Exotic Remote Recordings?

[Bflat]

What are your most exotic recording experiences? Have you left the world you once knew behind and found yourself recording things you'd never thought you would... in places you never though you would go? What are your stories?

[musicfromtheroad]

I used to build my own stereo arrays with 2 AKG lapels or Radio Shack PZMs wired for phantom into a Sony TCD-5(?) DAT recorder. A friend of mine told me he knew of a canyon where fruit bats would drink from the river while flying past...

So, in the dark, down a hill (rock climbing really) to the halfway mark...next time I promise I will remember the flash light...seting up the array, the stand, the cable, the dodgey transformer unbalancer (xlr to 3.5mm stereo) that had to be looked at just right...

And sure enough, the flutter of wings and little soft splashes...crank the gain up, straining at the headphones - just in time for a 747 on approach to Sydney Airport, wheels down - lights on, bursts over the top of the canyon and flies right over the mic.

I felt like the guy they find in the beginning of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind who's all burned telling anyone who asks "The sun came up in the night"...

The last time I built one of those arrays I was in New Mexico, on the same film set that John Wayne and Steven Spielberg had used - I was the location sound recordist for a low budget western. We purchased two bits of perspex from a hardware store and built a wedge with a couple of Trams to get stereo ambiance of horses riding through town.

The Director and the Editor agreed that it gave the scenes a new scale and 'big movie' vibe to have 'ahem' stereo sound fx actually synced with the footage.

Then they mixed the film entirely in mono and buried every scene in stock library music.

Well at least I got a trip to Santa Fe out of it.

I did another movie in a drug grow house for a director who was using the film as a way to launder income from his horticultural skills - a small but complete crew, trucks, everything...I don't know if exotic was the word, but hey, it's out of the ordinary (I hope).

Oh wait, they just arrested 250 people in N.Z. growing weed in gardening stores across the country (Switched On Gardener...how long did it take the cops?) so maybe that one 'aint exotic around here...

[Remoteness]

I think this thread fell between the cracks.
There most be some interesting stories out there; right?

[imaginaryday]

a session in the atlas mountains of morocco with the berbers . outdoors under the stars.

[huub]

I posted before about the 1st MTV africa awards in Abuja, Nigeria , where I did the broadcast mixing for.

The original generator, modern ones followed, but this was the original that actually turned out to be the most reliable one.

The original stage was not allowed into the harbour (was too busy there)
so local carpenters built a new stage with the PA stack instead of flown, put on the floor.

The venue had an, errrm, about 20 second reverb, so the sound from PA was an unintelligible mess...

Huub

[huub]

And another one

Armenia-Netherlands national soccerteam match in Armenia..
We hired a German broadcast truck that never arrived in time, so with some rushed in equipment and locally borrowed stuff we set up a makeshift production room in a room next to the dutch national team dressing room.

However, the dutch coach (Marco van Basten) decided that, for mysterious reasons, he wanted us out of there..

So we had to set up everything again on match day in a local farmers truck

[Fuzzy Logic]

thats a badass truck huub. do you have more pictures of that mobile? european trucks seem to always be ahead of curve.

[huub]

Here you go..

Notice the soundproof tent and fancy lighting..

[Remoteness]

I trust the wooden stairs were built on location for this production.

Also, was it raining very hard at times or just drizzling.

Excuse my hi-tech question and thought.