Sound improvements
- 2. Ways of improving knowledge of sound One of the main ways to get to know more about sound would be to take a course in it. As people can find it tricky and it is an easy way to improve for A2. There are many free online audio courses for you to take: Digital audio courses: This is useful for people who need help with the technical side of sound and they do this by creating there own audio piece in which they then use there new learnt skills to make it better. You can also apply for courses to do specifically with advanced structural dynamics and acoustics, this is the study of how music is perceived , this helps with choosing the correct type of sound for a shot as you will know the best mic to use for it making the sound better quality.
- 3. Courses available to us... For the software part of the sound we used Final Cut Pro X which gave us the opportunity to use ADR and change the sound to our liking very easily. For the type of microphones that we have are: • Rode microphone • label microphone •Boom microphone •And the camera These were very useful for us especially the boom microphone for the train station as it allowed us to hear the sound more clearly.
- 4. What did we mainly use? For the majority of the filming we used the rode microphone as it allowed us to have clearer sound and then this would have been changed a bit on Final cut Pro X maybe to fade out the sound or add it in to make it have better continuity.
- 5. Could they have been used more? Yes I believe that we could have used more of the microphones for specific shots more as this would have made the sound clearer, however this wasn’t a serious matter as there is little dialogue meaning that we just need to capture ambient sound. Due to the large amount of wind during the trainstation filming we should have used a dead cat to cut out the wind from the sound however due to our poor time management we did not have enough time to get this sorted out.
- 6. Affect of distance The distance of the actors to the cameras would have affected whether what microphone we would use, for example if the actor was at a long distance we would use a boom microphone and a label microphone if they were close. The label microphone is easily the best if we want the best quality sound as the actor would be very close to it meaning not much sound around will be captured as well.
- 7. Weather As I have said with the wind, the weather affects the microphone needed as if it is windy then you need a dead cat to stop the sound being corrupted by it. This would mainly be seen with a rode microphone as it takes in more surround sound compared to a boom microphone which targets a specific object making it better in bad conditions.
- 8. Location Due to us being at a train station and having a dolly we didn’t take in the bumpy surface, meaning that the sound had less quality as the sound of the bumpy surface was too loud and took away the affect of verisimilitude. This wasn’t a problem with the tracking in on the parents argument however we had a problem with the corridor being too narrow meaning that the wheels would hit the side just giving the picture the wobble and again affecting the sound as the acoustics changed when the wheels hit the wall. Whether interior or exterior the microphone is best associated with what acoustics there are as boom microphones are better outside compared to the label and rode microphone being better inside.
- 9. ADR-business man As we did not use a boom microphone for when Nick was speaking we could not properly pick it up. This then led to me having to read his dialogue as we couldn’t acquire him. We used a boom microphone while I was in a room with blacked out curtains so the dialogue would be more clear to pick up. However we had the problem of it not sounding as if it was far away. This led us to adding reverb and echo to the dialogue, while also reducing the sound of it to make it sound from a distance. Which was all done with Final Cut Pro X. I thought this was successful as it fitted very well and had continuity with it as it matched when Nick moved his lips in the shot. This then allowed us to show the character off more and showing how he is stereotypically seen as authorative due to his upper class making him more superior. Next time we will have to check the weather so we come prepared with the correct equipment.
- 10. Foley sounds For a majority of our opening sequence we use a lot of Foley sounds for example the use of the ambient music with he trains passing by Ethan when he is sitting down. This was effective due to it creating more realism for our audience as they want to have verisimilitude. I think we used a good mix of Foley sounds with our own score to create a good mix of emotions while still keeping it realistic.
- 11. A2.... For the future we will take more time in planning what type of location it is being shot and then whether the weather affects it so that we choose the best microphone for the best sound.