We actually used lavalieres for most of this, wired with a Countryman B6 and wireless with a Sennheiser G3 system.

Pluraleyes takes a little while to sync, depends on how much footage you have, how many tracks of audio and how clear the audio is. Maybe half an hour for this project, I don't remember for sure, but I think we had almost an hour and a half of footage total to sync. Running on a 2 year old powerbook though, so I imagine it would be a lot quicker with a newer system.

if it only takes 30 minutes to sync an hour and a half worth a footage..its seems pretty quick. would you recommend the tascam dr 100 over the zoom h4n?

i wanted to use the tascam's internal recorder on a boom pole so that i can record dialogue in my next short...i plan on getting a shotgun mic as well, but for now, im saving up for a tascam first. are the internal mics good enough for this purpose?

Actually, I don't know - we've never shot with the internal mics on the tascam. We have used the H4n on a boom with the built in mics - if you watch our running documentary (vimeo.com/14564617) all of the interviews on-site at the race are done that way and it worked pretty well. The H4n mics are kind of unique though, you can rotate them to change the pickup pattern from 120 degrees to 90, so we're using them at 90 and they act much more like a shotgun would for isolating sounds. I'm actually not sure what the Tascam pickup pattern is but it's not adjustable like the Zoom.

Two things to be careful of if you use a recorder on a boom like that - one is that you need some isolation. We just screwed a monopod directly into the recorder and you could hear handling noise from the monopod. I don't think there are any shock mounts made for that type of thing so you might have to build something yourself. The second thing is that you can't see the top of the recorder when it's on the boom - we did one interview where it turned out afterwards that the recorder wasn't recording, but we couldn't see the record light with it out on the boom. So you just have to be sure to double check every time that it's recording before you put it out over the talent.

Handling noise wasn't a big problem, but it was there, and there were a couple shots that I didn't use because it was too noticeable. Didn't try to remove any of it, that kind of thing is tough to do without impacting the voice quality noticeably. I did turn on the low-cut filter on the H4n, which helped some, but on a good sound system I can hear both the handling noise and the effects of the low cut on his voice. I'd definitely rig up a shock mount of some sort if we do that again.

I was recommending the Tascam over the Zoom for a while, one big thing it has is independent control over the levels on the two inputs which the Zoom didn't have. They just came out with a firmware update for the Zoom to enable that though, so that's less of an advantage. The Tascam does have dials for the levels, which are nicer to use than the up/down buttons on the Zoom. One other thing the Tascam has is a built-in rechargeable battery in addition to the AA batteries. When they run out the built-in battery kicks in. On the Zoom when the battery runs out it shuts down and whatever you were recording at the time gets lost - we had to re-shoot a 30 minute interview in our fire documentary because that happened. When I bought the Zoom the DR100 was much more expensive, but now that they're roughly the same price I think I'd buy the Tascam instead. Fortunately our other camera guy bought one so we can use either one as needed, so I'm just going to stick with the Zoom for now.

again, i really appreciate you answering all my questions so thoroughly and comprehensively. i am going to buy the tascam dr 100 and practice with it so i can get great audio like you! aha sorry for soooo many questions! im really grateful

last questions for you. when using the tascam dr 100 with a shot gun mic and boom pole...how does my sound operator hold the tascam to reduce handling noise and what not? is there like a little clip he can put on his waist or something during moving sequences?

and regarding video now. do you use custom picture styles that make the image super flat or do you use the built in camera styles and tweak them to your liking?

No problem, glad to help!

If you're using a mic on a boom pole you'll usually want a bag or belt pouch to carry the recorder in while you're shooting. There are bags made for this (i.e. this Lowepro: products.lowepro.com/product/SF-Audio-Utility-Bag-100,2230,54.htm ) but pretty much anything will do.

The noise doesn't come from the recorder though, it's either from the boom pole itself or the cable. A good shock mount will make the biggest difference, anything that isolates the mic from the pole will help. Also make sure the cable can't swing and hit the pole - you can either tape it to the pole or use velcro wraps or hair ties. Some of the better poles have a built in cable inside the pole or space to add one, to prevent this. Foam hand grips on the pole will help to minimize handling noise as well.

If you'll be shooting outside you'll want to consider a 'dead cat' or something similar to cut down on wind noise. Foam windscreen is ok but not great, better ones will be furry and have some internal space around the mic. Rycote softies are a decent cross between performance and cost.

On the video side I don't shoot any of the custom picture styles. I've tried them out and made a couple of my own, but Canon's picture style tool doesn't have very good control over the settings. All of the really flat profiles give you a slight improvement in the highlights and shadows at the cost of destroying your midrange. Problem is that's where your skintones are, and they're generally the most important thing on screen. Flat profiles tend to give them a weird gray/pink plasticy look.

I just use the in camera settings - generally neutral profile with sharpness and contrast turned all the way down, color down one notch. This gives you a good workable range and good skintones. It's still a 'flat' picture, just not excessively so - but it's also not intended as the final look of the shot, you'll want to do some color correction for best results. I run everything through Apple Color now which gives a lot of control over the image. If you aren't planning to color correct you might want to use more contrast or saturation in camera, but if you're really looking to get the best results you'll want to learn color correction.

Also I've found that for the best looking skin tones it's important to do a custom white balance for each lighting setup rather than using one of the presets.

you sir, are a life saver! thank you for all the tips. your advice is worth a lot to me, considering the quality of your shorts. thank you once again!!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the films.

As for lighting we rarely use just one light source. For speed reasons we try to work with existing lighting whenever possible and then add lights to accent it. For Coulrophobia we mostly used the Comer in the garage scenes at the end, and the overhead lights were reasonably bright. So we kept the actors under the existing lights as much as possible, then used the Comer to fill in the shadows on faces or add an edge light when needed. There's not actually a lot of shots with it, maybe 6 or 8. It's a very bright light for it's size, especially when shooting at a high ISO.

I haven't had much problem with noise up to 1250 ISO. At 1600 it's there, but not too objectionable. Once you get over 1600 it comes up fast. A lot of it depends on what you're shooting. In Coulrophobia the shadows were already pretty deep, if we'd raised the ISO enough to bring up the detail in the shadows the noise would have been bad. You also can't really raise the shadows in post at the higher ISOs or the noise becomes visible.

We actually use a wide variety of lights on our films, in general the Comer is just an accent light or for tight spots where we can't fit larger lights. We have a Lowell DV creator kit with 4 lights including a Rifa softbox, and lately we've added several LED panels from Coollights - a 256, 600 flood, and 600 spot + softbox. On our latest film (I'll be posting it in a couple days) we actually also used all of these plus a couple of the tiny rechargeable 36 LED lights that are available.

For sound I prefer double-system for a few reasons. Originally you couldn't control levels in the camera, but that has been fixed in firmware - unfortunately it's not very good. You have to set levels before recording and can't see them during recording, so it's hard to tell if you're peaking. You also can't monitor what's being recorded since there's no headphone port, so there's no way to tell if there's background noise, interference, etc being recorded.

We also use a variety of mics - often using wired lavs or shotguns that need phantom power. I do have a juicedlink XLR box that can provide power but it makes the camera kind of awkward to hold, especially once mic cables are hanging off the back, and it doesn't really solve the monitoring problem. It's just much easier during the shoot to have the audio and camera hardware separate since we usually have someone in charge of sound. It adds some time in post to use pluraleyes but in general we've found the trade-off worth it.

No problem! Selecting lights depends on a lot of factors. Have you studied any basic lighting techniques? If not take a look at these notes I wrote for a class a few years ago: archive.divergentshadows.com/dv/production/notes/lights1.shtml

So basically I usually think in terms of key, fill and edge lights. Since we use a lot of existing lighting you look at what's available and then fill in the blanks. If there's bright light from a window sometimes we'll position the actor so it acts as a back light, in which case we need to use a large bright light as the key. Other times we'll use the window light as the key and use a smaller light for the edge. Fill is often from ambient light or reflected off of something. It's really dependent on each particular situation.

Another issue is that the color temperature of all these light sources is different. My general guideline is to white balance to the key light so that people's skin tones look natural, and then let the other lights have some color to them.

With pluraleyes once you've linked the audio & video on the timeline you can drag the linked clip into a new bin in your project and you'll end up with a 'married' clip which works just like any other - is that what you're looking for? I usually drag the synced audio up to the first two tracks to replace the camera audio, then razor-blade the audio and video to get a matching length, link the audio and video, then drag to a bin in my project.

The latest versions of pluraleyes can actually do this process automatically with the 'replace audio' option. Unfortunately I've had problems with the final married clips being out of sync by a second or two, so I still do the steps of linking and dragging to a bin manually because it seems to work more reliably. Not sure if that's a general issue or something specific to my system.

You can call me Evan - I'm one of the team founders.

Anyway, you're right - dragging to a bin only creates a married clip within your project - Final Cut never modifies any of the original media. If you want to create new files you could just select all the synced clips in your bin and select File > Export > Quicktime Movie. Leave the settings at 'current settings' and check the 'make self contained' checkbox. Then you'll get a new copy of your clips with the new audio embedded and you could use it in any other application. If you are working with proxy files you would probably want to re-link the original media before doing this, because it would probably be difficult once they are exported. I really only do that when I need to take a clip into something like After Effects or give a copy to someone else who isn't using FCP.

You're welcome - and good luck with your productions!