For the independent film “Fireproof,” shot in Ontario, the producers were faced with recording a rich tapestry of different sounds — including burning buildings — simultaneously in a single take.
Production sound mixer Rob Whitehurst and sound designer and post-audio mixer Nick Palladino used Holophone’s H2-PRO surround microphone to do the job. The team needed to record as much of the atmospheric sounds as possible in order to create a more realistic experience for the viewer.
The mic was used to capture the fire of a burning house including the pumper trucks at high rev, the sounds of water coming out of the hoses at high pressure and indistinct yelling and talking of firefighters in the background.
It was also located on a side of the street to capture surround audio of the fire trucks driving by and was located inside the trucks in order to offer a more realistic sound perspective.
Principle dialog and general sound effects for the film were recorded using a Sennheiser 416 short shotgun mic and Lectrosonics 411A wireless systems into a Sound Devices 442 mixer. The signal went straight to a computer hard drive through an Apple G5 workstation.
Six channels from the Holophone were recorded into Pro Tools on an Apple MacBook laptop, making for a light and portable field recording setup. No mixing, signal manipulation or processing was required.
The H2-PRO surround-sound microphone is designed for capturing discrete 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1-channels of surround sound for all professional audio applications. It is compatible with all standard analog and digital I/O devices that accept up to eight channels and provide phantom power including hard disc-based recorders, multichannel preamplifiers, standard multichannel I/Os, and all mixing consoles.