Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

HHB FlashMic Used in 24-Hour Filmmaking Festival

Director Scott Evans (left) and assistant director Jana Zinser prepare to record at the first location, the Boulder Farmers’ Market. Photo credit: Marisa Beahm.

Writer and director Scott Evans used an HHB FlashMic in producing his movie, Wet Paint, which was entered in the 2006 “Shoot Out Boulder 24-Hour Filmmaking Festival” in Boulder, Colo. The FlashMic combines the sound quality of a Sennheiser omni-directional condenser capsule with 1GB of self-contained Flash memory and the ability to record hours of audio.

advertisement

The rules of the festival ensure that everything—from story conception to final Foley—takes place within 24 hours. The final product must be less than seven minutes long and must contain five of eleven required items, such as Boulder landmarks or thematic concepts. While sound can be edited and dubbed, no video editing is allowed.

“Filmmaking is all about workflow,” Evans says. “FlashMic gave us digital audio clips that we could use directly. No cutting, segregating or trimming was required. I just dropped each sound file into the timeline and that was it.” Evans chose to use the FlashMic to record industry-standard 16-bit/48kHz audio files.

“We were down to the wire,” Evans recalls of his shoot. “Minor miracles had occurred and the movie looked great. The video was in the can, but it took three hours longer than we expected. There was barely an hour left to trim the music tracks and add Foley. The music editing took longer than we expected. Since we recorded the Foley with the FlashMic, it dropped right in and was one of the few things that actually took less time than we planned! Unfortunately, we had put off recording two cell phone rings that were absolutely critical to the story. The story didn’t make sense without them.

“There was no time,” Evans continues. “As it was, we were almost late for the drop-off deadline. So I gave the FlashMic and the cell phones to my assistant director, who is by trade a scriptwriter, not an audio person. Two minutes later, I connected the FlashMic to the computer, downloaded the ‘ring-ring’ sound files and dropped them into the timeline. The FlashMic saved the production, literally.”

For more information, visit HHB’s U.S. distributor, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation, at www.sennheiserusa.com , www.hhb.co.uk/flashmic and www.theshootoutboulder.com.

Close