Film Directing 119: The Director and Sound Mixer

LEVEL 100 blogs are for film students and first-time directors taking on the directing role for a short film. The series is designed to help and guide new filmmakers through the director’s prep duties, pre-production activities, and principle photography dynamics.

Support your sound team. You’ll never regret it.

The sound mixer has a challenging job. If you can help them, they can help you.

Generally speaking, camera roles garner greater interest from film students than sound roles. Maybe because sound is inherently more difficult?

Though all departments are important, bad sound will take your audience out of the story.

To be clear, the sound mixer is the person recording the actor dialogue on set. You want to be coming away from every scene with usable sound: crisp, clean, clear dialogue. And more – as we’ll discuss later.  

The sound mixer might have a boom person. They might use wireless lavaliers. They might use planted microphones… or they might be doing it all as a one-person team.

You can help them by paying attention to their situations, listening to their concerns, and coming up with creative solutions. Many of the challenges for the sound mixer can be remedied by the director. Problem-solving is part of your job.  

Firstly, if you’re interested in an authentic education in directing and production sound – both in studio and on location – there are equipment requirements to consider.

The mixer cannot do a proper job without headphones. If there’s a boom person, they need headphones, too. So does the director. And, preferably, continuity.

If there are not enough headphones, the production sound may suffer. If so, you’ll need to bring back the cast in post-production for re-recording the dialogue that could have been properly captured if everyone was listening on headphones.

To get good sound, there are some basics to watch for when directing actors who don’t have a lot of experience.

For example, if your actor puts a glass down on a table while they’re saying a line, that dialogue is going to be difficult to use in post. Experienced actors know this, but it still happens. The sound mixer will likely catch it, but it’s your job to help the actor find a pause in their dialogue where they can put the glass down so their recorded dialogue can still be usable.

Another example is when an actor turns away from the microphone while delivering their line. The microphone has a focus pattern – similar to a camera, but different – and the actor needs to keep their dialogue and vocal performance in the zone of best recording.

If the actor is talking while walking across a hardwood floor and their shoes are just too noisy to record clean dialogue, reduce the clatter with some tape or felt on the soles of their shoes to muffle the sound. If there’s a chance that you won’t see the floor in the frame, or in a subsequent closer shot with the same dialogue, throw down a carpet.

If your actor is handling a prop, like a chef making dinner and cutting carrots on a wooden chopping board, you can shoot that in a wider shot knowing that the dialogue may be mostly unusable – and then cover it in a closer shot where the actor can mime the action of chopping. Voila! You have clean dialogue.

Get wild lines, if necessary. Take the actors aside and have them run the scene with you and the sound mixer. If you record wild lines immediately after you’ve completed a scene, the actors will usually have a similar cadence and performance as they did on camera. Try it. It may save you time and money in post.

Shoot close-ups and your sound mixer will be able to deliver great dialogue recordings. Close-ups are one of the 5 C’s of Cinematography, as experienced filmmakers know!

Be careful to listen for any overlapping dialogue in a close-up, especially from an off-screen actor. Again, most experienced actors know this.

Overlapping dialogue works when both actors are in the same frame, and we see them saying their lines, interrupting each other, or talking over the other person.

It’s worth repeating: if you don’t get clean dialogue during principle photography you will need to bring your actors back and set up a recording session with them.

That’s why you always want to check with sound after a take. If there’s a concern, do another take.

Be a champion for good sound. Your audience is listening. And so is your sound team.

Trust your sound mixer!