Italian sound designer Mirco Mencacci has been using the new DPA 5006-TL Surround Microphone Kit, purchased from local distributor Casale Bauer, for La Fanciulla del Lago, a film about composer Giacomo Puccini.
Mencacci has established a reputation as one of Italy’s leading film and recording music producers over decades of highly reputed work. For this film about Puccini, released to coincide with the anniversary of the composer’s 150th birthday, Mencacci oversaw the sound of the film, which consists entirely of music and images. He has used his DPA surround sound kit to make real-time recordings of the actors’ movements: footsteps, breathing, the swish of clothing; plus the general environmental sounds of different locations: water, breezes, the movement of flora and fauna, etc.
Mencacci has been using the kit with four matched 4006-TL omnidirectional transformerless mics for the front and back left and right channels, and a 4011 cardioid at the centre. The 4011 cardioid was chosen to give the well-defined centre channel which Mencacci believes is essential for cinema recordings. He also has a DPA 4017 shotgun mic as second choice for the centre channel to give more definition to foreground images.
“I chose the DPA 5006 surround microphone kit because I wanted to obtain a sound which was as realistic as possible,” he says. “It enables me to record the overall sound with great naturalness and capture the genuine ambience of the locations.”