The "One Man Show" as some people call it was designed for documentary film making and news gathering. Both situations where the quality of the audio isnt as important as being able to understand who is speaking, or simply capturing ambiance. The main point is that the sound person cant be mixing and holding a boom over their head at the same time. You would think this is obvious; you would need at least three arms to do that. This is why this style of recording is not done on narrative projects such as feature films, shorts, television narratives, or a multitude of other production types. The other thing to think about is how demanding you as a production are and what you are requiring a sound person to do.
I get approached all the time by producers asking me to work on my own. When I ask them how many actors or people will have dialogue simultaneously, or in a given scene, what I am really asking is: "How heavy of a bag do I need to wear around my neck?". Each person with dialogue would usually get a wireless mic, and each wireless mic requires a receiver, and an audio channel. You also need to carry around batteries and all kinds of accessories, because you will most likely not have time to run back to your staging area and get things. If you have seven actors at a given point with lines, then I assume I will need seven radio mics and a boom. The boom is the most important mic and should never be omitted from the combination. And if anything, there should at least be the boom and not necessarily the radio mics. If your scene makes no room for a boom to get in and get good sound, it is not worth shooting, or you should have the budget for ADR and serious post audio work. Do not rely on wireless mics, there are too many reasons for them to fail.
So with this combination, seven wireless mics and a boom, I need an eight track recorder to accommodate all of these things. Wearing a bag around my neck or even with a harness with this much stuff is really asking a lot of a person. Their mobility is limited, and booming with this much weight is difficult and impractical. Many situations require the boom to be agile and move with the camera, but if I am being weighed down by this much equipment, not to mention how big and bulky it all is, my mobility is considerably less than if I only had a boom in my hand.
The Sound Team on the other hand was developed when sound became incorporated to picture. A typical sound team on a smaller production consists of three people: the Sound Mixer, who is responsible for recording the tracks and mixing for dailies, and is the department head. The Boom Operator, whose duties involve booming, and working with and around the camera and lighting departments so that they can successfully capture sound without creating shadows and falling into frame. The Audio Utility is responsible for running cables, laving actors, syncing time code, and trouble shooting any technical issues that may arouse. They also double as a second Boom Operator when needed.
A budget production should at least have a Sound Mixer and a Boom Operator. Both people can handle the responsibilities of the Utility for the most part. But if there are a lot of big scenes with lots of actors, I recommend hiring a Utility, if at least for those days when needed.
There are so many advantages to this system that are often so overlooked, it makes my head spin thinking that producers are out there calling the shots on how a department head should do their job, and for how much, when really it is the other way around! The producer needs to hire the department heads, ask them what they need, and how much it will all cost, then they go out and get the funding. That is the point of hiring an engineer and expert for that department. So that they can make your project work to the best of their abilities for you, because if you the producer knew about these things you could run the sound yourself. Have you ever tried paying what you wanted or could afford for your groceries? No, because they are set at a fixed price, and if you dont like it, you cant buy it. It's that simple.
When I have run a one man show in the past on a narrative, the most irritating thing that I hear (other than when people want to chime in and make suggestions on how to do my job) is when everyone is ready to shoot, and I'm busy doing something and they call out "waiting on sound!". If I am the entire sound department, there are a lot of things I need to do, and doing the job of three people doesnt make it any faster. IF I was allowed to see the blocking and assess the lighting and framing before we go for a take, I would then need to mic up the actors, and assess how I am going to engineer the recording of this scene. I may need to use plant mics, or hang mics from the ceiling, or put sound blankets on places to deaden the acoustics. But I am often not allowed time to prep for a take. Some how people get the idea that one man can take up less space and work faster than two. With two, as a mixer I dont need to be in the room that the shooting is taking place in. If it is a small apartment bedroom for example, I can be in the living room, and the boom op can be in the room, taking up less space because they dont have a bulky bag around their neck.
As a mixer, I can be sure the levels on all tracks are good, monitor them, record my mix track, take care of sound reports, and prepare for whatever is coming up next so that things are more efficient. A Boom Operator can get in and out without taking up much room, change the batteries or make an adjustment on an actors radio mic, and handle a lot of other things while the mixer is doing something else.
I was asked to work on this project that more than likely went nowhere due to poor organization and, lets face it, a bad script. I was working by myself, needed to mic up seven people, and boom and record at the same time. My bag was about 45 lbs, and a great majority of this project was outdoors walk-and-talk style shooting. This project was absolute torture, and to make matters worse, the catering was so bad I wound up going off on my own and buying my own meals. This was an out of town shoot, otherwise I may have just packed a lunch. The point of this though was that I was doing so many things at once, and had so many things going on (all those tracks of dialogue) that I could not be sure if I got anything usable. Listening to eight different audio sources at once is a difficult task if that is all you are doing, but I was also booming and walking at the same time, trying to keep the shadow of my boom out of the shot while trying to get good sound. Meanwhile I am also worrying about batteries, adjusting levels (many of these actors werent well trained or seasoned, and would go from whispering to screaming which of course is not the way things work in film), and all of this was on the fly.
If I had a team I would have had two people booming, maybe only used wireless mics on a couple of the key actors, but I would have generally tried to get the most coverage with the booms. I would have been a distance away so as to not get in anyone's way, and could have provided a great number of other tasks and could have been able to ensure great takes.
Another production I worked on was a pretty small independent project, and wanted to hire me as a one man show, but I negotiated the rate so that I could hire a boom op. At the end of the shoot, I met the editor. This person is the editor for a popular television show (which I was surprised about since this was very low budget, and Im pretty sure most people were either not getting paid, or making less than minimum wage!), and was expecting a lot of things from me, such as sound reports, mixdown tracks, and having my tracks in a particular order. Obviously I cannot provide things after the fact, this is something that should have been discussed before shooting. And if it were, I could have done everything with no problem. But if I were a one man show there is no way I could have provided any of those things. So you see, when producers start making calls on how things are run, and then other departments are expecting things that cannot be fulfilled otherwise, things turn into a mess pretty quickly. Fortunately my main recorder provides the ability to generate sound reports after the fact, and I had been taking notes and circling takes, so I was able to help post out a great deal.
This production also had more characters with dialogue than appeared in the script (last minute changes) and I was rarely provided with sides, so anticipating what scenes I needed to engineer was very difficult, and often opted to boom more and put less wireless on actors than I would have normally. But those problems all come from poor judgement on production's part, and poor organization.
A word of advice to independent or low budget productions: Just because you have less money to work with, doesnt mean you should go and re invent the wheel. Things are done a certain way for a reason, so dont go thinking that because you are independent or low budget that you can start calling shots without consulting your department heads first. This also applies to rates. When you hire your department head, ask him/her what their rate is, and what expenses they will need covered (such as expendables, a day rate for a Boom Op, or any special equipment that needs to be purchased or rented for this specific production). Do not set aside what you think is enough and just say what rate you are willing to offer. Many times you may luck out and get someone good who has the equipment and is willing to work for that rate, but most people will not.
I was recently offered a job on a feature where they wanted me to run a one man show for the entire production, provide all equipment, and work for a rate so low that it wouldnt even cover the cost of renting two radio mics! Needless to say I was rather insulted, and told the producer that she needed to discuss my rate and expenses and come up with the money for that before hand, not the other way around. Her reaction was "this is how we do it in the film biz!", to which I replied "well, not in the real world, but on rinky dink operations that do things their own way, sure! I guess it is how things are run..." Producers often forget that they do a few jobs a year, but I do at least a few jobs per month. My experience is always going to be greater than a producer's that has been working for the same amount of time that I have, and often is still greater than someone who has been working for twice as long as I have. Also a thing to consider is that I do jobs of all sizes. From independent shorts to feature length films of all budgets, television shows, commercials, you name it. I see how things are run from all levels, so when an independent film producer who has never done anything significant in terms of budget or success comes to me to explain how the biz works, the only thing that happens is that I know just how incompetent that person is, and I lose what little respect I may have had for them.
When thinking about a budget, also consider the following: Your sound department is providing equipment, and will expect a kit fee. This is basically a great price on renting the equipment. We are giving you a deal because you are also hiring us to work on your project. In the case of that gig that needed an eight channel recorder, seven wireless, and a boom, this is what the equipment rental costs are from a rental house per day:
Sound Devices 788T + CL-8 (8 channel recorder): $200/day
Sennheiser mkh 416 shotgun mic: $25/day
Lectrosonics SMQV wireless transmitter (x1): $50/day
Lectrosonics UCR 411a wireless receiver (x1): $40/day
Sanken cos-11 lavalier microphone (x1): $15/day
So these are the basics, not including wires, batteries, boom pole, bag/cart, or any of the accessories you need to make these things actually work together. According to these figures, it costs $105/day for one wireless lavalier microphone system. But we need seven. So thats $735/day just for lav systems. So the total cost for just these basic things is $960/day. So giving your independent sound guy a couple hundred dollars/day for his kit rental is sounding like a pretty good deal at this point. But dont make him/her work for free, we need a day rate, and a kit fee. It costs us a lot of money to be able to provide these services for you, and there is a reason why on big budget productions the sound mixer is one of the highest paid people on set. In my experience, people trying to do a low budget film will still pay a high rate to the sound department, while everyone else takes a pay cut. Even the DP and director. Why? Because they all have something to gain from this production, and have a hard time getting hired onto projects to do those things. For me, if you do not want to pay for my services, someone else does, so I have no problem turning down work because as a sound person, I am always busy and being approached for jobs. You also want to make it worth my time, because if someone offers me more I will probably jump ship onto their production, and replace myself with someone else. This can cause problems on your end, even though technically the sound department is covered. But you do need to make it worth me staying around. And it is not just me that will do this, everyone will except maybe someone young and inexperienced, in which case you maybe dont want to have that person running your sound anyways!
Back on point: One man show, good for some things, but not all. If you dont have the budget, dont shoot until you do. There is no point in shooting a film if you do not have a proper budget, because it will not turn out that well and your film will more than likely fail due to bad production or any number of other things that come with not being financially prepared. A Sound Team is what you need for your narratives if you want to do things right. This will save you a lot of money in post as well, heres why:
Your sound mixer is making that on the fly mix. This is intended for dailies, but a good amount of it does make it into the final mix of the film. Now since you are spending less money on someone doing your post audio work, you are saving money. Your production Sound Mixer is making mixes on the fly, not all will be completely usable, but those that are, are done in real time. In post, your mixer will go back and fourth many times on one line, taking considerably more time to do the same work. So let's say your production mixer makes usable mixes for 2/3 of what was shot in one day, which is let's say about 7 pages in your script out of 10. Seven pages of mixing in post may take all day, it may take a week depending on what needs to happen, but saving the majority of the days worth of work is worth it's weight in gold because you are cutting post time into a third, and you are usually paying a post engineer and renting a studio, which costs more than a budget production mixer. So you do the math: Spend more up front, get better quality results, save on money in post. Cut corners in all the wrong places, get an inferior product, spend more on the back end.
The choice is yours, will you make the wise decision?
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