Let’s talk audio. Wireless audio. When I first started out filming simple corporate interviews, I used a Rode lavalier mic with an XLR cable plugged directly into a TASCAM DR-40 recorder. This worked out pretty well being a one man band film maker. But as soon as I moved into short documentaries, there was a need to go wireless as I would follow people around all day while recording audio. The first wireless set I bought was (not surprisingly) a Sennheiser EW100 G3. Paired with the Sanken COS-11D, this combination got me going for the next couple of years. These Sennheisers are the workhorses of the industry and most professional audio guys will have at least a few in their bag as a backup solution, or for reference audio to camera.
There is, however, one big drawback to all wireless audio solutions: as there is only a limited amount of wireless frequencies (referred to as frequency ‘blocks’) you can use in a given country, it can be quite hard finding a frequency that is clean enough to use. Especially when you try and keep up with a person you follow around for a documentary. So, after researching and testing a few pretty expensive brands with better range, I came across Zaxcom. Most of Zaxcom’s wireless transmitters have a built in micro SD slot that will record audio onto micro SD cards as a backup. So whenever your main character walks out of range, or if there’s a wireless disturbance in the Force, you can be sure you have a backup recording.
In the video below, I give a short overview of the Zaxcom ZMT3.6 for my documentary shoots.
For me, these transmitters have been lifesavers on multiple occasions where I lost my signal. Especially in situations where we can’t do a retake. Zaxcom doesn’t come cheap though: a set of two transmitters and a receiver will cost you around €6000,-.
Inspiring stuff on the workflow of The Grand Tour and how the crew used Zaxcom recorders as a backup solution whenever the presenters went out of range: http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2017/1/4/enter-the-grand-tour