Peter Devlin and Bad Boys 2 Give Sanken the Acid Test

(pictured L-R) Mike Schmidt, cable op; Peter Devlin, prod. sound mixer; Kevin Cerchiai, boom op.

Production sound mixer Peter Devlin commented from Florida during the filming of the action-packed Bad Boys 2, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence: "The past few nights we've been shooting in a swamp with lots of lighting generators encircling the set. Sanken's CS-3e shotgun has been terrific -- getting me the sound I need while rejecting the tremendous background noise. We also have special effects using flame bars, which are the curse of sound mixers because of the hissing noise. While other mics just weren't able to target the sound, our boom operator, Kevin Cerchiai, has been able to get what we want and reject the off-axis noise."

Devlin, whose credits include Bad Company, The Kid, Gone in 60 Seconds, Any Given Sunday, Daredevil, and Pearl Harbor, also speaks about the Sanken COS-11s lavalier mics: "What's really good about the Sanken lavalier is its ability to handle the extreme pressure levels generated by gun shots and explosions. We had an extraordinary amount of gunfire on Pearl Harbor, and there are lots of gunfights in Bad Boys 2. The Sanken is able to pick up dialogue even when we're filming in the midst of tremendous noise levels."

Devlin also utilized the Sanken CSS-5 stereo shotgun for Pearl Harbor. "The Sanken stereo shotgun is very robust and it's useful to have the mono, stereo, and wide options. We had lots of flybys of replica fighter planes and after auditioning other stereo mics and standard cross-pair cardioids, the Sanken was the preferred stereo mic for many of the sound effects sequences. It's a very handy mic, my favorite for over-the-shoulder, portable-type work."

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