Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterSound Devices 744T and 788T Beta Sight
Dec 7, 2009 12:00 PM, By Kyle Hartigan, NFL Films
Sound Devices takes to the field for NFL Films.
NFL Films shot Truth in 24, a film about Audi Motorsport's attempt to win its third-straight 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Sound Devices 744Ts and 788Ts recorded team radios and the official race broadcast.
In spring 2008, Audi Motorsport hired NFL Films to make a feature film called Truth in 24 about its quest to win another 24 Hours of Le Mans race. We shot races in Sebring, Fla; Long Beach, Calif.; and in Monza, Italy, in the months leading up to the daunting 24-hour race.
Our DP for the film was Hank McElwee, NFL Films vice president of cinematography, who has extremely high standards for the footage he captures. He wanted to shoot this movie not just in the legendary NFL Films manner, but to surpass all expectations.
I was thrilled when I was asked to lead the location sound for the film, and I wanted to ensure that I matched the quality of the audio with the look I knew McElwee was going for. I requested that the film be done in a surround-sound mix; when that was granted, I began preparing for the challenge.
I quickly saw that each racetrack and every car had a unique sound; it was a perfect application for a dynamic surround-sound mix. The first race we attended was in Sebring, and I left the cumbersome Sound Devices surround recording setup at home and just brought the Sanken CSS-5 stereo mic for all my effects recordings. The next race was in Long Beach, and it was the same week Sound Devices announced the 788T 8-channel recorder at the NAB conference. I had to miss the show that year because of the shoot in Long Beach, but when I got off the plane, I had an exciting voicemail on my phone from my father, sound mixer extraordinaire Jay Hartigan, calling from the floor at NAB telling me about the 788T.
A Sound Devices 788T and a Holophone H2 were used to record surround sound for Truth in 24.
The 788T could not have been released at a better time. (I take that back; three months earlier would have served me better.) I got my hands on one of the first just a week before I left for the three-week shoot in Le Mans, France. It was perfect for my surround-sound recording, as I needed six mic levels and 48V phantom on every channel, and the ability to link all the faders together so I could control all six channels with one knob. This gave me only one machine that fit into a bag, a huge improvement from my previous setup. I carried the Holophone H2 and the 788T around the 7-mile track and in and out of the pits and with ease.
During the entire 24-hour race in Le Mans, we used a Sound Devices 744T to record the three head-engineer-to-driver radios and another 744T to record nearly 36 hours of the radio broadcast. All of the Sound Devices recorders and the four Sony F900 cameras had matching timecode.
My next shoot will be a project for Showtime about a middleweight boxing tournament in Berlin. This job will require up to eight characters wearing wirelesses mics and a few other mics planted throughout the arena. Naturally, I won't be heading overseas without my 788T and two 744Ts.
Kyle Hartigan first learned about production sound mixing as a child from his father. Now in his fifth season at NFL Films, Hartigan, who is 26, won an Emmy in 2009 for Audio on HBO's show Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Dallas Cowboys. Hartigan continues to work with the NFL to provide superior quality audio recordings throughout the football season and for the company's independent films.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.