rec.arts.movies.production.sound

Hello all -

I have a question about the system i am planning to take on a
documentary film shoot in Guinea, West Africa in October. The film
itself will be a lot of interviews, landscapes, group shots, and a LOT
of music and arts, cultural ceremony / ritual practices. The "crew"
will consist of two main members - one for video and one for audio. We
will have two other people along who will be able to help with simple
things, but for the most part, the two of us are responsible. We will
be shooting with the Panasonic DVX-100. The shoot will be 30 days for
roughly 2-4 hours a day/

As I am handling the audio portion of the project, I have so far
purchased a few mics (Sennheiser EW-112 Wireless Lav kit, Sennheiser
MKE-44P Stereo Cardioid, Audio Technica AT-4073 Shotgun) as well as
the Tascam HD-P2 recorder. The audio quality is very important to us,
especially as music figures to play a very prominent role in the
film.

After running some tests and getting all our equipment together, I've
come to the realization that the Tascam cannot generate timecode, nor
can the DVX-100 output timecode. This is looking like it's going to be
a problem for us in post, to put it mildly. Originally, the idea with
the recorder was that I would be given greater latitude to roam freely
recording audio without having to be constantly tethered to the
camera. However, if i am going to be sacrificing the timecode in
editing, it's definitely not worth it to me. I know i can get a slate
that will generate timecode and jam sync it to the camera, but that's
puts our budget up a bit and makes me think i probably should have
just bought a Sound Devices module in the first place. Now I'm
thinking i should maybe just ditch the idea of a recorder at all, and
run from a mixer straight to the camera. Will this make my audio
suffer that much? If this is the way to go, any mixer models that the
cognoscenti here would recommend unconditionally?

Any recommendations are very appreciated, and my apologies for the
seemingly elementary questions. I am still learning my way around
sound production for video.

- Simon