Audio Banter - View Single Post - recording a 3 way conversation in a room

**Steve King** · August 6th 03, 12:42 AM posted to rec.video.production,uk.rec.audio

"Dave Plowman" wrote in message
...
In article PBOXa.71129$o%2.34512@sccrnsc02,
Steve King wrote:
Three very tight spotmikes are your best choice from an
intelligibility and clear solid voice standpoint, but they might not
look right on-camera.

Absolutely. But if looks are more important than sound in a meeting
room, someone has their priorities wrong.

This statement is a little too general to be useful. As a
producer/director I can think of many reasons that I might make
picture/sound compromises. I think that Scott got it right.

Well, I'd have thought at a *meeting* the words were all important. The
pictures of talking heads merely wallpaper. YMMV, though.

And the usual reasons for picture/sound 'compromises' are purely to save
money.

If you don't want to see any mics, the contributors can be rigged with
radio mics - this will also allow them free movement if this is needed.
But it will cost. More than a crappy PZM.

--
*If all is not lost, where the hell is it?

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

Perhaps you didn't see my earlier post in reply to the OP. The OP said:

Group: rec.audio.pro Date: Mon, Aug 4, 2003, 9:53am (EDT+4) From:
pete smith (p s)
hi all,
i am recording on location a conversation in a meeting room whilst it is
being videoed (recording straight to audio track of the video). this
video will then be played back in a large hall on a big screen, at a
loud volume.

He went on to ask if a PZM would be a solution. I suggested that it was
unlikely, that individual mics might provide a better result. I explained
that I had just completed a shoot with the same set-up and that I had chosen
to go with a professional mixer and individual lavs... they didn't need to
be radio because all participants were sitting around a small conference
table. In the particular of using a professional sound mixer I believe that
we are saying the same thing. What I was questioning was your reply to
Scott...

Scott said:

Three very tight spotmikes are your best choice from an
intelligibility and clear solid voice standpoint, but they might not
look right on-camera.

And you said:

Absolutely. But if looks are more important than sound in a meeting
room, someone has their priorities wrong.

....which I think A) makes an assumption about the nature of the video. I
understand that the video is going to be shown at a meeting. It might be a
dramatization of a conversation or any number of other things, all of which
might be compromised by having great honking mics in the shot. And B)
Placing some idea of sound perfection above all else in a production you
know no more about than the rest of us do from the original posters
description, which is above, seems a little extreme.

I would also like to point out that most all compromises in the videos I
produce are about money. Sound is not singled out. I'd like to shoot a
sentence or two by the program host from each of those sixteen foreign
business locations. I'd like use that $10K idea from my graphic artist in
my $15K production. I'd like to have Sean Connery as the narrator. I'd
like to have two or three PAs to run around and take care of things so I can
sit on my fat ass and direct, oooh la la. So, don't feel like the Lone
Ranger, when compromises in sound have to be made.

Steve King