With high quality audio a prerequisite - and with strict instructions from the director that no microphones were to be seen anywhere in the video footage - sound engineer Giacomo De Caterini was initially struggling to work out how he could comply with the director's brief.
"The director wanted to avoid any microphones that could be visible because he was determined to maintain strict focus on the performers," De Caterini explains. "Due to bad experiences in the past, especially on video productions where close-up shots revealed poorly concealed microphones dangling from the singers' wigs, he was very keen not to have any microphones on the singers' heads. This ruled out the use of miniature microphones such as the DPA 4061s, which we had initially been considering."
To add to De Caterini's difficulties, some of the backgrounds were being video projected, which meant that microphones hanging from the ceiling were also out of the question.
"I was quite worried as the only option left was to use shotgun microphones positioned on the edge of the proscenium," De Caterini says. "I realised this would only be OK if we had a sufficient quantity and if they were strategically placed to capture the audio properly."
Luckily, Salvatore Zocco, product manager at DPA's Italian distributor M. Casale Bauer, was able to come up with a solution. He gave Giacomo De Caterini some DPA Reference Standard 4017 Shotgun Microphones and suggested he tried them out as an option.
"Although I expected the high quality sound and trustworthiness that invariably comes with DPA microphones, what I did not expect was the ability of these microphones to deliver a sound unlike any other shotgun I have ever tried," De Caterini explains. "They were much more akin to a pair of traditional cardioids, and with the amazing ability to behave more like 'wide cannons' than strict shotguns."
(Jim Evans)
