extremely innovative business model but being innovative is also very risky. I've spent over two years and invested more than a quarter of a million dollars getting to the stage of being able to open for business and I now need to start making a return. If I agree to do work for zero fee then I have to pay for all my company's operating overheads which effectively means I'm paying to do the gig! As I said though, I'm not totally ruling out the possibility of some pro bono work but it's going to have to be a very special project.

G

 

[knightly]

I'm not totally ruling out the possibility of doing some pro bono work! My current situation is that I've just opened the doors on my new audio post facility. I've got an extremely innovative business model but being innovative is also very risky. I've spent over two years and invested more than a quarter of a million dollars getting to the stage of being able to open for business and I now need to start making a return. If I agree to do work for zero fee then I have to pay for all my company's operating overheads which effectively means I'm paying to do the gig! As I said though, I'm not totally ruling out the possibility of some pro bono work but it's going to have to be a very special project.

G

ROI is a HUGE deal! And, doing pro bono work means you get more calls to do pro bono work, so that's risky as well for you and you want to be landing more larger budget gigs than spending time on no-budget stuff.

The smaller budget levels tend to have a bit more freedom and leeway on things which can be very liberating. At one point in my life, I chose to live in my car for the summer, it was very "whatever I please"... now I've got a mortgage, and although I'm much more comfortable, there's this little bit of my brain that pines for the passing of those days.

Budget wise, I just did a major overhaul of my audio kit too... I spent the equivalent of about $1000 (mic, boom, XLR input for the camera, XLR cables) overall that I'd been saving and trading for new gear... my audio gathering has improved by leaps and bounds going up from my old $50 1/8" miniplug (read: giant rf antenna) based kit

 

[dr stilly]

Just thought I'd fill you guys in. We roped in a great DP who has worked with an audio pro friend that comes at good rates (with his own high end equipment) and has agreed to be on board for silly friend rates which is great. Two for the price of one. Happy days. Now I can get back to redrafting the script...for now...

 

[knightly]

awesome.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

Four films in my sound guy who had 20 years as a studio engineer and live venue mixer has KIND OF figured out what he's doing on production sound. As Alcove noted it's like hiring a still photographer to be your DP. He speaks the language, he grasps some of the basic concepts, so it's better than a random guy off the street, but they very different jobs.