Tips for live audio interview recording

Hi,

I'm posting this enquiry on behalf of a friend without 'web access.

Although I've arranged music for video before, my audio-for-video knowledge is seriously lacking...

Friend needs to record a live interview on a stage in an auditorium between a single interviewer and one interviewee. He will be sending a 2 channel feed to the Betacam recorder from the 4chnl mixer. The plan is to rent 2 radio-tie-clip Lavalier-type mics, with a boom for the audience. There will be a Q+A session with the audience after main interview.

Plan is to hang the boom at the front centre of stage to capture audience (he's not sure if there will be anyone available to man the boom personally), with a tie-clip on each person on stage. This mixer is being rented: http://www.sqn.co.uk/4Sespec.html

Interviewer / interviewee will be panned to L and R channel respectively with the ambient boom assigned centre in the mix, being fed to the Betacam recorder.

Said friend has a home-studio, but is far from a pro location engineer, I posted this query for the purpose of seeing if anyone had any tips, after all he will only get one chance to nail the take! The interviewee is a very old author, and is unlikely to do many interviews in future due to health.

Do you think he's renting the right kit, would you recommend a different strategy? For safety's sake, do you think he should split the feed to the betacam with a timecode-DAT for backup?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, all input welcome.

Justin

I'm no expert either but think I'd keep the ambience boom on a separate track if possible.
A boom operator would be nice.
That mixer is really nice, I've worked with them and I love them alot.

I work in television, and here's how I would do it:

Since it's easier to get the interviewer/interviewee balance correct "on the spot" (basically, you set both for about the same average level), I would mix those to one channel and put the audience mic on the other. It may be necessary to ride the gain for louder/quieter/closer/more-distant audience members--not to mention ambient noise--and this will be easier to do in post with the audience isolated on its own channel.

If you have enough time to change your setup between the one-on-one and the audience Q&A segment, the ideal would be to to record the first segment with interviewer and interviewee each on their own channel, then switch to the setup I just described for the audience Q&A. This should give you more flexibility in post. Presumably, the interviewer won't be doing much talking during the latter segment.

As for recording a backup--absolutely! In fact, if it's a once-in-a-lifetime event, I would consider rolling a backup VTR (slaved off the Betacam camera's outputs). If you have a multitrack recorder available that can slave to SMPTE, you would have the luxury of assigning a separate track to each mic. A split feed could be taken off each mic (using proper mic splitters, or a preamps prior to the split), with one feed going to the audio recorder and the other to the mixer that feeds the Beta camcorder.

It's essential to do a "dry run" before the interview proceeds, and check the playback, to make sure there are no unforseen problems such as hum from ground loops between interconnected equipment.

I'm a design/maintenance engineer, so I'm not usually the guy who sets this stuff up. Two of our members here (Soundguy and Ytrehalf) do audio-for-video for a living; so if either of them sees fit to chime in, by all means ignore what I have said in favor of their advice.

Thanks! Will forward your comments to Tom. The interviewer L / interviewee R idea came from BBC radio4, where they pan the respective person to either side.

I reckon the best policy will be to hire a multitrack for backup.

Further comments welcome.

:guinness:

J

Panning the two principals gives a greater sense of realism for sure, but I don't think it's the best use if only two channels are available and you have three mics to record. The on-site mix becomes critical, and it's safest to leave yourself as much flexibility in postproduction as possible. I'll bet the Beeb is using a multichannel audio recorder or VTR. Newer DVCAM decks--and top-of-the-line Betacam VTRs--come with four channels of audio.

If the guy mixing it doesnt have experience with this type of stuff, you should put the two principles on their own track with whatever tie clip affiar you go with. I reccomend the sanken cos-11, especially if it is ok to see the mic on camera. I personally would forget the ambience mic all together. Record some room tone before or after the gig and just throw that on there for some air in post. when it comes to Q&A, I would use a handheld wireless mic and have someone run all around the auditorium to everyone that has a question, pot the mic up on the sqn and put it down on both tracks, just be sure to pot the mic down after the question is asked. This way, at least you'll be able to hear what the people are saying. Working with two tracks, as an EXPERIENCED guy who does that for a living, thats what I would do. If youve never used lavs before and dont have a lot of experience with perspective mixing for picture, I think the lats thing I would reccomend is combining two lavs just so you can have a clean air track. Totally not worth having a good air track if the dialogue track is garbage.

If of course you have a multi track, I would still feed the betacam the same way, still do the handheld mic thing but also add a mic in the middle of the auditorium hanging from the ceiling for air if you have the rigging access to do it. Feed that directly to the multitrack, you dont need to monitor it. Just make sure its nowhere near the stage where the principles are.

good luck

dave

Like I said, Dave has actually done this, whereas I'm just the guy who takes care of the equipment--and I never sit at the controls except in an emergency--so his advice trumps mine. The operators where I work are not as skilled as the real professionals on the "outside world", so we tend to set things up for maximum flexibility in post, sometimes at the expense of other criteria. I guess this has started to infect my own thinking. I need to get out of there! :?

I will make one comment, though. The wireless handheld is excellent for Q&A, but make sure you brief your audience beforehand and drill it into their thick skulls that they are not to start speaking until the mic is brought to them. We televise a lot of Q&A sessions at my job, and people standing up and speaking without the mic is a constant source of annoyance. Even after being instructed to do otherwise, some people will ignore you. So bring a slingshot and small metal pellets as well :grin:

I do mostly corporate live sound for lots of things like shareholders meetings and other boring financial stuff. I am well respected for my ability to stay awake in spite of dreadfully boring presentations!

All of these need to be recorded, and some of them are also live webcast. In my case, I simply use a post aux send with a compressor. Q&A is always on handhelds...unless your client has the money for proper boom operators, this is pretty much the only alternative. I would listen to Soundguy regarding how to split sources to tracks etc, as I very rarely do just a recording.

As far as handhelds go, the main trouble that I always run into is the fact that people seem inclined not to use them...especially for audiences that are small and the assumption is that 'everyone will hear them anyway'. The interviewer will have to make sure that everyone does wait for the microphone...especially if there is no actual amplification for the sound, since from the audience point of view, to them it makes no difference if they use the handheld or not. That may be an obvious point, but it is nonetheless one that I keep running into. With most of the stuff I do, the person in charge of the Q&A session is usually some bigwig CEO who has to be tip-toed around, and you never actually get to tell them how to properly take charge of the Q&A...and that's where things go wrong. At least you'll have the interviewer who can steer things properly.

What's the audience size, and are you sure you don't need sound reinforcement as well? Can't help but think it's somebody really old and they therefore may not be able to hear that well, or speak loud and clear either. How big is the auditorium?

Bjorn

very good advice guys
I think you should lean towards dave's view

Totally not worth having a good air track if the dialogue track is garbage.

Click to expand...

Assuming you'll be editing the piece, waiting for the audience member is no problem, all you have to do is coach the interviewer to control the Q&A session. Inside the actors studio pretty mcuh works this way, but its easy to do, you just have the host say "ok, you in the red and blue shirt PAUSE please wait for the microphone" in the event that someone asks a question, you just have the interviewer instruct the interviewee to hold his response until the hand held mic gets to the person and have them repeat the question. all of this begs the question of a PA present in the room which is something you'll hopefully be able to avoid. Also, if at all possible, you'll want to keep the microphone from chaning hands, whomever runs the mic around the room should also hold the mic in front of the peoples face when they ask their question, the natural inclination is to grab a mic, but you'll want to be in control of that for handling noise on on axis delivery. If the SQN has hipass filters, use them on the wireless mic and cut anything below 100hz, wherever the closest filter is, not only do you not need a bunch of handling noise on the mic but it helps to keep the audience a little thiner sounding so the guys on camera doing the interview sound a little fuller, more authoratative.

This is a pretty straight forward gig, Ive done lots of TV shows like that over the years, dont over complicate it for the editors. Keep the two lavs on isolated tracks, mount the lavs on the sternum, not too close to the speakers head and be conservative with everything else- its about the interview, not anything else. Make sure the HVAC is off in the room as well.

good luck

dave

The spirit of generosity around here is humbling :thumb:

Thank-you! :guinness:

I'm going around to Tom's later to try the rented gear out and to make sure he knows how to connect everything / set the limiter up etc. I told him to rent a multi for safety, hopefully he has.

Cheers,
Justin

Which betacam is it? Some of the better models have 4 tracks. I'm assuming that the presentation will be video'd at the same time. In this case you could record to all 4 tracks.

Betacams will not Insert (drop in) on tracks 3 & 4, 3 & 4 have to be recorded with the video/black & burst data.

Hope it makes sense...

Peter