The second session in the sound theatre consisted primarily of recording the foley effects for the whole film, followed by finding and inserting the correct atmospheres. Before recording the foley, I made a thorough list of every possibly foley sound we would need to record, along with the time that the event happened, which was very helpful in remembering what we had left to do

When recording the foley, I did most of the movements whilst Andy stayed in the studio and monitored. Doing the whole film in this way was very efficient, as I knew exactly what pieces of foley were needed and had become used to how each foley action would sound recorded. Likewise, Andy became much quicker on Pro-Tools and the whole process was completed with relative ease. We covered every movement that we believed would have an effect on the final film, regardless of how minute they may have been.

After recording the foley, we moved on to the atmosphere tracks. During location recording, we recorded room tones for each location and so these were inserted in to the project at the right times. We then systematically went through each scene and inserted fitting atmospheres, some from sound libraries and some that we had recorded ourselves. Some scenes required more careful selection of atmospheres, however the process was rather simple as we didn’t have any particularly extravagant environments to deal with. Some atmospheres were layered as necessary as some sounded a little thin on their own.

Post Production – ADR

Post-production began yesterday, after confirming James, the actor who plays Isaac, was able to come in to the sound theatre to complete ADR, and today, when Charlotte, who play April, was able to make it.

Before recording ADR, we prepared all of the audio and imported the project in to Pro-Tools, ensuring that we had the reference audio for each scene as well as the full video file. We did this before so we could get started instantly and so that our actors wouldn’t have to spend any time waiting around for us; this is professional practice and we tried our best to maintain this throughout filming and postproduction.

When recording ADR, we encountered no problems. We used both an AKG C414 as well as the Rode NTG-2 to compare which sounded better in the environment as to maintain as much consistency with the location dialogue as possible. Fortunately, both James and Charlotte were exceptionally good at recording ADR, especially when considering it was their first time, and the sessions ran very smoothly and we captured some very good takes.

Today we shot at the upstairs bar at the Tower Bar in Lincoln City Centre, which the film group decided would be a good replacement for the Home nightclub scenes. Unfortunately for us, the problems were even worse.

A band happened to be sound checking in the venue parallel to this bar, so a ridiculous amount of bass was rattling things on the bar, and obviously intruding massively on to our recording. Combine this with an already very loud bar, as well as refrigerators that could not be turned off, and we had a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately for us, we have the ability to produce good quality ADR at the University sound theatre, and so the decision was made to complete this scene there. This isn’t to say I didn’t try many different mic positions and techniques to attempt to at least get one good take, however it was impossible.

Practical Recording Techniques – Bruce and Jenny Bartlett

This book has been useful in many aspects of the recording process, mainly technical issues. It contains information on using different DAW’s as well as new digital media technologies, which have helped when trying to move projects from one DAW to another. It also contains a good section on workflow, which was useful for completing work quickly and efficiently

The book can be found here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=c8AY4GkVPRYC

Introduction and Overview of Location Sound Recording

This piece of lecture material available online was a good go-to guide for terminology when researching other books and sources. It contains a lot of information solely about recording on location including microphone choice, maintenance and repair as well as setting up on location.

The material can be found here: http://www.thompsound.com/old-site/Articles/QSFT/lecture%20notes_wk_1.pdf

Rode University – Location Sound Effects Recording

These videos provided by Rode provided a good insight into recording sound on location, including the recording of sound effects and dialogue. They were my main source of visual research as they are from a reputable source and contained huge amounts of information for working in different scenarios. They also contained information about foley recording, which was useful in the foley process

The videos can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/rodemicrophones

The Film Lab – Recording Sound: Room Tone

This humorous but very insightful video explains the need for room tones and how to properly record them. Before watching this, I had little knowledge of room tones other than why they were needed, and this video explains their need in much greater detail.

The video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snETeThgVms

Sound Recording Tips

Although this article seems reasonably amateur, I felt that it contained information on a similar level to which I have been working, and for that reason I found it useful

The article is available here: http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/location-sound-recording/location-sound-recording-shotgun-microphone-placement.html

Throughout my time at university, I have been in touch with audio recording world and have remained up to date with news and equipment releases. It would be impossible to list every source I have read, but throughout the last six or so years, I believe I have greatly broadened my knowledge around the subject of sound recording in general, with a recent particular interest to location sound recording.

Today was the Café Nero shoot, which quite frankly was absolutely awful! There were so many different problems that we knew it would be impossible to get a good take:

• The fact that this is a coffee shop had huge implications on the sound recording aspect of filming. The amount of noise made from the machines was not only loud, but was also consistent, meaning that we just couldn’t get a good dialogue take. The actors were also having trouble with their lines, and so when the opportunity did come to get a good take, it was spoiled by having to cut, and restart the scene.
• A speaker was poisitoned directly above the only place available for us to film in. We were unable to turn this off individually, nor were we able to turn off the whole system as this was a business and couldn’t afford to accommodate for us, which we fully respected. The problems with a speaker being directly above the microphone are obvious, and due to shotgun microphones having a polar pattern that still accepts some signal from the rear, there was nothing we could do about this

Essentially, capturing good quality audio today was impossible, and so we decided that re-recording the whole scene in ADR would be the only viable option. The original audio we recorded was still imperative however, as the actors needed a reference in which to complete the ADR.