Bhutto

By Dan Harbour | Published February 16, 2011

A documentary I had almost forgotten about since working in the UK unit eighteenmonths ago, so I was pleased to see it had finally been completed and selected forthis year’s Sundance festival, having received some positive early reviews. The UKshoot was produced and directed by Amy Berg, who is best known for lifting thelid on the catholic church with her award-winning documentary ‘Deliver us fromEvil’. As is usual with these types of productions I am sworn to secrecy throughthe confidentiality agreement, but needless to say the shoot was very interesting,informative, and I’m sure the film will do well this year.

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Portable Voiceover

By Dan Harbour | Published February 16, 2011

I extended my range of studio-based equipment this week by purchasing a newvoiceover mic – the Rode NT1-A. I haven’t used much Rode equipment in the past,mainly because its boom mic offerings are generally associated with the lower end of the market, good for documentary or straight-to-camera work but not reallycomparing to Sennheiser’s broadcast range. The NT1-A, however, has becomea popular choice in studios and for good reason. This is Rode’s follow up to thevery successful NT1 close-range studio condenser mic and boasts only 5dBA ofself-produced noise, putting it amongst the quietest studio mics in existence. It isvasitle enough to produce equally excellent results whether used for vocals, acousticinstruments or as a voiceover capsule, and it produces excellent results across thedynamic range, 20Hz – 20kHz.

I am being asked to record more and more voiceover tracks on the road thesedays so I took the opportunity to test the NT1-A on one of these jobs last week.Of course, it is just as important to get the environment right as it is to use a goodquality mic, and that means sound absorption material, decent suspension unitsand a good reflection screen. I used the SE Electronics Reflexions Filter with somesound mats and made sure the NT1-A was tucked well into the screen, and the actorno more than 4 inches from the mic capsule. Needless to say the mic lived up to itsbilling; quiet, with crisp and precise top-frequencies but with a warm lower-end. Thescreen did a great job of dampening low-end bounce leaving a high direct-sound-to-reflected-sound ratio in the recording.

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Alice in Switzerland

By Dan Harbour | Published February 16, 2011

Had a fairly unique (and fun) experience this month. After a succession of interesting but very similar corporate communication videos I joined Genie Film on a short film shoot out in Geneva. The story was themed as an Alice in Wonderland spin off – not the easiest production to pull-off without a healthy budget especially coming directly after Tim Burton’s spectacular 3-D feature. Fortunately, the team at Genie are good at pulling in realistic budgets to maintain high production values and do justice to their entertaining stories. This meant the costume & set-design people were able to really go to town on the giant cupcakes and flamboyant period costumes – check out some of the photos. The old maxim of never working with children or animals went out of the window, although to their credit, all behaved impeccably (even the crew!) on set even after several gruelling 12 hours days.

From a sound perspective, it was nice for me to be able to shake free from the camera and record independently. No, we didn’t shoot on film but on Canon’s highly acclaimed 5D Mark 2 DSLR. I was a little sceptical at first but then amazedat the quality of the footage when we sat down to watch the first day of rushes.No surprise that experimental film-makers are picking up the Mark 2 ahead oftraditional film cameras, having recently been used on the season finale of ‘House’.

So, I was able to roam free and concentrate on matching the quality visuals withcrisp, clean film-quality sound. A combination of my Sennheiser capsules, theMKH50 and trusty 416 with occasional lavs where necessary, mixed through theSQN and into my HD-P2 did the job well. The HD-P2 is a great little device, certainlynot as sturdy as the more expensive Sound Devices alternatives, but equal onfunctionality and usability. I found the preamps a little weak initially, but used withthe SQN, as is preferable anyway, this more than compensates.

The main problem I encountered, as ever, was the noisy skyline. Having beenlooking forward to escaping the constant buzz of London and setting up in thegrounds of a secluded Genevan estate, I was pretty disappointed when I realised thatthe wealthy locals would be out flying their little planes over the Swiss Alps all week.“Just waiting on a plane…”

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