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Microphones for interior "silent" shots, no dialogues
  • Have you ever seen the films of Bartas or Pedro Costas?

    These films have few dialogues, the narration is dominated by diegetic ambience sounds. In particular, the interior scenes are almost silent: 90% of the time we hear only the rumors of the protagonists walking in the kitchen, coughing, sitting on a chair and of course, the room tone. While many mainstream films often foley these rumors recreating them in a studio, films like these ones feature a different "live" approach to sound.

    I would like to shoot a short documentary rich of these little sounds, with no dialogues, only interior shots. a person sitting, waking in a silent house. No dialogue. I will contact an audio guy for sure, however, I would like to know in the meanwhile what kind of microphones is used for these scenes. Simply field recorders? I don't think so. Hypercardoid mics?

  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • May be try binaural head with mikes?

  • Binaural mics like OKM are an intelligent solution indeed, thanks Vitaliy, I'll make a test for sure.

    I would like to know a more conventional solution too, maybe wide cardioid mics... it's a bit hard to find info for this peculiar setup.

  • You can use either array of cardioids or one-two really sensitive omni mikes. With omnies you will need later manual processing.

  • I think that I will make a test with a couple of wide-cardoid CM3s very soon. In the meanwhile, binaural mics seem a good (and fast) compromise. thank you again for the suggestions.

  • In the meanwhile, binaural mics seem a good (and fast) compromise. thank you again for the suggestions.

    You can use even lavs (they are omni) and some dumb head from shop selling clothes or hats.

  • Ambisonic or Sound Field mics are pretty amazing. You can tune them to different specs in post and capture sound beyond 7.1. More post-processing is required than usual, of course. http://core-sound.com/TetraMic/1.php