"Hiding wireless transmitters made possible!
so finding a solution was going to involve a combination of creative thinking and collaboration with both costume designer Rita McGee and hair department head Pamela Rene. I knew I needed their help and together we would be able to make this possible.
Image Courtesy of P-Valley Trailer Teaser Released 2/5/20
In a perfect world we’d be able to capture all this dialogue on the boom when dealing with these complex costumes and when the camera frame allowed we did exactly just that. However on big shooting days on the club set floor it was common place to have three cameras which typically consisted of a techno crane, a wide master and and a tight so wireless body packs and lav mics we’re going to be necessary to capture dialogue in these cases. One advantage to this club type atmosphere was we were able to make good use of and deploy plant mic’s that we’re hidden out of site in the shadows and a couple of our cast used practical mic’s as part of their role so that also helped give us more mic options.
In pre production my first meeting was with costume designer Rita McGee and her team in the wardrobe department to get an idea of the costumes hanging on the racks. It was quickly apparent to me that most of these costumes that we’re in the club set we’re so minimal that hiding a mic and transmitter would be next to impossible. However a few of the costumes in the club for one of our main cast Uncle Clifford did present some opportunities. In those cases we we’re able to coordinate some sew ins. For this I decided to use the Countryman B6 which has an incredibly low profile of 1/10th of an inch in diameter. The capsule is also small enough to hide on the outside of the wardrobe where camera won’t see it. Wiring in this way is often an advantage since lav mic’s always sound best with plenty of air around the capsule. This allowed us to not only get a perfectly concealed wire in a seam but also save time since our talent would be pre wired when they come to set only needing to ad the transmitter.
Image Courtesy of P-Valley Trailer Teaser Released 2/5/20
My next meeting was with our hair department head Pamela Rene. My first discovery was the most of the characters who also played as dancers in the club set wore wigs for most episodes. So fortunately hiding the B6 in the hair was going to be an option. Hair mics are somewhat common place in some instances for complex wardrobes but the real challenge at hand was still where to mount the transmitters which are larger and heavier then their microphone counterparts. My next question for Pamela was can we mount the transmitters in the wig? The challenge here was these performers were moving around constantly with the dance choreography. So with just a few days to go before principle photography and a stacked prep schedule to finish before we started shooting we discussed a few techniques that would be possible and would finalize the details on the day.
With some sew in’s in the works from costumes and a general workflow ideas set in place with Pamela and her team we were on our way. But it was going to take getting the talent through the works and practical application to finalize a technique that would work. This ended up being more of a case by case basis and through close collaboration with Pamela, her stylists and my sound utility Rachel Smith we were able to figure out a way to secure the transmitters with the cast. This wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration of Rachel and Pam who did most of the leg work on how to innovate this process.