Upstream from what we listen to in movies & video streaming are all the sound stems-tracks.
That includes the performer voices, and environmental sounds on the set including room tone. Later foley, sound effects from libraries, music, and low frequency effects are added in the editing process. Sometimes the voices are re-recorded in ADR - Additional Dialog Replacement.
Today to command the revenues of theatrical presentation and support better and better home theater audio, they spend money on the soundtrack.
There are several YouTube channels dedicated to location sound.
It parallels our interests: the right sounding microphone, clean analog and digital signal paths, and accurate recording, time synced to the cameras.
The major location capturing methods are boom microphones which most consider give the most natural sound. Small to tiny lavalier microphones are hidden on the body (in hats, in hair, in eyeglasses, behind clothing buttons) and there are plant microphones hidden on the set, in automobile visors, and even in plants!
Just like we discuss speakers, recordists discuss microphones and budgets. They discuss signal chain and workflow. The favored professional boom microphones are divided into shotgun and hypercardiod. DPA, various Schoeps, and Sennheiser are common. The favored lavaliers are DPA 406x and 606x, there are a variety of other makers. Many of the microphones travel over wireless links, analog FM or digital by makers Lectrosonics, Sound Devices/Audio LTD, Zaxcom, and Shure. In the field, there are specialty mixer/recorders, often with time code - some even battery powered and carried by the boom operator. You would see Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Aaton Cantar and others, increasingly you will see ProTools on location.
Some of the same systems would be used in live theater and opera, for speeches, corporate AV, in news broadcasting, and even special microphones and wireless systems on football players. There the on-body transmitter has to take a tackle while not injuring the player.
One famous location sound person is Simon Hayes with many Youtube Interviews. https://www.simonhayes.com/ He has been very active on Facebook and Instagram, including describing capturing live sound for the Little Mermaid film on water with protools playout of previously recorded singing tracks. Then the live actors synced their singing to that on set. This is the world of location sound today if you have access to Facebook.
"To celebrate #thelittlemermaid release this weekend, here is a clip which shows the process we used for the underwater work. As you can see, the fantastic Halle Bailey is in a stunt rig which is being manipulated by the stunt team.
We got these rigs as quiet as possible, and the super helpful stunt team wore special soft soled blue shoes we had made for the them to reduce foot fall. But there was still unwanted noise. The way we dealt with that was by close mic’ing the actors as much as possible. Remember, there is no camera perspective underwater on the audio: only close perspective works. We did not want to hear any room acoustic at all.
Here we see Key 1st AS Arthur Fenn working above Halle, and 1st AS Jackson Milliken working underneath Halle. Both were using Schoeps Super CMITS which helped, using digital processing to reduce off mic noise from the rig and the room acoustic.
Why 2 booms? Halle’s moves were so dynamic that we needed to be ready to have her absolutely on mic whether she looked up or down. She was also wearing 2 DPA 4061’s and a stereo Zaxcom ZMT4X which accepts two lav mics. This, again allowed us to put a lav wherever her head turned, with one on the left of her chest and one on the right. So the Sound Post team had 4 choices on each line of dialogue: 2 booms and 2 lavs enabling them to painstakingly edit the closest track, free of background noise
With so much of the picture being created in CGI it was incredibly important to use the original performances, to help the audience engage with the characters and believe the incredible underwater world Rob Marshall created.
Ariel is talking to Sebastien the crab, with his vocals being skilfully played into her IEM by ProTools Operator Robin Johnson allowing her the freedom to overlap the dialog, again to support the great performances from the cast."
URSA makes straps to attach wireless transmitters to the talent's body in the least intrusive way. They have interviewed many location sound professionals.
https://www.youtube.com/@URSAStraps
Curtis Judd discusses location sound equipment for beginners
https://www.youtube.com/@curtisjudd
DPA Microphones discusses location sound and their other microphones which are popular in classical recording. The Game of Thrones was recorded on DPA.
https://www.youtube.com/@DPAmicrophones
You can find more by searching for "location sound."
That includes the performer voices, and environmental sounds on the set including room tone. Later foley, sound effects from libraries, music, and low frequency effects are added in the editing process. Sometimes the voices are re-recorded in ADR - Additional Dialog Replacement.
Today to command the revenues of theatrical presentation and support better and better home theater audio, they spend money on the soundtrack.
There are several YouTube channels dedicated to location sound.
It parallels our interests: the right sounding microphone, clean analog and digital signal paths, and accurate recording, time synced to the cameras.
The major location capturing methods are boom microphones which most consider give the most natural sound. Small to tiny lavalier microphones are hidden on the body (in hats, in hair, in eyeglasses, behind clothing buttons) and there are plant microphones hidden on the set, in automobile visors, and even in plants!
Just like we discuss speakers, recordists discuss microphones and budgets. They discuss signal chain and workflow. The favored professional boom microphones are divided into shotgun and hypercardiod. DPA, various Schoeps, and Sennheiser are common. The favored lavaliers are DPA 406x and 606x, there are a variety of other makers. Many of the microphones travel over wireless links, analog FM or digital by makers Lectrosonics, Sound Devices/Audio LTD, Zaxcom, and Shure. In the field, there are specialty mixer/recorders, often with time code - some even battery powered and carried by the boom operator. You would see Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Aaton Cantar and others, increasingly you will see ProTools on location.
Some of the same systems would be used in live theater and opera, for speeches, corporate AV, in news broadcasting, and even special microphones and wireless systems on football players. There the on-body transmitter has to take a tackle while not injuring the player.
One famous location sound person is Simon Hayes with many Youtube Interviews. https://www.simonhayes.com/ He has been very active on Facebook and Instagram, including describing capturing live sound for the Little Mermaid film on water with protools playout of previously recorded singing tracks. Then the live actors synced their singing to that on set. This is the world of location sound today if you have access to Facebook.
"To celebrate #thelittlemermaid release this weekend, here is a clip which shows the process we used for the underwater work. As you can see, the fantastic Halle Bailey is in a stunt rig which is being manipulated by the stunt team.
We got these rigs as quiet as possible, and the super helpful stunt team wore special soft soled blue shoes we had made for the them to reduce foot fall. But there was still unwanted noise. The way we dealt with that was by close mic’ing the actors as much as possible. Remember, there is no camera perspective underwater on the audio: only close perspective works. We did not want to hear any room acoustic at all.
Here we see Key 1st AS Arthur Fenn working above Halle, and 1st AS Jackson Milliken working underneath Halle. Both were using Schoeps Super CMITS which helped, using digital processing to reduce off mic noise from the rig and the room acoustic.
Why 2 booms? Halle’s moves were so dynamic that we needed to be ready to have her absolutely on mic whether she looked up or down. She was also wearing 2 DPA 4061’s and a stereo Zaxcom ZMT4X which accepts two lav mics. This, again allowed us to put a lav wherever her head turned, with one on the left of her chest and one on the right. So the Sound Post team had 4 choices on each line of dialogue: 2 booms and 2 lavs enabling them to painstakingly edit the closest track, free of background noise
With so much of the picture being created in CGI it was incredibly important to use the original performances, to help the audience engage with the characters and believe the incredible underwater world Rob Marshall created.
Ariel is talking to Sebastien the crab, with his vocals being skilfully played into her IEM by ProTools Operator Robin Johnson allowing her the freedom to overlap the dialog, again to support the great performances from the cast."
URSA makes straps to attach wireless transmitters to the talent's body in the least intrusive way. They have interviewed many location sound professionals.
https://www.youtube.com/@URSAStraps
Curtis Judd discusses location sound equipment for beginners
https://www.youtube.com/@curtisjudd
DPA Microphones discusses location sound and their other microphones which are popular in classical recording. The Game of Thrones was recorded on DPA.
https://www.youtube.com/@DPAmicrophones
You can find more by searching for "location sound."
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