(MP3003) Professional Practice - interview

Here is the transcript from my interview with retired BBC Sound Man, Steve Taylor:

I got into sound recording through the NFTS although I must admit I had done years of sound in theatre and music before that, so file and TV was the only kind of sound work I hadn't done by then and it was really a matter of filling in the gaps.
What surprised me when I got into film school and the actual job is how simple the gear is, although it's not cheap, as it has to work perfectly all the time in all sorts of tricky situations. The format that's recorded on to has changed since I was doing it (we'd shoot either on timecoded DAT for film or into a Beta SP camera for TV), but the gear you use before you plug into that is basically the same- most sound recordists have one boom mic, two radio mics and a mixer. The boom mic is still as far as I know a Sennheiser MKH416, although there are others available; then you need a windshield for it (probably made by Rycote but Sennheiser make them too) and a boom (but if you're shooting drama you may need two for those wide shots you can't cover with a short boom). The radio mics in my day tended to be Microns or Audios, but since then I've discovered Sennheiser radios which are much better (in my opinion). The portable mixer still seems to be an SQN, made in the Isle of Man. SQNs are brilliant- they do exactly what you need, don't go wrong, don\t waste battery power, and have the most useful compressor (at least for TV recording) I have ever heard on anything. Even the VU meters seem to be more useful than they usually are on mixers. They cost about three grand or something which seems ridiculous for a four channel mixer but it's worth it when you're standing on a freezing beach doing an interview and not having to worry about the gear.
Since I haven't done this for years I don't know what the gear really costs these days but it's not hard to find out on the net, and bear in mind that I never actually owned all this kit myself- I usually hired it or worked for people who already had it. I bought myself a portable DAT machine and a mic or two for shooting pickups and stuff. Often on a documentary you'll end up with the cameraman off shooting mute GVs (general views) and cutaways (those close-ups of stuff you've already seen in the main footage) so then I'd be wandering around recording the sound of stuff we didn't get particularly clean the first time (background sounds, relevant things like church bells or machinery- editors like that kind of thing to play with) If I'd carried on any longer I would have bought all the proper kit but at the time it wasn't necessary. If you do own you own kit, you add a hire price for hiring it to the production as well as yourself- I've no idea what the going rate is these days.