Cameras On Vehicles
When it is time to go mobile, Hollywood has a fleet of vehicles and numerous camera mounts to take the camera along. An insert car is the optimum choice when you want to film a car through the front windshield. This is a specially designed vehicle that can carry not only the camera mounted on the outside, but additional lighting, as well. The insert car it is more like a pickup truck, actually has speed-rail bars attached all 16 Steadicam does make smaller versions that you can rent or buy....
Microphone Types
On the set, the microphone only has one job to pick up as much of the dialogue as possible, as cleanly as possible. To that end, the sound mixer may use various kinds of microphones to pick up the action Every mic has a pickup pattern, a chart that shows where the mic is more sensitive to sound. Omni means all, and direction means direction, so this mic will pick up sound coming from every direction. Therefore, the pickup pattern is a perfect circle, showing that the mic is equally sensitive in...
Directing Department
The phrase, But what I really want to do is direct, is so far beyond clich that it almost doesn't bear mentioning. EVERYBODY wants to direct. I want to direct. Directors are Hollywood's favorite sons and 2 For hundreds of these bits of location trivia, check out Shot on This Site, by William Gordon, Citadel Press, 1995 . daughters, even though they still serve at the pleasure of the producers. In Hollywood, the director is seen as the Great Artist.
The Recording Process
We already know from the Who Does What chapter who the sound crew is a sound mixer and a boom operator, at the very least so let's walk through their process on the set. In normal shooting circumstances, the soundman's setup is fairly simple, so he will wait until the lighting guys are done before even stepping on the set. Once he has arrived, he will find an out-of-the-way spot relatively close to the set and set up his mixer. Then he will begin to scope out mic placements in the scene. If...
Microphone Placement
Having chosen a microphone, the sound technician must now find a proper placement for his mic on the set. The number-one best place to put a microphone is right over the actor's head, hanging down from a boom or a fish pole. A boom is a long rod attached to a rolling stand. The operator moves the mic with a set of cranks to get it in the right place. A fishpole is just what it sounds like a handheld rod about the length of a fishing pole held over the actors by a boom man just off-screen. This...