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Post by Phantom of London on Feb 17, 2016 16:11:16 GMT
Thanks all very intersting.
So just to move the subject on a bit further, what about gun shots in a show, is there different levels of gun shots in loudness? Who are responsible for these? How loud is a gun shot? What's the difference in loudness between a real on stage one and one that is done via the soundboard?
Maybe here a weird question to ask, but I am a fella over 6ft and petrified of some gun shots, I cover my ears in Les Mis and Phantom as I know these are coming.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2016 16:58:46 GMT
So each actor has their own mic. So why have this and not just have mic, fixed to the stage like sometimes you see. Going back a long time but I have a video of an early seventies West End show (Danny La Rue at the Palace) which, as was often the case at the time, had a few fixed mics at the front of the stage. The show had to be choreographed so that whoever sang got to one of those microphones in time (not always successfully). Also, before radio mics I recall the original Jesus Christ Superstar (on tour in Manchester, the first big show I ever saw) where they all had mics with leads, that must have been a logistical nightmare trying to avoid them getting knotted up. I seem to recall that a mic lead was used for the 40 lashes. The hand-held mics in Superstar, yes... and there were also three at the front which rose and disappeared again on stands as if by magic for the principal singers. Look carefully at my avatar and you'll see them! The Arrest was always very interesting as it featured pairs of reporters singing into one mic, and there were leads all over the shop. Never in my years of seeing the production did they ever get tangled though... And the mic lead was indeed used by Pilate for the 39 lashes (it would have become tangled on the 40th!)
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377 posts
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Post by Nelly on Feb 17, 2016 17:45:38 GMT
Thanks all very intersting. So just to move the subject on a bit further, what about gun shots in a show, is there different levels of gun shots in loudness? Who are responsible for these? How loud is a gun shot? What's the difference in loudness between a real on stage one and one that is done via the soundboard? Maybe here a weird question to ask, but I am a fella over 6ft and petrified of some gun shots, I cover my ears in Les Mis and Phantom as I know these are coming. It really depends on how it's done. There's a few different ways this can be achieved, a gun onstage with a cap (small bit of gunpowder) in, a sound effect or a totally separate off-stage pyro explosion. Until very,very recently, Les Mis' gunshots were all fired from a pyro room above the dress circle, stage right. So that's why the sound was never the same for them. Some would miss-fire and make an odd or dull noise.
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Post by Dawnstar on Feb 29, 2016 21:41:33 GMT
I was thinking about this thread last week when Showstopper was at my local theatre. I saw 5 of the 7 shows and not once do I remember hearing a mic error. So does anyone know how a sound operator would go about mixing an improvised show? I mean, it's not as if they know who will be speaking when as they would do on most shows where everyone's saying the same lines each night. Would they just turn an actor's mic on when they enter & leave it on the whole time until they exit? And at one point someone did a voiceover from offstage, how would the sound operator know that was about to happen?
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