The Nagra D In Production
A Conversation with Garth Marshall
Sound Recordist for "The Birthday Girl"
By Tony Murtagh

An international cast including Nicole Kidman and Ben Chaplin (from "The Thin Red Line" and "The Truth About Cats and Dogs") were brought together by the film's director and co-writer Jez Botterworth. The film being financed by Miramax Films and Britain's Film Four.

The main reason for filming in Sydney was cost, says co-producer Stephen Butterworth. Miramax knew about the cost savings from backing Jane Campion's "Holy Smoke". The production filmed for five weeks in Australia and then returned to England for a following five weeks, shooting predominately exteriors.
Producers, Stephen Butterworth and Diana Phillips praised the quality of the Australian crew, but Phillips believes the city needs more "serious studios".

In his 30 year career, British sound recordist Garth Marshall has recorded many well known films. Working on five of Peter Greenaway's last films including "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover". Garth also has recorded four of the last Monty Python films including "The Life of Brian".

To record "Birthday Girl", Garth used his own Nagra D, 1/4" digital reel to reel recorder. This is the fifth film Garth has recorded with the Nagra D. A second machine was hired from Richmond Film Services in the UK for rushes transfers at Frameworks in Sydney.

"To me the Nagra system is very liberating because I have been able to achieved a very powerful compact system. Today on a lot of big features two channels is not enough? Obviously if you're using a mono boom you could use an old mono nagra, but with the increasing demand for radio microphones on location, this has changed the way we capture sound on location. In the UK a lot people are using DA88 and DA98. UK recordists, Brian Simmons is using a DA98 on "The King and I", and Peter Glossop used a DA88 to record "Shakespeare In Love" with 98% of original sound being used. I have had to use a 16Tk on three of Peter Greenaway's movies.

Before purchasing my Nagra D, I used a pair of Nagra 4S's. In conjunction with the Nagra 4s's I used a Dolby A unit built by Future Film Developments which I bought in 1977. So for the last twenty years I had been recording with the Dolby A 4s system. This system produced very nice sound, absence of print through & modulation noise, and very reliable. The Nagra/Dolby A unit ran off twenty C cell nicade batteries which created quite a bit of weight. This was the system I was used to, so when people talk about the extra weight of the Nagra D, it was all academic. Any way I don't usually record a feature film with the tape recorder slung over my shoulder. If there is any running around to do I'll put the boom operator on a radio transmitter.

Directors also are becoming more technically demanding. If they use an audio system once, they will always expect you to have it available. Things like silent playback, induction loop playback, and earpierces for actors. I always had to have these facilities available after I used them once on set.

For me two channels going to two tracks of the 4s were not enough. In the past I have recorded three movies utilizing a sixteen track (Fostex 1/2") with the 4s. One being "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" (where) the main boom and radio mic mix went to the 4s. The movie was set on one large stage at Elstree. Every actor positioned around this one large table that had anything to say were miced up. They were all on lapel cable mics all being fed into a junction box underneath the table. Any actor that was walking around was on radio mic. They were all big long takes with the cameras starting miles away. There were also a couple of Schoeps PZM's underneath the table cloth as well. The sixteen tracks gave us the flexibility and options on which mic to finally use.

Once you can get four outputs going to four tracks, as with the Nagra D, you're in business. As there are a number of films I have done where you have never needed more than four inputs.

I particularly bought a Nagra D rather than hiring because I wanted to build my own set up. I can fit a four rack Audio Limited radio mic diversity unit neatly on the lid of it. I have a small notebook computer (Toshiba Libretto) which connects to the Nagra D via a RS232 to an RS422 converter. This computer is utilized for transport controls, time code, audio level metering, sound sheets, and diagnostics. Every time the Nagra goes into record it creates a log.

The one thing I had made up for my trolley was a small four channel mixer to combine the four Nagra D outputs for foldback Comtecs to director, continuity, video assist.

I never have the boom operator on headphones, it's a bad idea. I was a boom operator myself and I feel he shouldn't be distracted from what he is doing by using headphones. If he starts thinking, that line was a bit off, he's missed the next one. I'm the one that's listening, I'll tell him if he's off mic. I've been in Europe where you will get a boom operator come up and say, 'where are my cans?'. I'll say, 'no cans mate'. After three or four days they will come to me and say, 'I never realized what a difference it makes'.

To me the Nagra D enables me to leave the mixer in the truck. It is incredibly mobile, compact as well as being state of the art, I am not compromising anything.
The sound quality is absolutely extraordinary, especially with the twenty bit converters.

In regard to bit rate I've spoken to Avid concerning this, as they still only have a 16 bit interface for AES/EBU digital audio.

What happens regularly, which isn't ideal, is that the digital audio signal is simply truncated. When digital audio is truncated you will notice a loss in signal dynamics. This transfer from 20 to 16 bit can be over come by using a bit rate converter. Apogee make a really nice unit. Hopefully in the future Avid will come into line with all of the 20 and 24 bit digital audio workstations. Especially when you consider ProTools, an Avid product, is already 24 bit. Really for the Avid interfaces to still be 16 bit is really only catering for the Dat market. I want people to hear how much better 20 bit audio can sound.

As the OMF file transfers process is being embraced more and more people must be fully aware that the final audio they use in the mix is only as good as the original digitised audio fed into Avid Film Composer when syncing rushes.

UK and European Sound recordists are slowly beginning to use the Nagra D as there are a number of machines available for hire in London. Richmond Film Services have 25 Nagra D's for hire. Most sound recordists in London still use DATS. Nagra D is still not common place.

A number of music production companies have embraced the Nagra D's technical abilities. The ability to run the Nagra D with external A to D converters with higher sample rates (96Hhz) has been a plus. Recording companies are able to create classical music recordings of 96Khz, 24 bit, digital masters. They are creating masters for future high quality formats and they want the digital masters on the shelves ready to go. Decca must be responsible for a good ten or so machines from Richmond Films line up. Decca have quite a few machines out for periods at a time. Being able to run two machines locked together at sample sync has also been a great advantage by providing the music engineers with a digital eight track machine.

I use a mixture of microphones when recording a feature.
Neumann: KMR 81, 82
Schoeps: MC series - cardiod, hypercardiod
Sennhiesser: 416, 816

It was actually Dr. Schoeps who invented the interference tube principle that Sennheiser was the first to bring out with the 805.
After inventing the principle, Dr. Schoeps never made a microphone with it, because he felt it didn't have the sufficient quality. Dr Schoeps then licensed Sennheiser to do it.

The Schoeps microphones are lovely, they are my favorites.
So I measure up or compare any microphone with the Schoeps.

The difference I find between the Neumann KMR 81+82 compared with the Schoeps is dealing with the on/off mic axis response.
With the Schoeps, the off axis is down in level but doesn't sound radically different to on mic, where with the Sennheiser 416 off axis response sounds horrid. This translates into the Schoeps being a more forgiving microphone with being just as directional. I'll only use the Neumanns were I need a bit more reach. Since arriving in Australia I have only used the Schoeps.

For radio microphones I use the Audio Limited diversity unit, RS2020. For the radio microphone heads I use Trams and Sankens. The Trams are very robust but tend to be brighter, where as the Sankens have a fuller sound that are a closer match to the condenser microphones.

For monitoring I have always used the Sennheiser HD110 headphones. The reasons why I use these headphones are twofold. Firstly they have a great mid to bottom end response which a lot of headphones don't have. When recordists were all using the Beyer DT48 I tried them, but they didn't compare. They had no bass. Secondly they completely cover your ears to block out any extraneous noise, and not just sit on your ears as many headphones do. In 1975 Sennheiser stopped making these headphones. I went to the Sennheiser factory and had them make up a couple of extra pairs out of spare parts for me. I still use them today. They're great.

For mixing I use a Neve 8 channel suitcase mixer. This mixer has been modified to cater for extra outputs to the Nagra D and cue sends. For playback on location I use a mini-disc player. For recording I use the Nagra D. I also have a Dat player in case I need to playback material off Dat.

I recorded a low budget gangster movie in London three years ago and for that film I convinced them to use a Nagra D purely for the gunshots alone. In the old analogue days, with firing of a gun you used to let it whack right over and with tape compression it kind of crunched it into a useful sound. If you do that with Dat it sounds terrible, it sounds like a pop. With the Nagra D you let it smash over and it has a quality closer to the old analogue compression. The gunshots still sound big."



Syncing of rushes took place at the Frameworks facility in Rozelle.
Stephen R Smith said he was very impressed with the Nagra D and it's ease in interfacing with the Avid Film Composer via RS422.

As a number of scenes were filmed at Mascot Airport the problem arose where television monitors were seen in the background behind actors. These television monitors were at running 25 frames per second where the film cameras usually run at 24 frames per second. To overcome the monitor flicker problem these scenes were shot at 25 frames. Later at Frameworks the audio was processed through an Avid Audiovision using the DSP warp function to convert the audio back from 25 to 24 frames. The audio was then transferred to a DA88, creating new audio masters for those scenes.

After all the Nagra D tapes were transferred into to Avid, omf files were created and backed up to DLT tape ready to be sent to England where post production is to take place.


Many thanks to Garth Marshall and Stephen Smith for taking time to talk to us considering their busy schedules.


Recordists using Nagra D:

Chris Newman (USA):- The English Patient (Oscar for Best Sound)
The Last Emperor, Nell, Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs.
Ivan Sharrock (GB):- The Little Buddah, Mad City, Eyes Wide Shut.
Kirk Francis (USA):- Blue Chips, The Postman, LA Confidential, Mr. Holland's Opus.
Lee Orloff (USA):- Last Action Hero, Heat, The Flood