What's in your Kit? With Sound Mixer Tom Williams | URSA Exclusive

production sound makes a Tom Williams's agreed to come into the studio today and show off his equipment hello John hi okay pleasure to be here please can you just demonstrate to us what you do and the main equipment you use on set sure okay so cart and mag liner pretty obviously doing a stock go through some boxes absolutely sure okay so ready of my box sound like what would you like to know okay so basically you start the day you're you've seen the block and you know what you need to do with your radio mics what what kind of what mics do you have and what options do you have in this box so yeah so my assistant who is mainly in charge of radium working with a bit of help from us she would grab this box get out of costume and or mic up on set and basically it's going to be a case of grabbing which transmitter we're going to use we I'm using electronics SMS as my primary and then I've got mainly cuz the film I'm on has a big female cast and lots of fitted outfits and that kind of thing so having to keep everything super small so that sort of new investment and then I've got electro atoms and then the double battery as well so all electro fur for my for my labs yeah so the kind of system we've got in place I'm using DP a microphones as my main go twos I've also got some clothes of Devon's some de Campos and some country and B sixes in there as well and then I will choose Mike or Michael be chosen and this labeling system mm-hmm so got these labels which will go just very quick to show you put that there for example play the character is a thug okay we're using for sake violently using this which is transmitters see which is necessary to block and then it's gonna be on a a small waist strap yeah so everything is laid out here in such a way that it's very easy for everyone in the team just to see exactly what goes where who has what and then we can take photograph of that and send what's that group internally in our crew and yeah everyone's on the same page which means it's really really straightforward to do a piece you know if you need to yeah okay and yeah these are component boxes from company called CPC for now okay yeah so yeah they go in there when they're when the microphones out we just spin them upside down that's the same thing written on the back so it's very again super quick because as we both know in the heat of battle when you're having to throw stuff on ya have to work super quickly and everything has to be kind of organized so now I'm really interested in this here so when do you pull out the this is like a sewing yes so this is various threads and things and and needles for sewing also a Kimble gun which available for like like 20 quid or something that would be for essentially if we're fixing pouches inside costumes then it's very very quick just a Kimble there and there you can also actually Kimble you take a pinch of fabric Kimble through with it with the mic cable running through and it just it's better than sewing sometimes because it actually allows the fabric to might be able to move within the fab fabric so it slides which so it means you don't get kind of cable snagged up when an actor moves so yeah that's a really really good way it's very easy just discreet you can go up to that to put it in you can pre Rick a jacket something like that yeah so that's mainly for that load loads of pouches different sizes again mainly these small ones for the recommend any stick you've got wearing using a lot of top stick yeah which is kind of I'll go to double-sided tape a tape the super tape which is amazing super super sticky and yeah it's it can leave a bit of residue on certain outfits so I've been careful about using it on unlike a leather jacket or something that a bit out on though go but you know for it's pulled dermatologically tested i believe and how about accessories that go on the ends of the mic so yeah various things here first lots of your mini mounts these are first sixty sixty ones of different sizes we've got this this was a great boom are called lovely harding uses this type a lot and she recommended it it's this it's like a silicon tape and it's um has a it moves yeah you know not great for some things but amazing for other things so it's i think it's just having options we've got various stickies how many mounts we've got the right coat donut's yeah lots of clips and pins and things for hair mounts absolute really useful bubble bees yeah many bubble bees I'm not sure they're all wrong I love different sizes of bubble with end caps of DPAs yeah well exactly we I tend to go for a presence left cap as a matter of as my son of first go to but sometimes we found on this film at the moment that certain actresses have the pitch of their voice it just sounds a bit thin and a bit too harsh yeah so we're going off you know going with a domed flat response cap but then the 6061 I find tends to be although the caps are interchangeable it's you know they have a particular frequency which works really well with certain people's voices and have a bit of presence lift straps up here yep again all laid out super easy to grab the case they can be taken out Mooji Mooji I love mostly stuff it's amazing yeah loads of fur tangle bits yeah like plush circles that kind of stuff again loads different bits and bobs lots of makeup sponge something that we use a lot of so this stuff is I mean you know we've got the foamies and all sorts of bits and bobs as well but these are just black makeup sponge which it's really good to put some sticky on in a like a heavy jacket you can just whack it behind the mic yeah it just opens it up and sits in the shadow quite well so that's a really good little tip yeah that's kind of that's kind of this box of leaf oh these are great your shorties yeah you see some last film a lot and they were really good trying to introduce them on this film for certain things like for stunts and that kind of stuff they're amazing because obviously don't the transmitters don't slip about yeah and also yeah the higher the positioning of this is different to what a waistband different place again certain outfits certain customs that works really really well it's just having everything kind of easy and straight you know to hand is that is the trick in one of these cases yes yeah I mean much the hilarity of I don't know why it's quite infantile but probe covers very easy to roll over a radio mic and transmitter and you can double back at one one way one the other way a little bit of PVC insulation tape and it's just you know it's not gonna be totally water condom basically yeah it's a it's their cool probe covers but it's formula yeah and they you can get them not individually packaged yeah but that works you know it's not a hundred percent waterproof but in the same way actually these little these little things which I got this from Raycom I believe they're d'etre sonic so they fit perfectly onto the truck I mean it even down to the you know yeah then but they they go home really quickly and they're really good again not a hundred something waterproof I'm sure but for if a downwards particularly if you're doing stuff with rain machines and that kind of thing our last film had a lot of that and we didn't lose any transmitters well the labeling have you managed to get all these wicked labels made up that was just someone on Amazon and I've done it all my cases as well custom label custom name and then put on the sides as well so you can as you see down here it's like very quick to just see what's what yeah so we'll go through some of these boxes so that's the rate of my box let's have a look at your interior mic box so so I'm just gonna show us now here's interior and white box which basically will be having used for the interior mics when you're working in a studio this is really special I must also add a distractor this isn't brilliant this extension for a mag liner it just means you've got an extra work space because I kind of I don't know if you this but having having extra like real estate where you can actually prep headsets it means I can work here my boom up can work here building the booms and my assistant can work here you know constructing I am stuff or the radio might box or whatever it is so yes this is my my new baby okay regula see my super sumit regular regular team it so we've got here the I'm skipping up here it's like breezy so this is at most my shirts apart from these ones the church layer yeah so we've got two seam it's two mini seam it's some I kind of go to interior Mike actually um I've got a CCM 41 and a CC I make pair for LMS stereo rig these little fellows are made by line audio the CM 3 is they sound fantastic actually really really nice cardioid mics again really useful having an extra pair we can sort of throw out if we're doing music recording all that kind of stuff underneath DPA that's a rode ntg-3 like having a kind of a bulletproof four one six style mic is been really useful for you know not too precious about that but it still sounds good well these my go to exterior riggis the 4017 with a BB preamp on it which is you know has a bit more control you or the presence lift in the base coat on there yeah and then this is a another 40:17 with this but the compact mic preamp is what's great about this system is it's all modular so most of and then these are the 40 eighteens which sound they both sound beautiful it's different I don't know it's personal it's personal choices personalization there's a similar pickup pattern it's a beautiful you know the up to my ears chirps have a signature sound which is it has a warmth to it which I just think is absolutely sings it's fantastic DPAs I think also sound great they tend how I feel again that is his subjective I'm sure everyone's got their own opinions these feel that they have a bit more suck to them than you get off 41 which meat you know just a bit you can just put in a bit more but the other really really amazing thing about these mics it is really good is because they're fully modular you can take that that's a bloody expensive that's just like four tiers and you can take it on it you can stick it on a carry Kevin right literally right on a active cable yeah then you can put them like four dot on that end and plug it straight into a transmitter and it powers it up off the transmitter without phantom yeah so that isn't you can literally throw that in on a bit of black TAC or a bit you know velcro whatever on to have car visor or I've got what's really cool is all these bits and bobs so this is also this is my sort of DPA kind of mounting section so I've got like these little suspension mounts which worked really well these just you can yeah obviously hardwired to an XLR off the MicroBot okay so that one under here many layers down how did you get this made this is all completely custom set so you've had this all planned well in advance drizzle out with a pencil and paper yeah and then someone else put it into a computer yeah but little things like that super neat table mount yeah you know and then absolutely nicely in there in a very satisfying manner and then yeah you say you've got those which is great and then you've got little two snacks there which again you can clip onto visors that kind of thing and the other little active and cable kind of runs neatly down there and then yeah my booms running two booms nearly all the time using audio limited eight ends fantastic so that stays built in there which is really cool that works on a beanpole yeah so essentially you whack that straight on that way Solutions clips yeah back to back so ambient poll samurai solution clips back to back so that is literally that allows you to put that there and then you can take a microphone it's so under here it's more there's another layer like a chocolate box yeah for example these are these are mini seemeth so no prototypes I think so yeah that works in there like so and then you basically what it means is you've got the option to say you've got a mini SEMA on here you're like oh we need to go to a different mic you thought you can literally just unplug that and remove the mic and then put another mic on and that can stay built or you can conversely you can easily just take that and be like we needed to go into a drama Pole and intact go to drama poll or whatever magic armoire you know yeah so very happy lots of ice experience so we've got these are mini cement ones we've got cmip5 mounts two of those these are four DPA 4018 C's it's so nice and kind of compact as a MINIX they're 41 this is a another special from Filippo for its nella which is a there's a cozy but it's a short it's a smooth haired one so we're just we're experiment with that at the moment and it's that's fantastic so again that that's so kind of the most compact again you need to be to about that but it's a really really neat solution for when you're swinging on a pole you are swinging say a seam it on a pole quite quickly indoors do you have any kind of do you go into an exterior Michael do you have a foam which is a heavier foam I see there's heavy blue foam that's pretty yeah so these are the standard ones yeah that's another thing actually about this boxes I tried to make it so that these don't get squashed it's on the last my last my B Mott was always complaining that these rules are squeezed in or was actually I think they kind of hold their shape better if has a bit more space but yeah so no I mean on an interior rig that's that's been flocked that's a black one that's flock because I did a blue-screen sheet then we had like I've got everything in blue blue booms with Simon haters Greensleeves in blue I even got my boom up in a blue morph seat quite funny and I think we actually needed him to be a lovely horse it but I enjoyed that very much yeah so nothing nothing specific but I'll go to the exterior box which is in the van which has got pianist maze which I'd use the DPA 47 teens in okay let's move on to what is probably the most unique well these are all very special custom-built cases but your charger box yes well I'm just hopefully throws back this is literally hot off the press I only got this two days ago everything it's very very new so I'm still trying to getting my head around it essentially charger this is basically you go home you need an efficient compact way to charge your batteries Pelly 2,400 I am storm case which I generally got those and there I've got the slightly deeper ones the 2024 50s which is just the same size but a deeper so yeah this is a push to open drawer slider mechanism which is off Amazon this is a up and over hinge system and then this is this is a little smoke alarm which just goes on there magnetically to take my life when my yeah exactly the SSM transmitters take these electrode make them I believe they're using the Fuji cameras MP 50 low-dose idea being we've got 12 charges for six transmitters got my nano lock hits more ambient lockets which plug-in with ease and they velcro onto their charge got smbus battery charging so for audio route or inspired energy batteries and then yeah 516 way double a charger socket round the back though they just plugs in plug it into the wall yeah I'd the kind of brief there is I had a lot of stuff that I needed to fit into a case and how was I gonna do it I just spent far too much time when I should have been out having a social life fiddling around in my in my workshop well and I suppose it just saves you time basically yeah exactly it's a one case to grab and you know and then they're getting heavier and heavier grips box so these are we've got these this is the same size tray as was in the interior might box it's just a really good solution so these are the heli trek practical dolly I've had to cut them down slightly to allow that to drop to around the room to clearance the cases so it's a little everything's a bit custom so you've got little little magic comes in there no no your arms these are not negative Manfrotto arms with Noga style clamps loads of GoPro stuff which with caught 3/8 adapters so you can sticks things like stick little plant mics onto computer monitors and stuff like that bits and bobs like spigots and so forth silent steps loads of loads to let those on this film so I've got loads of different sizes of those carpet tight bits of wire these the idea here actually it's quite cool it's being able to throw in just be able to throw on different height here extensions and then you can say these are these are Manfrotto again but these are made by gravity they're really good really good bases with a 3/8 thread on and they've got some sort of shock absorption and they're stops from starting around so again you can just quickly pop that on with a mic and just tuck it in or gooseneck or no pump you can get loads of different lengths very briefly for Keurig this is again this is something else I've been playing around with in fact it came from an idea from you about how you were because do you came up with something for a cup holder I think long time ago like a suggestion and essentially what it is it's a Belkin sat-nav holder yeah but I've had a custom stainless spigot re-engineer to fit inside which then that you basically twist this and it locks into a cup holder totally solid it's totally silent then you can fit all different attachments onto the earth again just you know certain cars you just need to pop something straight in you can have two mics coming out of that yeah yeah yeah well I'm interested primarily in like you you get to set and you can straight away you can see the frequencies there you turn it on straight away you've got that in front of you which is really nice yeah I'm using the way we tend to work and I mean everyone's got their own method and but I tend to run active antennas out to set so I've got different answer cable I've got WizIQ on log periodic antennas which got up to 27 DV again so I can run a lot a lot of cable and of yeah basically being able to put the antennas right where you need them understand my IM stuff it tends to be on the cart but I can go wireless to video and all sorts of different options just using Widdicombe pocket transmitters your witty comment transmitters are transmitting to the public feeds noisy come public this wizzy common transmitter is going to my private line for my boom ops and they've got wizzy comm receivers yeah the IFB receivers that works really well it sounds fantastic but then if you run these on I think it's en are compounding you can work with what so Sennheiser so you can equally tuning with a g3 transmit g3 I am receiver into that or you can conversely it can be the other way around and you can tune that I could pick up Sennheiser on the on the ways you can't receiver that's a good we're getting nice quality yeah yes and my aunt my antennas are going in here I've got two six-packs but work together running the a-10 audio attend my booms as I showed you earlier Electro's and then whizzy whizzy receiver which I use for a third or fourth boom if I need it or just all sorts of that they're great they're really versatile for all sorts of things so it's counter em to ya control panel and then I've got a little a box here which is sad for my my games so that's kind of two hand rather than coming up here but what's so good about the counter is that everything's you can just send anything and anywhere yeah and you can route anything anywhere so these can be set these can be sends or they can be you know they could be a these are my AAS gains if I want them or you know I can run more inputs in have more control there so what does this do here the mix pre backup recorder I'm just running my mono mix plus two booms which I run literally that gets hit the beginning of the day and it just records and it's timecode is time coded so it just means that if for some reason I have a SD card file on me or you know god forbid I forget to going to record at least you know at least I know that I've got something on there which is time coded yeah I've never had to use it touchwood but it's just a plastic phone holder that have bolted on yeah well yeah and then having the RF Explorer plumbed in is really so you can immediately see what's going on lap monitors again I know they're small but they're kind of where you need them right next to your like sto faders in your script so you're kind of in that little in that zone yeah and then I've got I'm also can send another feed via thunderbolt into my computer so I can have a big screen on here so if you need to you know see your a camera a bit bigger seed a noise reduction very very useful digital yeah so that's again the little box I made which links to this Bluetooth page-turner which is for I think they use it for the musicians to have like foot pedals whatever to you know digitally go through that their notation and that I could attach my iPad onto here if I'm not using a script old-school script and then just I've had on here yeah and then like this little box goes here when we're thumbs are so I'm mixing and I can go back and forward on my script pages which again yes it's in theory it's great but actually you always end up going back to the paper sides yeah with the highlighter and some scribbles of a sharpie in that zone yeah so yeah what else I got um these are quite cool that the smiles combined this this is a little bit loose at the moment but there's normally quite square these are so the system I've got four comes to my boob ops is you know production provide the Motorola walkie-talkie yeah then you just plug the comms in I've got what this does is basically puts the walkie-talkie into my headphones right so you always hear it when they talk or can you decide to not listen to the church the most important thing is to get your own channel right you don't want to be on the eighth of his time but then you can that's a great thing as well I can get channel one and I can just whisper into the 80s here that wasn't good for us he doesn't know about going through or whatever and you know then rather than having to broadcast it across the whole set yeah you know you can just quickly chat and actually this we are just been filming in France and we didn't have the right sockets and like literally as soon as I lost comms like it was horrific like you you really take it for granted but just literally being able to whisper to your boom UPS yeah you know or and then many talk back to you they're talking back via there and they're just trying it some yeah I mean but that's kind of like a second light I mean I'm still using the talk on the counter so talk one to production talk to to my private line so that's my main if I'm whispering frame edges of frame lines whatever I'm literally talk one talk to one here so I can whisper to my boom ops to get in or get pull up a bit yeah but then you know I can also ask my trusty trainee to get me a coffee he's out of the truck I always see when they get out of range they've got a double it's a talk to each other yeah and they also costume can then dial into the sound Channel and say you know are you ready they're actors are ready for biking yeah so it's a really yeah good system really is it's really up to date with where we need to be right now yeah Department for being fully fully involved in the other departments yeah being able to communicate quickly yeah I mean you know job that's the key isn't it just think be able to but you have to just you know quietly and efficiently and invisibly do your job and being able to exactly speak you need to speak to across the set without getting into that situation where you're having to serve storm about and just try and you know kind of like yeah I mean I I think exactly I think if you know if you're able to do really good work and do good work under the radar and be nice I think that's the key you know yeah man thank you so much for taking your time to come to chat no worries absolute pleasure absolute pleasure all right all the best

Channel: URSA Straps

Views: 23,640

Keywords: sound, sound equipment, microphone, radio mic, lav mic, location sound, sound mixer, boom operator, dpa microphone, sanken, sony, sennheiser, cantar, aaton

Id: guQvWiqh3WQ

Length: 30min 49sec (1849 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Shdhdhsbssh]

That's pretty cool. I wish I understood half of what he was talking about.

[u/kultaras]

I had no idea what most of that stuff was, but that was a masterclass in organisation and I watched the whole thing.

[u/LauraTinglesWilder]

Is this for film or stage? I always assumed films used external boom mics not lav mics.

[u/scarystuff]

wow, 2 thirds of the video is missing....

[u/RachelMcAdamsWart]

This is so mind bogglingly down the rabbit hole interesting. Amazing!