Filming ‘April’ – Day One
Today we began the first day of location recording for ‘April’. It was first opportunity to have a look round the cottage and find any potential problems that could be an issue when recording. To say we were expecting a “cottage” with the possibility of low ceilings, we were actually pleasantly surprised; the cottage was actually a reasonably new, detached building with average sized ceilings and good sized rooms, and there was an instant feeling of relief knowing that the room sizes would not pose a problem. When looking for potential sources of background noise, we found that although both the fridge and the boiler didn’t appear to make too much noise, when listening through the recording equipment it became apparent that these would be a problem. As Ronnie had told us when talking about the SQN mixer, high frequency noise greatly affect the levels of the pre-amp, and so turning off the boiler and fridge when recording eradicated these problems (at the cost of us being a little colder, and having slightly warmer drinks!).
The scene we filmed today was in the bedroom, and the only real issue we had was the creaking noises of the bed. As annoying as the noise was, we couldn’t find a way to stop it; it would have been possible to tell the actors to move less however this would have been detrimental to the scene and wouldn’t have been a viable option. After doing several takes, we found that we should have had enough audio to have a take that contained little noise over the dialogue which could be used in post-production. Although this noise is unwanted, it still added realism to the scene and so we could still use it we really needed too.
The only other issue that we had was correctly setting the gain on the SQN mixer. The male actors voice was obviously a little louder and much deeper than the females, meaning that we had to find a good level that would be sufficient for both. The SQN has a built in limiter to prevent any clipping, although it comes at the price of being quite obvious when listening back. Unfortunately, we ended up hitting the limiter a few times during this scene as it was our first proper opportunity to use the SQN and get used to its characteristics, but I don’t believe these small sections will be harmful to the quality of the audio. Effectively this was a learning curve and we now know how the SQN will react to different SPL’s, as well as know the correct level of gain needed for each actor/actress.
Overall, I believe today was a success considering the time constraints and small problems, and I believe that we have learnt enough to be quick and effective when recording the rest of the scenes.
