Hi all, I'm trying to figure out if recording clean dialog (using LAVs or boom or both) in a warehouse is possible. I'm talking about an untreated building (an old disused warehouse) where sound would echo, but I don't want to have the echo in the recording.
Does anyone have experience / advice?
Thanks much.
-m
Keep the mic as close to the actors as you can to avoid room ambience.
=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
Short and to the point. Lavs are probably the only reasonable solution, if the building is so bare that you get intense reverberation. And even with lavs, you may want to try and conceal them on your talents' heads, the way they do on Broadway (put the lav in their hair, under the glasses, sideburns, block the action so that the mic is on the opposite side of the face). If you have tighter shots, perhaps some tall sheets of cloth hung around the set to absorb some of the noise to allow you to use boom (and not have to worry about concealing the lavs).
In the end, there's always ADR, but that is definitely a worst-case solution. It takes a lot of time setting it up and capturing it, not to mention that there are only few really good actors who are capable of re-creating emotional charge in a dark studio, watching a small screen, with a microphone in their face and headphones on their head.
