Thursday, June 25, 2015

Location Audio Rental Houses Speak Out About Gear And Changing Markets

Glen Trew
The relative health of the film and video production industry in the USA can be measured by the profusion of location audio rental houses. Glen Trew, owner of Trew Audio, with stores in Nashville, Toronto, Vancouver, LA and newest Atlanta location is the perfect model for this growth pattern. Trew says, “LA is #1. Atlanta is now considered #2. NY is #3. There are more feature films shot in Georgia now than LA, but a lot more TV series are shot in LA. New Orleans is a very close #4.”  

Rich Topham on the teaching circuit
Richard Topham of Professional Sound Services runs shops in NYC, Ft. Lauderdale and New Orleans. Topham notes the widespread growth and the tendency for it to follow the money. “Yes, they’re building studios in Atlanta, but they’re building everywhere; The Dominican Republic, Columbia, New York, New Mexico, Michigan. Wherever the incentives are, the production goes, but it changes depending on who’s lobbying the hardest and what else is happening.” It’s very clear that, at the moment, Georgia has one of the better incentive plans. These plans are typically adjusted annually. The hot state today may not be so hot tomorrow. 

While the big hubs keep the large projects turning, everyone I spoke with agreed that there is widespread growth. According to Trew, “The affordability of the new digital video gear has had a noticeable impact on audio rentals. Film has all but fallen off the face of the earth, and for every film camera not being used there seems to be five more affordable digital cameras that don’t require film stock. Lower cost camera equipment, and the lower cost and ease of editing has resulted in a lot more content but at reduced budgets and usually dramatically reduced quality in the final product.”

Guzzi and Schneider expand into Atlanta
Jim Guzzi and Peter Schneider own Gotham Sound. They follow suit, with offices in NYC and also in Atlanta. Schneider’s take is that Gotham is actually in the glue business. “We’re gluing manufacturers together, gluing products together, gluing customers together. We compete on the basis of knowledge and support and applying the technology in creative ways for both sales and rentals.” On the high end, that direction has led Gotham outside the box to invent new systems to handle the complexities of today’s production. 

Rentals for reality television, for example, have grown increasingly complex. Schneider says Sound Supervisors are often requested to make a mix for each camera. “The competition shows have relentless schedules and the technology, as the manufacturers sell it, doesn’t exist to route all of that audio in real time as quickly as they want. The new Dante platform prompted us to create a custom 32” touch screen surface for the control room with a 250 crosspoint matrix, for all of the audio sources and all of the audio destinations. 

Gotham Sound Switching Matrix
You have one operator routing audio. That person makes multiple mixes from wireless lavs and booms.” Schneider says the boom ops don’t wear bags. They use Sound Devices MixPres for headphone and level control and go wireless to the matrix. Levels are also controlled by the sound supervisor for the record/overall mix chain and for the touchscreen.

Schneider wrote code around a program originally written for interactive multimedia dance performances. Guzzi says it got a lot of interest from Sound Supervisors. “Some Sound Supervisors are true visionaries. They understood it and also saw how it would help them. So, yes, a bigger upfront cost, but it would give them the control they wanted at the speed they wanted.”

For less stratospheric work, Guzzi say their rental business echoes Trew’s ‘more projects, lower budgets’ business, “Maybe it’s just a Zoom, a Rode and a G3. In the middle are sound mixers that are augmenting their kit or renting additional pieces for a particular job. Then we have broadcasters and feature film rentals on the high end. Sometimes we have to put together 30 packages on a friday afternoon, but that keeps us from being worried about being dependent on one or two large clients.”

All three companies practice educational outreach. Schneider says renters can come in and sit with the techs for as long as they need to to understand. “We had one customer that does a lot of hunting and outdoors shows where the producer does the sound. He really wanted to use a Sound Devices 633, but didn’t know if the crew could make it happen with two wireless and a shotgun. They brought in all of their producers and we had a free class for them for six to eight hours and now they’re all out in the field and doing pretty well.” 

Schneider says they typically don’t charge for education, because it usually results in more business. “We held a ‘Field 101’ class and charged $10 per person, just to get a handle on how many people would show up, but we gave it back as a $10 store credit.” 

Topham says, with the 700 MHz band gone and the 600 MHz band on the way out, wireless manufacturers are going to have to work hard to meet the growing demand for wireless mics. “The Federal government only cares about the money they can get from telecom companies and Google and people like that. When you dangle a $27 billion dollar carrot in front of the government, who is not getting any income from the current end users, and you look at the sales differences between wireless mics and cell phones and iPads, consumer electronics win the day simply because of the numbers. The FCC is saying they won’t sell off the 600 MHz band until 2016 or 2017. That’s not really that far away. That may drive some to rent now rather than to buy now only to find they can’t use that gear as early as next year.”

Audio-Technica System 10
Topham points to the new less expensive digital wireless systems from Audio-Technica, Sennheiser and Rode operating at 2.4 GHz. “They work up to about 150 feet. Some people are trying them when range is not an issue. “If you need more distance than that, you need to buy or rent higher.”

Topham says there’s another RF gotcha. “If a mixer who already owns block 24 gear gets on a show and production says, ‘No, we’re using block 22’, then the mixer will come to me to rent block 22 because their 24 won’t match up. Especially in reality shows, because the crews switch in and out, they all need to have receivers in the same blocks as the transmitters on the actors; one transmitter, but multiple receivers. They want the sound to transmit to the cameras. They want those wireless on certain blocks so if they move camera with sound, everything works together.” Topham says that’s why wireless manufacturers are now putting out wireless mics that cover three blocks, or 12 UHF frequencies.

Mozegear Tig Q28 Time Code Generator
Topham says time code slates and other boxes have become more important, especially with the newer cameras. “There just aren’t a lot of cameras out there with solid clocks. From an F300 to a Lexa to a RED, the time code is no good. The Ambient clocks inside the Sound Devices gear, Zaxcom, Denecke and Mozegear clocks are all very reliable. That’s why you have Lockit boxes on the side of all these cameras. Zaxcom makes an IFB that carries audio and time code, so you can feed both into a camera from the same box. Camera operators like this because it’s one less box hanging off of their cameras.”

Many of the new, less expensive digital cameras don’t even have time code connections, but Trew adds that while there used to be three types of time code connectors, “Now there are connectors that are sometimes unique to each camera. So we have to find out what devices are being used and what interface cables are needed, and then help people understand how to use them.”

Timecode Buddy :mini trx
In addition to Topham’s time code gear list, Trew adds Betso and Timecode Buddy. “Betso had some consistency problems when they first came out, but they seem to have fixed them. Timecode Buddy is a very nice system that incorporates metadata, slates, and script supervision. Mozegear is the newest, but seems spot on in quality and utility. Industry leaders Denecke and Ambient continue to be excellent.”

Sound Devices 633
The two major players for recorders and mixers are Sound Devices, who followed their 788 and 664 with the 633 and 688 compact mixer/recorders, and Zaxcom who recently introduced their own Nomad and Max compact mixer/recorders. Having said that, people coming in for rental appreciate the Zaxcom gear that uses their “NeverClip” circuitry that lets you scream into a mic without overloading it. Wireless systems suggested by the rental houses include Lectrosonics, Zaxcom, Sennheiser and Wisycom. Boom mic choices continue to be Schoeps CMC641 and CMIT, Sanken CS3e and Sennheiser MKH 50. Lavs mentioned range from DPA 4061 to Sennheiser ME2 and MKE-2, Sanken COS-11, Tram 50 and Countryman B6.

When renting from any shop, some price by three day weeks and some by four day weeks. For example, three day means, you pay for three days but get the gear for five days. Some shops have monthly rates, others just stack weeks to make a month. 

This story is a digital reprint from the June 2015 issue of Markee Magazine. You may read the entire June issue here.

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