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Keys to Achieving Great Audio

today we're going to talk about the ceremony and reception coverage this is going to be very very important just as important as being efficient and evoke emotions and getting all this creative content that we did yesterday the most important thing at the ceremony's gonna be what besides your composition in your lighting in your camera work what do we start to get into know the importance of the valles exactly but our audio and recording audio that's going to be critical for us because like we said yesterday a great film with no audio is a bad film a good film with great audio is very watchable ah great film in the audio is not very watchable okay so audio is going to be number one so on my team general rule is as soon as my assigned audio person which is jessica on my case gets to the church or the reception her number one task is acquiring audio audio acquisition find a mixer find a sound board or if you don't have one maybe you're inside of a church and you have access to ah sound b...

order mixer you have start finding the fish in the fishing on the rabbi the priest whoever maybe and then also the groom you also need to think about preplanning are there going to be readers at the church we're going to speak from or sometimes you may be in a church where the priest doesn't allow you to mike him up but he's gonna be doing a lot of speaking from say the podium so maybe you can make up the podium or at least have us a source of audio coming from the podium are there going to be musicians are they paying a lot of money for the musicians are they going to want to hear these musicians later on you have to think about these things do they have a singer is a singer related to them sometimes at a ceremony unless you ask you don't even know that one of the singers is the bright sister or her aunt her grandparent's or something like this so always try to pre plan ask questions is there anything special that's going to be happy happening at the ceremony that we need to know about audio wise give yourself time because even though were in broad of preparations and we're trying to get all this content and be creative and all this we're trying to keep the bright on time and I tell my brothers so listen we need time to get set up at the church and if you're running too late during bride preparations there's gonna come a point in time that I'm gonna have to leave period because the ceremony in exchange of vows that it's really what it's all about is the exchange of vows and the rings changing all that and I can't show up to the ceremony two minutes before five minutes before and expect to get properly set up with all the audio so tell the bride an hour if you're lucky maybe you get thirty or forty minutes but at least give yourself that thirty minutes sometimes we have fifteen twenty minutes but at least we have fifteen twenty minutes and that's with me telling them I need an hour so just imagine if you didn't tell him you need an hour you probably have even less so it's it's very important besides audio what are we concerned with at the ceremony solid shooting don't forget this we're going to employ tripods at the ceremony especially if you have an outdoor ceremony don't try to do this you know with a shoulder rig or on a mono pod or handheld even because you're just you're gonna be battling your equipment the entire time because it's going to be windy maybe the ground's uneven because you're on a beach and you're trying to hold this shot for twenty five thirty forty minutes and it's just it's not gonna work out you know the shot's gonna move everywhere it's going to be distracting and remember as a videographer or cinematographer a filmmaker whatever you want to classify yourself ask you never want to draw attention to yourself from the viewer you never want the viewer to think of you as the videographer so if they're watching this very compelling film and the camera's moving all over the place now they're now they're going to think of you night oh my god can't this video for just hold the camera still things like that so it disrupts the flow of the film so never do anything that's gonna draw attention to you the videographer even with your film techniques so tripod for most everything everything that includes dialogue ceremony speeches remember we're on a tripod now there there are instances where you have the flexibility where you say you have one or two cameras lock down on a tripod for the ceremony and maybe you have a third shooter or like a third active videographer that maybe grab a mono pod and start getting some cut away some b roll and things like that and we'll get into that when we get into the live shooting we must mike the efficient and obviously we're going to make the groom but I've been to so many churches where the priest or the fish on they they tell me in all their thirty years of doing this not once have they been asked to be mike bye videographer and it blows me what some of you might have heard the same thing from a priest or inefficient and it blows me away because the most important person to mike up during a ceremony is the official the efficient speaks ninety percent of the time even though you have the groom miked up the groom's limited he's only going to speak for the vows and the rings change the efficient speaks ninety percent of the time so so he only had one person to make up it probably be the efficient or you're gonna lose all your audio so always make up deficient always mike up the groom in our case we've started making up the bride because what happens and you guys have experiences the groom has the mic on and you're relying on the groom's mike to pick up the bride's vows and and ring exchange what happens if they're outdoors and there's win and it's on the beach and there's waves crouching and there's birds and the obvious one noise that's going to be out there what happens if she's soft spoken and you're still relying on the groom's mike to pick her up the audio is just not the same the groom's feed is going to sound great but as soon as you get into post production and you listen to the bride's audio you're like oh my god I have to add some gain to this and as soon as you raise her levels you're also raising all that unwanted noise that you don't want so it's never the same as say like the direct feed or the fisherman's feed or the groom's feet I'm very fortunate that I have a female on my team which is jessica and I used her to place the mic on the bride I don't know what you would do if you don't have female on your team because be very difficult to place the mic on the there are ways around this and I know some teams that don't have females that do this one of the ways is um and I'm not sure if I have this with me but if I do I'll show to you there's there's actually a strap that you can talk a little mini recorder in but you'd have to rely on the bride to actually feed the mic up as she's before she's getting into her address and then that way during the ceremony you can make the adjustment on the mic for us we have a simple olympus recorder like the one that I showed yesterday and jessica's just simply slips this in to the front of the bride's dress right on the inside you don't see the laugh mic you don't see the recorder and it just slips in and generally the bride's dress is so tight fitted that there's no risk of the recorder actually slipping down and it really gives you great audio from the bright so not only do you now have great audio from the efficient in the groom u also have great audio from the bride without having to raise her levels or ad game filters or anything like that we're gonna be also raising all this unwanted noise so it is something to think about because you're gonna achieve greater results with your audio if you do that if you can find a way to do that without kind of invading the bright space or you know upsetting the bride we always check with all our brights and I let them noises listen if we can put a mike on you your audio is going to sound every bit as good as the groom everybody is good as that audio that you here in some of our films and the bride automatically thinks oh my god I don't want my audio not to sound good during the vows and the rains change and things like that so it gets her thinking and she's a lot more accepting to the idea of being mike dublin think like that and it's not like I said it's nothing that you can see it's nothing that's visible it's just giving us a clear advantage to get better audio now what's the difference between the different recorders you have the wireless you have the recorders like the one I showed you yesterday the olympus that we use and you also have the direct feeds and what are we looking for we're looking for the best audio right but if the best audio doesn't work because of say like a wireless catching interference in our if hit right during the vows which is generally our luck you know that or if it's generally come right during the valves when we don't need door if it's andan we have the direct feed and hopefully the direct feed is going to be the best feed because like I told you yesterday they're speaking directly into the into the source most times so I'm gonna actually let you listen to the different sources from one wedding that we had so you can hear the difference of each feed that we had we had we had a wireless going we had a direct feed and we also had on olympus recorder yeah so the first one here is the direct feed take a listen to this for the bible says it like this love is patient love is kind love never boast it's never puffed with pride it never acts out of rudeness or insist upon its own way it never rejoices and evil but only always rejoices in truth okay and then the second one you gonna listen to is the little many recorders olympus for the bible says that like this love is patient love is kind love never boast it's never puffed with pride it never acts out of rudeness or insist upon its own way it never rejoices and evil but only always rejoices in truth okay and then the last one we listen to our the sennheiser with wireless kit for the bible says it like this love is patient love is kind love never boast it's never puffed with pride it never acts out of rudeness or insist upon its own way it never rejoices and evil but only always rejoices in truth okay so you'll notice the sennheiser gave us the richer tone the seminars are but the sennheiser is the riskier yes go ahead do you know which was used with each recorder the same one tramp tr fifties perfect yeah tramped here fifties so it's an even test the sennheiser has had the tram and the olympus had the tram and then we had a direct feed the direct feed was not the best it's very acceptable if you don't have any other source of audio the direct feeds fine if you don't have any other source of audio olympus was fine but if he had the sennheiser it did give you the richer tone without having to go into post and kind of uh you know mess with the filters and things like that it just gave you the uh the richest tone and sometimes the direct feed is going to give you the better tone then what you're getting from your wireless so it just depends and your ah sennheiser wireless pack was transmitting to a recorder that recorder was your adderall for track exactly there are forty four there are forty four very important when you go to these events is to like I told you before a sign one person to take care of all your audio because what happens is if you have a team of two or three two or three people for you it's a little easier because you're just by yourself uh in that regard but if you have a team of two three people and you have a situation where there's a little bit of confusion as to who was supposed to record the audio you might end up with no audio and then at the end of the day you can point all the fingers but the reality of the situation is that you just have no audio and now you have a huge huge problem to deal with so what I did was I made jessica my audio tech my my sound engineer I just says you know what for now on you are one hundred and fifty percent responsible for audio so there's no confusion and I'll set up the lights I'll take detail shots and location shots and all this I just want you to do my audio acquisition for not just not just the ceremony first look's receptions all the speeches wherever audio's involved it's her task and if something goes down I know where to point the blame that's everything and I'll still lose I'll still lose that battle but at least I'll know where to point the blame um so very important please assign one person the task of audio everybody has to know the role same thing like I told yesterday if you have a couple of creative shooters guess what somebody has to be solid for certain parts of the day you know like speeches and ceremony just make sure everybody understands their role because at the end of the day it has to be all about teamwork you know if you want to achieve the same goal it's got to be all about teamwork and everybody has to know their job and kind of execute the plan they can't run off and kind of do their own thing because that wasn't part of maybe your plan I'm gonna show you a clip here and then we'll talk about it afterwards I remember when amber was a baby lauren I would lay in bed on uh talk about this day a zit would never way don't think it could be any better and it's certainly better than we ever imagined wear so having e I would not want to change a single thing about way I had to place a border for the qualities and then a man for my princess it would be a way I see him as a perfect match for my daughter toh haven't a hold to protect and across for with dwayne I trust you I give to you mine laurence most valued treasure in our lives and wayne ember on many occasions both of you have told me that you are each other's best friends on this day your wedding like jesus you lay down your life for each other that now in good times and in bad in sickness and in health in a love that is patient and kind that believes all things hopes all things endures all things way an amber you all called to give tio way mclaughlin take you amber nicole riding to be my wife doing I love you without knowing kao why are where it all comes from I love you with this overwhelming love that sometimes I can't even fully understand it radiates through every inch of me and everything that I dio and every thought in every action I give you only my deepest love love that has taken my entire existence to create I will forever cherish on our way member with the power vested in me I now pronounce you husband wait don't clap how did it look how did we oh how do we do for preps all our efficiency all are content that we gathered throughout the day that everything was perfect it wasn't a huge problem with this wedding you know what wass everything went perfect well there are bright front perfect there's some candid shots had really good audio from the dad the ceremony started and it was going on and somebody at the wedding complain that there were two hot the problem at this wedding that structure that they got married under it was a tent and they had generators running everything so they turned on the generator's just before their vows and the generators were deafening so guess what happened we lost all our audio hearted audio sound on film pretty good sounded amazing they were talking really quietly and you felt like you were exactly wei had no audio we recorded all that audio the next day exactly the mom the mother of the bride who's sitting in the first row could not hear the vows that's how loud the generator wass so what I'm telling you is even though we all want toe reach this level do all these high end events do these spectacular events like this they come with a lot of work and they come with a lot of expectations because I couldn't have just left that event with bad audio right because what would happen to the film I would have had no film with all those amazing visuals I would have had no film to deliver to this client expectation was too high so I had to make a command decision right away and I had to say I have no audio I need audio I'm going to talk to this couple so I spoke to the couple and I says hey guys you heard the audio the generator came on and the bright only right off the bat she goes my mother was crying because she could not hear our vows said exactly so the price said what can we do I said we're not to do a re record tomorrow okay doesn't matter what time just party tonight rushed up tomorrow any time I'll be in your room but here's the key remember what we talked about yesterday about doing what this was very important evoking emotion did I have to get them back in his own or what back in wedding zone because now they've already gotten married they've partied they're tired they're may be hungover and now they have to re read vows what kind of what kind of zone or they're going to be in not the wedding zone so what I did was I got him both in the room and it was their room it was their suite and I say guys sit on the bed I need you guys to sit across from each other and look at each other in the eyes and when you read these vows I need you to read it with the same conviction that you read it yesterday and even mean it mohr then what you did yesterday and that's how I kind of got him back in and I had already listen to the vows so I already knew kind of what the pacing wass and as soon as I got them back into the zone and I was able to evoke these natural emotions I didn't have to do a retake it was almost spot on the first time but the problem is in the edit if on the wedding day they're very emotional as you could see if in the re record there will like I take you to be my wife on whatever just you know get out of here you want one arrest you want to go eat in post it would have created a nightmare because number one the audio would've never matched up to the visuals and it would have created so much work and obviously there are some there were some words that were slightly off but nothing that you couldn't adjust in post very easily so so the main thing is um learned to be able to make these command decisions yes how what was their attitude like toward you where they were they mad that they had to come in the next day or they were talking about this was this was something that was one hundred percent beyond my control and this was all about them and their film so if they didn't do it it wasn't on me anymore you know and I tell you when you're dealing with this types of clientele and I tell you the expectations are so much higher if something like this would have happened and I would have left with bad audio when I had the opportunity to get good audio in a re record they might ask me why didn't you just ask us to do a re record we would have done it again and if I didn't do that now it's on me but the fact that I'm asking them and I'm making them aware of this bad situation I'm kind of covering my tail at that point so if they don't do it it says you know what go with what you got we don't care we don't want to do it now it's their problem with the film that can never come back after me because I have covered my tail so so get in the habit off covering your tail it's very very important even with lighting situation what happens if I let a bride do her makeup in here in a bathroom and she looks bad because she's got all these shadows and orange skin and all this and she doesn't look as beautiful as may be one of these brides in one of my blogged post for one of my films what if she comes back and says what isn't my skin look you know as great as these girls in the other films I said well you know your makeup artist had you in a bathroom well why don't you just ask us to move there was plenty of light coming into the room so believe me guys these will come at you so please cover your tail b hop the opportunity to make something either look better or sound brighter it's up to you as a professional and it's our responsibility to make the move tat least make the suggestions say listen by the way based on my experience I know this if we move over here you're going to look a lot better or if we do this it's going to sound a lot better just always tell him it's going to look or sound better if we do this and offer the suggestions I don't order anybody to do anything it's their decision whether or not they won't accept my suggestion ninety nine percent of the time they accept the suggestion you never want to upset them or kind of push your ideas on them or anything like that just offer the suggestion based on your experience and training and that's all you can do so I wanted to show you that clip because I want you to know that I don't live in a perfect world far from a perfect world because the expectations are very high and the margin for error is very small when when you're at that level and you want to do these high end events the margin for error is very small they're not expecting you to tell them that you've made a bunch of mistakes with their wedding film I mean it's it's just not something they want to hear so be very very careful but in the end it all worked out and what you guys couldn't tell that it was a re record which is great and they knew it was a record because they actually did the record but they're family and stuff they don't know that's a record so it all worked out and then now you have and actually I ended up with better audio then if the generator wanted to come on because now I've got them in my controlled environment running my own audio so that audio ended up being so much better than actual audio that I would've recorded even without the generator problem I also had them read some other things you know this groom funny enough he was he was dunning aah naval uniform and he wasn't in the navy he wore that uniform toner his grandfather who had just passed away his grandfather was the first african american deep sea diver in the united states navy who was portrayed by cuba gooding jr in the movie men of honor that was his grandfather so in the main feature of the main film if you looked at it he was actually flipping through his his cell phone photos and there's actually photos of his grandfather next to cuba gooding jr on the movie set and things like that so it was a very very cool story with this couple