The productions on which I worked required me to obtain voice-overs from two actors. Although the voiceovers would sit in a mix along with music and sound effects, I felt the best idea would be to record them off-location, in a studio environment so that I could properly isolate the dialogue. The equipment I used is pictured below:
Equipment shown: Zoom H4N portable audio recorder, AKG C3000 large diaphragm condenser microphone, Sennheiser headphones, XLR cable, pop-shield and microphone stand.
I had a choice of two microphones to use, the AKG C3000 and a Rode NTG-2. The NTG-2 would also have been a suitable microphone to use because it's pick-up pattern is very unidirectional, so it would have successfully excluded any unwanted background noise. I chose not to use the NTG-2, however, mostly on preference. The Rode just didn't give the sound that I wanted.
I chose to use the AKG C3000 because large diaphragm microphones tend to warm and flatter vocals. I decided that the effect of this would be appropriate in recording Film Noir-style monologues. I used the C3000's cardioid setting and set the stand up close to a lagged wall to minimise any pickup from the rear of the microphone.
Because
my actors were stationary, I was able to use a microphone stand so
handling was not an issue. Maintaining good levels was also quite
simple; the zoom H4N's digital scale is easily read and, as long as I
kept a hand to the input volume controls, I was able to acutely react
to any level variation during the actors' readings and keep the
signal level between -14dB and -22dB.
As far as background noise is concerned, the room I chose to record in is quite well damped and isolated. The only intruding sound source in the room was the clock, which was taken outside. The use of a pop-shield also aided me in achieving clean, uniform recordings.
Some set-up time was saved by not using an external mixer. I didn't feel it was necessary to use one because I would only be managing the level of one input. This meant that I didn't need to spend any time aligning devices to one-another as I only had one scale to deal with (the H4N's digital dB scale).
On one of the takes we picked up some mobile phone interference. All of the actors and present crew members had their phones switched off or on flight mode so I suspect it came from outside the room. Fortunately we had sufficient time to do several retakes so this was not an issue.
All of the required on-location sound for this project was also recorded directly into a Zoom H4N. One of the locations for the shoot was a windy beach in Holywood; this proposed some difficulty in managing wind noise in the recorded dialogue. To combat this as best I could, I used a heavy-fur windshield. It was effective enough, for the most part. I was able to obtain usable takes between gusts. The other issue I faced on this location was the noise from low-flying planes entering the nearby airport and the occasional horn from passing ships. Some takes needed to be scrapped on this account, but there were sufficient clear takes to form a suitable soundtrack. The microphone I used on this location was a Rode NTG-2 and matched pistol grip and aforementioned windshield. I chose this microphone for its directional quality which was useful for isolating dialogue from wind noise.
A need for ADR was looking like a distinct possibility at various stages on the location shoot on the beach, which is something I would much rather avoid, if at all possible. I was worried that key dialogue could have been slightly obscured by an unfortunately timed gust of wind. Had this happened, I'm sure that, using the original take as a reference and working closely with the actors, I could have matched ADR to the footage adequately. Fortunately it did not come to this.
