Any recommendations on walkie talkies, headsets, or best methods for crew communication on set?
Filmmaking / Directing : Set Gear - Walkie talkies by Ricardo Rangel Jr
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Tons of This VS That on youtube - Tom Antos produces solid product reviews from mic's to editing machines & software...
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We rent Motorola walkies. Never seen another brand use on-set.
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Rent, don't buy.
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As JD said, rent. Unless you use them a lot. But useable radios are all Motorola, and the cheapest refurbished ones $600 each, plus spare batteries, chargers... it's easy for a small show to use $10,000 worth of walkies which is why unless a company shoots constantly, they tend to rent from a sound or expendables vendor.
There are various Motorola radios, all with rechargable bricks (batteries) and optional "surveillance" or" earwigs " as well.
The little $100/$200 dollar walkies you can buy are literally useless garbage. Also, real radios have FCC assigned frequencies for film, so you won't get a McDonalds drive through on your channel. As to channel assignments, they are always the same in the U.S. 1 Production, 2 sidebar conversations from channel 1, 3 Transportation, 4 Open (sometimes Art), 5 Open, 6 Camera, 7 Electric, 8 Grip. Locations is sometimes on 16 if not 1. 9 through 15 are open until assigned. Everyone on union snd non union sets uses these numbers; easy to remember as they correlate to the Hollywood union locals: 7 is Electric Local 728, 6 is Camera Local 600 and so on. I'm good with the TMI
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i think they cost $10 to $15 each per day. There are 6 in a case with extra batteries.
Great advice, thanks y'all!