Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1399159
Jamaica, our next location, presented new challenges. We had a lot of vehicle dialog to record, including one scene with Bond on the back of a scooter. Cary Fukunaga favours realism and it was no surprise when I learned he wanted to shoot the dialog with the scooter being self-ridden, rather than being pulled on an A frame or on a low loader (flatbed). We always placed a lavalier on the exhaust of the scooter so the sound post team could give Cary options in the final mix on how loud he wanted the engine to be under the dialog. With the actors' radio mics, it was a case of getting the lavs as close to their mouths as possible to try and increase the signal (dialog) to noise (scooter engine). We rigged the lavs far higher on the chest than we normally would. We try to keep the dialog sounding natural, and our usual placement would simply mean any quiet words, or times when the engine was revved harder, would have drowned out the dialog, so all bets were off, and we just aimed to record the dialog absolutely as close as possible. We also had to mic up Bond's open-top Land Rover. As well as mic'ing the engine and exhaust as previously discussed (stereo lavs), we also had to capture his dialog. We did our usual workflow of rigging a Schoeps CMC6/MK41 capsule, using an active Colette cable to allow the capsule to be rigged remotely in the sun visor, as close to Bond's mouth as possible. Unless the vehicle wasn't moving, this placement wasn't too successful. The exterior background and engine noise were just too loud to get what I considered to be rich, up-front dialog. So, once again, the DPA 6061 was my favourite choice in this scenario. The beauty of having twenty-four tracks was that I didn't have to decide on the set; I could record all the elements and choices on the ISO tracks and making clear notes on the sound reports of what my preferred tracks were and what the components of the mix track were, giving the Dialog Editor a heads-up, and a starting point. We also had scenarios where Bond would drive into shot, come to a halt and talk to someone on the sidewalk or in another vehicle. We could now swing in the booms with Schoeps Super CMIT's due to the Land Rover having an open top, and capture the static dialog, creating another choice for post. I had been looking forward to a nightclub scene in Jamaica. Cary said it was going to be a very high-energy, dancehall-type scene where the music would be loud and there would be a large number of dancers. Usually on these types of scenes, I use earwigs (wireless inductive earpieces) as my 'go-to,' but as we had no lip sync to worry about, and the set would be very dark and the dancing extremely energetic, I was concerned the generic earwigs we carry (i.e., not bespoke Daniel Craig as James Bond in his Land Rover Series III in Jamaica. Fall 2021 – LOCAL695.ORG 21