Meeting with David + Short Group Meeting (21st Oct)

We had our proposal with David today, which went well. We’d organised our first blog post using the structure in the module guide, so describing our project was easy enough. David asked a few questions regarding our Aims & Objectives, told Rob and I that we should tighten our Learning Outcomes up slightly, making them more personal and perhaps put the important points in bold. We also cleared up some lingering issues we had regarding research for our course, and David had a look at our blogs, before we left at 11.30.

We then met up later on in the day after lunch, and had a very quick meeting purely to organise our time over the next two weeks, as we’ve taken on a couple of extra-curricular projects. One involves sourcing ambiences and atmospheres, and also doing some Foley work for the film Callback, which Matt North, an Audio Production graduate, is editing and mixing. The other is the short film Agroculture, that Tom Price, the editor of Cognition, co-wrote, directed and shot over the summer, which we will be doing post production sound for. We’ve prioritised Callback, as the deadline for the first few scenes is 30th October, and also because Tom hasn’t set a deadline. That doesn’t mean we’ll rest on our laurels, just that we’ll spend the first few days working on Callback to ascertain how much work will be required. Unfortunately our arranged hours of 16.00 to 19.00 most evenings wasn’t possible to book, because Media Loans has implemented an odd three hour block booking system, I would guess in an attempt to allow more people to use the facilities. The only time we can book is 15.00 to 18.00 though, which conflicts with several other things we have on, and 18.00 to 21.00 is too late, so hopefully something can be done about this.

Location Sound Mics (21st Oct) – Shotguns and Lavaliers

When recording sound on location, a sound recordist must be aware of the microphones they will need in order to obtain the best possible audio on set. The two most well-known types of microphone for recording dialogue are mics mounted on booms (cardioid mics, or more commonly used shotgun mics, which have super or hyper-cardioid polar patterns); and lavalier microphones, also called lavs. We will almost certainly be using a combination of both of these microphones to capture the majority of the dialogue on location, and potentially some on-site foley as well. We would also like to experiment with boundary mics where appropriate, and in regards to atmospheres and room tone, I’d quite like to gather some stereo recordings, using either a single stereo mic or a matched pair of mono mics. Most of my research on microphone types has been from The Location Sound Bible (Viers, 2012), which I’ll reference at the bottom of this post.

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Sound Team Meeting + Drill Hall Location Analysis (19th Oct)

We had a short meeting on the 19th, mainly about the research we’d be doing. Hannah, the Producer, asked us to provide her with some research by Sunday 23rd, so instead of all giving her research on Location Sound, we focused on differnt sections. Rob has already done some work on Booming techniques, so will write that up and send it along, and Sam will look into some of Lauren’s notes on potential music to use. I’ll be doing some research on the microphones we’ll be using on the shoot, summarising their benefits and drawbacks, as well as providing a few other suggestions for each type. Aside from this, we spoke about the location, and concluded that it should only be used as a last resort. I go into further depth below.

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TV Studio Masterclass (19th Oct)

I attended the TV Studio Masterclass today, along with a few others from the Audio Production course. To begin with we went upstairs to the control room, where we were shown the monitoring screens, which had feeds from all the studios cameras, and also had a computer that allowed decals and images to be overlaid onto the camera footage. All the footage is captured and recorded onto hard drive, with a backup saved onto a separate drive in case the standard drive has issues and footage is lost. This footage is also uploaded to a server for extra safety. The mixing desk was in the same location as the recorders, which were mounted in racks. We are afforded a surprising amount of headroom, as 0dB is actually -18dB, so we should be aiming for amber with most dialogue, and are able to dip into the red occasionally if necessary. Interestingly enough, the audio has to be delayed slightly, as the video signal sent from the studio arrives more slowly, so a delay has to be used to keep audio and video in sync. We were also shown the radio mic rack, which shows when mics are in use, and also when their batteries are running low, as well as the patch bay.

We then went into the studio itself, which had a load of cameras, several with an autocue rigged up, allowing actors to read scripts without taking their eyes of the camera. We had a look at the old system for taking sound in which consisted of plugging into the interface (phantom power controls were at the back, oddly enough), and sending that to a tie-line where it will be sent to the mixing desk, where it will be mixed before being recorded. The new system worked in a similar way, but the new Focusrite interface had phantom power controls at the front, and essentially amalgamated most of the equipment it was replacing into one box. It also had a USB connector, allowing for local recording directly from the interface, as well as sending it to the mixing desk.

It all seemed rather complex, but I can see the benefits of being confident with a multi-cam setup, so I’ll need to do some research into how the system works in greater detail, and perhaps I’ll look into exploring multi-cam projects in my Semester B Audio Project.

Cognition Group Meeting (18th October)

This was a useful meeting, primarily because the Director, Producer and Rob, one of our sound team, had scouted a location earlier in the morning. We learnt that the location was perfect in terms of visuals, but unfortunately had several drawbacks in terms of Location Audio. The ceiling was low, which meant access for booms and also lights would be an issue, meaning we may need to scoop in situations where normally we wouldn’t have too, lowering the quality of any audio, albeit slightly. The main issue is that a main road is situated very close by, which means using a boom might not even be possible, so we would have to rely on radio mics, then add atmosphere and ambience in during Post-Production. I would like, if possible to avoid that, as all my research has told me that we should strive to record the best possible audio on Location. No matter how skilled you are at noise reduction, ambience matching, etc. it would still be favourable to have clear, usable dialogue from the get-go.

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