For Life’s Waltz, we use two microphones to record sound:

The first microphone we use is our Sennheiser MKH 416. The MKH 416 is a short shotgun condenser mic. This means it’s designed to be super directional, so when you point it at something, it (mostly) records sound from a narrow window directly in front, while at the same time it rejects “off-axis” sound. Because it’s used for picking up sound from the specific source that it is pointed at, it’s ideal for dialogue recording. Not-so-coincidentally, the Senn 416 is known in the Hollywood industry as the traditional workhorse found on sets everywhere.

We hook this bad boy up to a boom pole or use a pistol grip for hand-held audio. It sits inside a muffy blimp (in the lingo, a “Zeppelin” with a “windjammer”) to create dead air space around it and to block disturbances such as wind, etc.

Secondly, we have an AKG CK93, which is powered by an SE 300B power supply. The microphone is actually a tiny capsule (as you can see–above the blue line is the whole microphone!) that can be changed out for a whole series of capsules that have different ideal uses and pickup patterns.

This microphone is attached to the camera itself (cameras generally come with low-quality mics). The CK93 is a hypercardioid mic which means that it picks up sound in a broader, heart-shaped patten. Think of its “pickup pattern” (the field in which it best records sound) as an upside down heart.

We first slip it through a rubber shock mount and then attach the shock mount to the camera using a cold shoe mount. A cold shoe is one that doesn’t supply power. You may have seen flash bulbs for still cameras that mount to the top of the camera and draw upon electricity from the camera to produce the light flash–that would be a “hot shoe”. Our on-camera mic also has a mini-blimpy, or a baby ball gag (I don’t know where they got that name from!), over it to create dead air space around it.

equipment