Audio case study | academy
ne minute you’re comfortably indoors filming in a quiet studio and the next you’re bouncing across the sea in a
The boat trip and filming on the beach put the set-up in the firing line. “The Rycote gear really helped me with filming in the great outdoors,” Lewis says. “The Overcovers were especially helpful, as they helped me get nice clean audio from Anne Mette’s lav mic while speeding across the water on the boat, then while she worked on the beach collecting the clay she needed for her pottery.” Lewis found both Rycote wind-killers quick to fit and performed well. The Softie windshield just slips on to the shotgun mic, while the Overcovers are fur discs – two each of white, grey and black. They come in a kit with 30 stickies for putting them over small, pro-style lav mics. “They were easy to get set up, and attaching the lav with the Overcovers made it nice, quick and easy,” he says. Most importantly, Lewis was really impressed by the actual wind reduction. “They were just perfect for what I needed. Being out in the windy conditions was a challenge, so the Classic-Softie and Overcovers came in handy in limiting any wind noise.” Testing the Overcovers before travelling, he found that removing the adhesive stickies could occasionally require a little persuasion depending on the clothing. During the actual shoot, however, it peeled away from Hjortshøj’s jumper without causing a problem. It’s nevertheless something worth checking before attaching an adhesive lav mounting solution to delicate or unusual fabrics, says Lewis. That small observation underlines the value of testing even simple accessories before a job. Wind protection isn’t very glamorous, but neither is returning from an overseas documentary shoot to discover an important piece of dialogue has been overwhelmed by wind. For this production, the investment in some serious wind-killing kit did exactly what was required without forcing a change to an already familiar audio set-up. The clean recordings from the boat and beach sequences will now become part of the finished story rather than an audio repair job waiting to happen.
small speedboat, with the wind doing its best to destroy your soundtrack. That was the challenge facing our former Filmmaker of the Year Jonny Lewis when he was on a recent assignment for Goldmark Films. He travelled to Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, for a two-day shoot with acclaimed potter Anne Mette Hjortshøj. Lewis actually had two films to make. The first was a short promotional piece for an upcoming exhibition of Hjortshøj’s ceramics at Goldmark Gallery, and the second was a documentary exploring her life and work as one of the world’s leading potters. Much of the filming took place inside Hjortshøj’s quiet pottery studio, capturing her creating her masterpieces. For that, Lewis used his Sony FX6, fitted with a Sony ECM-XM1 shotgun microphone and backed up by Sennheiser EW100 G3 wireless systems and Sanken COS-11D lavaliers. Nothing particularly unusual there, apart from a clear understanding that audio really matters – hence the top-quality mics and wireless. But Lewis knew before leaving the UK that the story wouldn’t remain safely indoors. So he decided to invest in some high-end wind protection for his mics. As Bornholm’s landscape and natural materials are important to Hjortshøj’s work, Lewis knew the shoot would involve following her outside, including a trip by speedboat to a beach where she gathers some of the clay used to create her pots. That meant wind, so there had to be a plan to make the captured sound as usable as possible straight out of camera. After all, there’s only so much you can rescue in post if there’s awful wind noise. A standard foam cover can help combat the issue, but furry windshields are much better and blimps even more effective. But they’re not all created equal, so Lewis chose to try Rycote’s range, as the brand built its reputation on windjammers.
Breezy does it The furry Rycote Softie (above) helped on the beach and boat trip, while fur Overcovers are hard to spot on clothing (below)
The investment in serious wind-killing kit did exactly what was required Rather than changing his familiar microphone set-up, Lewis wanted to stick with his current mic set-up and didn’t want to go with a large blimp kit, as they can be too bulky for on-camera use. Lewis selected two pieces of Rycote protection to suite the project – a Classic-Softie windshield for the shotgun mic and Overcovers for the lav.
Five ways to beat audio issues from windy weather 1. Protect the mic before you need to Don’t wait until wind 2. Listen, don’t assume Wind that seems
3. Protect your lav A lavalier placed beneath clothing isn’t automatically safe from wind. Air movement
4. Test your mount Adhesives behave differently on different fabrics. Check your mounting solution holds securely, doesn’t create rustle and can be removed cleanly.
5. Give yourself options Where practical,
noise becomes obvious in your
fairly gentle can still sound brutal through a microphone. Always monitor through decent headphones whenever possible.
record more than one source. A shotgun plus a wireless lav gives you choices in the edit if one source is compromised.
headphones. When heading outdoors, fit protection before shooting starts.
and fabric brushing against the mic can still wreck dialogue.
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