Drew Allegre

A rant. I mostly shoot on DSLRs for my work. Got a big yesterday with a Sony FS7, big ass tripod, monitor, the works. Ohhhh fancy stuff by my standards!
But here's the thing. It drove me nuts. Moving, positioning, getting shots was so damned cumbersome. Shot some Broll of a guy on a sailboat.
I garauntee I could've gotten way more and frankly, way better and more interesting content with my trusty GH4 and gimbal. Blah blah specs, I don't care. Footage would've been nicer and more interesting to 100%  of audiences.
I know there'll be some "back in my day, cameras weighed 1000lbs" folks who will scoff, but you know what? Fuck large camera systems. Fuck them. 

Looks like ML for 80D is just around the corner.
First 1080p 14bit DNG sample in post #291.
https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=17360.msg200539#new

Looks like the width could be an issue for gimbal use.

Just browsing the ML forums and stumbled across the progress on the ML 80D hack. Looks promising! Quote from the forum:
"...It seems that 80D has a writing speed close to 80 MB/s (70D only 40 MB/s). It is quite possible that we can get more than 1080p with compressed raw. The 10 bit should work as well..."
https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=17360.150

I picked up an Octava Mk-012 on ebay (and yes, I researched the Chinese fakes).  It was supposed to be the "movie" kit with a hyper, but it came with a cardioid.  Still sounds pretty damn good to me in my tiny little 8x10 room that I call my office.  But I'm going to send it back or sell it, because I found another one on ebay with all three capsules for $200, and I had to jump on that.  Should have it by next week.  

So, my audio kit has gone from basically an H4n and whatever I can borrow to a Zoom F4, UWP-D11 kit, and the Mk-012.  Total expenses including cables, a decent pair of headphones, and a few odds and ends = $1300.

I'm confident that this project is going to sound significantly better than it would have with an H4n and AT875r.  Thank you folks!  The back and forth has actually been helpful.  Lots of things to consider from a lot of different perspectives.

This kind of reminds me of comparisons between 5D3 H264 and externally recorded ProRes.  People would post Youtube videos and look for minute differences in IQ when it should have been fairly obvious that the most significant advantages of recording externally to ProRes were seen in workflow and processing.  Of course, it seems like today's NLEs/CPUs are much more capable of working with long GOP footage than they were a few years ago.

Hey guys,
So 2 years ago I filmed a documentary about myself filming at a film festival in France, using my trusty Canon XF100. I then quickly forgot about the footage because I bought a new camera and wanted to edit with that footage instead of going back to the XF.  - Bad planning on my part, but better late than never I guess.
Recently I found I had some spare time on my hands so decided to actually do something with this film, and here is the result. I'd love some feedback! Is it too long? Does it give enough info? What's missing? Is it even interesting?
Disclaimer: I've never spent anytime in front of a camera, so that was a novel experience for me. enjoy!
I planned, wrote, presented, filmed, audio-ed, edited and voiceover-ed the whole piece. In fact the only thing that not me is the music... but I did chose it.
The watermarked clips, while shot by me, were for another company. Thankfully, they've kindly let me use that footage with the watermark.
Please, don't hold anything back.
 

Slowly but surely HDR is noticed by the content consumers. I was in a shopping mall two weeks ago and they had a gigantic HDR-TV, surrounded by SDR-sets with the same video playing: partly nightsky timelapses (the skies on the other screens appeared grey, the stars faded), partly landscapes with sun (looking like flat LOG clips on the SDR-TVs). The audience very clearly saw the difference. As Yedlin had *proven* in his resolution-myths-debunked video, they couldn't have told the difference between HD and UHD.
But there is no standard agreed upon, as I understood.
How will an 8-bit rec_709 video, no matter the resolution, look on a 3000 nits screen? 
Will today's solutions ("HDR ready") be considered foul compromises very soon (like the early HDV cameras that were little else than "SD plus" if you see the images with today's eyes)?
Or will the said foul compromises be accepted as just enough to make a visible difference, become standard for a long time and allow - for instance - 8-bit 420 to survive another decade?
I'd really like to know.

I picked up an Octava Mk-012 on ebay (and yes, I researched the Chinese fakes).  It was supposed to be the "movie" kit with a hyper, but it came with a cardioid.  Still sounds pretty damn good to me in my tiny little 8x10 room that I call my office.  But I'm going to send it back or sell it, because I found another one on ebay with all three capsules for $200, and I had to jump on that.  Should have it by next week.  

So, my audio kit has gone from basically an H4n and whatever I can borrow to a Zoom F4, UWP-D11 kit, and the Mk-012.  Total expenses including cables, a decent pair of headphones, and a few odds and ends = $1300.

I'm confident that this project is going to sound significantly better than it would have with an H4n and AT875r.  Thank you folks!  The back and forth has actually been helpful.  Lots of things to consider from a lot of different perspectives.

I picked up an Octava Mk-012 on ebay (and yes, I researched the Chinese fakes).  It was supposed to be the "movie" kit with a hyper, but it came with a cardioid.  Still sounds pretty damn good to me in my tiny little 8x10 room that I call my office.  But I'm going to send it back or sell it, because I found another one on ebay with all three capsules for $200, and I had to jump on that.  Should have it by next week.  

So, my audio kit has gone from basically an H4n and whatever I can borrow to a Zoom F4, UWP-D11 kit, and the Mk-012.  Total expenses including cables, a decent pair of headphones, and a few odds and ends = $1300.

I'm confident that this project is going to sound significantly better than it would have with an H4n and AT875r.  Thank you folks!  The back and forth has actually been helpful.  Lots of things to consider from a lot of different perspectives.

I picked up an Octava Mk-012 on ebay (and yes, I researched the Chinese fakes).  It was supposed to be the "movie" kit with a hyper, but it came with a cardioid.  Still sounds pretty damn good to me in my tiny little 8x10 room that I call my office.  But I'm going to send it back or sell it, because I found another one on ebay with all three capsules for $200, and I had to jump on that.  Should have it by next week.  

So, my audio kit has gone from basically an H4n and whatever I can borrow to a Zoom F4, UWP-D11 kit, and the Mk-012.  Total expenses including cables, a decent pair of headphones, and a few odds and ends = $1300.

I'm confident that this project is going to sound significantly better than it would have with an H4n and AT875r.  Thank you folks!  The back and forth has actually been helpful.  Lots of things to consider from a lot of different perspectives.

It seems you might be mistakenly thinking that the only microphone on a boom is a shotgun, which is very *very* wrong :-/ 
 
As a scratch track for reference, or for very quick turn arounds, then it is a reasonable approach to take. 

Few of us have the luxury to have a massive selection of microphones at hand to match one to each person's voice :-P (although.... I do own quite a ridiculous number of microphones!)
But if you have two (one for indoors, one for outdoors) then that is more than good enough for most situations for the kind of shoots you're doing. 

@Drew Allegre
you are going the right way! one last advice, just try to get one of the hyper cardioid ones for indoors, Oktava could be the minimum you can get, and if you do not move it on a boom (or else needs special technique and mounting accessories) then it is extremely good (for the price) for indoor interviews, this is the one I use on very tight budget jobs (I can handle it on a boom too!). http://www.oktava-shop.com/Small-and-medium-diaphragm-condenser-mics/Oktava-MK-012-01-movie.html remember, even if you test a shotgun mic in your grand ma's living room, with all the sofas and the heavy curtains, there is a huge possibility that your next interview will be on a minimalistic office, or an Ikea's made living room (with hard surfaces and rectangular!), or anything, at least with the hyper, you tried.
 
 

I have a Zoom f4 and the UWP-D11s on the way.  I'm going to try out a few different boom mics to see what works well for me.  It seems like the lesson when it comes to mics is that the ideal (or bang for the buck) choice is going to come down to what sounds best with the subject's voice in the environment that I'm recording, and that's not something that's going to be listed on the spec sheet. 
I'll test what I can that is locally available, and go from there if I feel like I need to rent or buy something.  I'm hoping to test and learn (play with) equipment for the next week or so, and then jump into recording.  I appreciate all of the advice.  Will definitely run both the lav and boom for the main interviews and anytime the situation allows.

The Crane 2 is a gimbal style stabilizer.  There are many gimbal style stabilizers on the market, but the Zhiyun products have a pretty decent reputation.  It would be considered a solid pro-sumer level gimbal.  It's important that you find a gimbal that supports the weight range of the camera and lens that you want to use (minimum weight can be an issue as can maximum weight). 

A stabilizer isn't required.  It depends on your style of shooting and what you want to do, and what kind of camera movement you're trying to achieve if any.  There are many different kinds and styles of camera support that you could use: tripods with fluid heads, sliders, gimbals (one handed or two handed), steadicam or glidecam style stabilizers, cranes, etc.

I can tell, most people here are camera operators.
Shotgun mics work alright in very well treated rooms, or studios. If you want to spend an hour, and have the right sound blankets with you and the tripods and gear, and the space, to treat the room right, or change location in then be my guest. In any way it is much easier to use a more appropriate tool for the job. If you own just one long tele zoom, then it is ok, use a shotgun mic everywhere. 
I am not going to discuss Rode microphones, but the specific ones mentioned in this thread, wouldn't be on top of any of my lists. 
Canon dSLRs have notoriously bad mic amps. Whatever you put straight there (except some with good in built amps) wouldn't be broadcast quality.
@Drew Allegre if you can rent, Sennheiser MKH 50 is one of the best, ever. Others prefer Schoeps, for me, if you do not do much post in sound, then Sennheiser can be a better bet. Reliable, very hot (signal wise, so you can avoid bad mic amps some) and tough as nails, too. For just little money you can rent one of the top 3 indoors microphone one can use, just put that on perspective with your imaging gear.
Just my 2 cents.

Just to throw another affordable option out there, I used this Shure not too long ago. It was set-up 24 to 36 inches from the actress and, without being an "audio guy" at all, I was very pleased with the low self-noise and sensitivity.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002H0HCC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 

The M3 (cardioid) option might work well enough if you can find a quiet environment. The environment needs to be quiet since a cardioid will pick up a lot more background sound than a shotgun or hypercardioid. The indoor cardioid option can also work ok if you have two people sitting side by side for an interview as you can place the microphone between the two of them and it will pick up both pretty well. This can simplify the setup. I've used cardioid microphones for voiceover and for side-by-side interviews and they can sound good. Again, however, they are very prone to picking up unwanted sounds.  Wearing decent closed-back headphones to hear exactly what is being picked up is important here as background noise can be pretty distracting and very difficult or impossible to remove once there. The analogy with lenses pointed out by Kisaha is apt - having a few options is always helpful, sometimes necessary.

Another option is to use both.  Get an inexpensive shotgun (amazing what you can get for under $60, from Chinese DSLRs minis to the Rhode videomicro) and a decent lav (which you can't go cheap on).  Unlike the others here, I don't do this for a living.  However, I feel I can re-express some of what's being said.  IF you're in a room that isn't echo-y (doesn't have bare walls), then a shotgun will work really well and is much simpler to set-up.  Wiring people up is a pain and is invasive.  So I'd invest in the lav, but also have a shotgun for primary or backup.  
Another thing not pointed out is a shotgun will pick up just enough room noise to feel really natural.  The lav doesn't.  The lav is also bass-y, being close to the chest and has movement noise risk, etc, as others have pointed out.  Anyway, I'm always curious about this stuff too!

The Ira Glass team use some decent but not too pricey gear to make pretty compelling radio documentaries. Here, Ira describes using the Marantz PDM661 recorder and AT8035 (and similar) shotguns for this very long running and wide-ranging show. One could quibble over audio quality at times, but there is the law of diminishing returns at play here: for a reasonably modest price you can achieve good, and often very good audio in a wide range of settings, including indoors. For a lot more money, and with a wider array of microphones you can get some incremental, and occasionally significantly better sound. But since it isn't Hollywood, does the expense-for-limited gains make sense? With a documentary, it's about the story, and some slightly imperfect sound is usually well tolerated as long as the story is good. The H4N would seem good enough for the task. For a microphone, I'd probably stick with a battery-operated shotgun like the Audio Technica AT897 or Rode equivalent. If you are likely to be in a very reverberant indoor setting, simply go somewhere else with curtains, carpets, etc. If you can't do that, spring for something like the AT4053b (hypercardioid). I'd probably go for second-sound into the recorder, rather than straight into the camera, since if the camera switches off you might miss some important audio that could otherwise be included in the final documentary albeit covered by cutaways. Use the camera's audio for sync.

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There's some funny info in this thread.
Shotguns are perfectly fine indoors. I've used the Rode NTG4 in almost every shape and size room you can imagine. Even solid walls or window walls. The results are more than acceptable every time. If you'r shooting in a room where a shotgun simply doesn't work, then you'll be hard pressed to find any mic that will. That said, of course there are alternatives, and many are better in certain situations, but to rule them out like that is kind of silly. 
I film TV interviews for a living, and have used many different lavs. I will always chose a mic on a pole if the option is there. They don't take long to set up and make it near impossible for the talent's hair/necklace/zips/itches to effect the audio. Of course, that can also be avoided with mic placement, but a stand can go in the same place every time, and nail it every time. EDIT: you can also have everything set up, so the talent can come in, sit down and go, without having to be wired up first and remember not to take the mic with them on the way out.
You also don't need to worry about charging extra batteries etc. because they just take power from your camera/recorder.
On that note though, if you do decide to go shotgun route, maybe look at the Rode NTG2 - I know it's old, but it can run on an AA battery OR phantom power. If you use it with a battery, you can run it straight into your 5D3 and avoid having to sync anything later.
 

Hypercardioid condensers are neat for this application, but also very sensitive to sibilances which gets you really close to your subject. Which you may or may not want. Obviously a condenser mic will always sound better, but they are not gentle when the subject turns their head against the mic. A lav would be safer because of their omnidirectional pattern meaning the sound won't change as much when not faced directly towards the sound source.
Also lavs are way more flexible, and take very little time to set up, especially when moving around, and a lot easier to carry around than a big mic stand on smaller projects. Especially if you're on a budget (EDIT: and will use the equipment for future projects, wireless lavs are deffo not that cheap!) a lav is the way to go. I like the Sennheiser AVX system because of the rugged antenna, but the g3 has the advantage of being able to use AA batteries.
my 2 cents
Edit: come to think of it, you can get lav mics with standard jack cables for cheap if you don't need the wireless transmitters/receivers, if you really want to budget.

For indoor a shotgun mic is a no go. Do a little research. There are a few options, I am split between an Audix scx1 Hyper Cardioid and a Neumann MT185 myself.
If you put a mic on a stand, the Oktava 012 with the hyper cardioid capsule can be your cheapest bet, but I would strongly advice for one of the above.
Sony wireless system is quite good. If you up the game with a better capsule then it can be really great.
I use both a hyper cardiod and a wireless lav on such interviews.

@Drew Allegre they are only 30-30μW (or is it Volt?!), while in Europe the limit is 50, and some pro devices can go up to 100. Their range is terrible -in my opinion - but all the rest are good, even the included lav mic is ok. If they were 50, they would be just amazing, now they are really good.
I do not know, or understand feet.