OT: Need help with BIG audio problem

JackW wrote on 8/11/2010, 4:48 PM

Our company has been hired to shoot interviews in a medical tissue lab. There are two huge freezers in the small building, both of which can be heard throughout. Neither can be unplugged. The client is adamant about having the interviews shot on site.

I'd appreciate thoughts on how to deal with this, either from an acquisition or, in post, a noise reduction point of view, or perhaps a story view point. With regard to the story "solution," I've thought about opening the video with one of the lab people at a freezer, so we at least identify the source of the background noise.

There are a total of five three minute interviews, all of which will be put onto the client's web site.

Jack

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lynn1102 wrote on 8/12/2010, 4:59 PM

Have you given any thought to green screening the speakers. Shoot lots of lab video. Record enough ambient noise to fill in the speakers if he want the noises in there.

Lynn

GenJerDan wrote on 8/13/2010, 4:20 AM

Blanket the freezers when they're not in the shot, then only deal with the noise when you have to?

Or are the freqs too low to effectively blanket?

rstrong wrote on 8/13/2010, 9:18 PM

The lab people are the problem! Those freezers, which are similar to the plasma freezers that I repair at the local hospital lab here, can be shut off for way more than 3 minutes at a time, without fear of reaching warmer damaging temperatures. Heck, when they cycle off on the thermostat, the off cycle is way longer than that. When they go into a defrost cycle, of which there are three in a day, it stays off for 10 to 15 minutes. When I work on these freezers, I can have them off for way longer than that. And to top it all off, in a 24 hour day, the actual accumulative run time is only about 60%. Refrigeration systems are designed to operate only about that long in a 24 hour period. If it runs longer than that, then there is something amiss with the unit. I worked on a plasma freezer a couple of weeks ago, and it was designed to operate at only 50% of the time. Contact their refrigeration service person, maybe he can help them understand there is nothing to fear by shutting them off for a few minutes at a time. Also, you could do your interview while the unit is in a defrost cycle. Their refrigeration service person can give you the exact times when that occurs because it operates on a 24 hr. defrost timer clock.

JackW wrote on 8/16/2010, 2:18 PM

Thanks to everyone for their helpful input.

After hearing a test shoot which included the freezer noise, the client found an excellent alternative venue -- two rooms in the nearby out-of-session Community College. We have the space for an entire uninterrupted day!

Lab shots will be done in the lab, with dubbed-in voice over.

Jack