The whole process of recording sound for film has interested me since embarking on the degree of Audio Production, and I have become more interested throughout the course. When the opportunity arose, I realised that working with Media Production students would be very beneficial and a good experience that will put me in good stead to apply for work after University.

The ability to work with others has always been a large part of University, however never before had I embarked on a project with a group of people that I had never met. This experience gave me the opportunity to correctly assert myself whilst being managed by a director, as well as having to work around other members of the group. Social networking played a vital role in communicating with other members of the group, and constant messages and posts meant that we all stayed in contact with each other and knew exactly what needed doing at each stage of the way; finances, timescales, call sheets and any other documents were posted online and this allowed everybody to maintain a professional practice. Having creative input from a team of students also helped the film develop quicker and revealed any flaws or problems that may arise before they happened.

Throughout this project, I believe the process I have learnt the most from is location recording. Before this project, I only had theoretical knowledge surrounding using location sound equipment but no hand-on experience. From the first day of filming, I believe I was able to use these theoretical skills and apply them to a practical situation; the SQN mixer was much easier to use after researching, as was finding the correct microphone positions and routing everything to the recording equipment. Before we started filming, I was unsure on how many takes would be needed to capture good takes of audio, and I was worried that if some of the audio we recorded wasn’t of a good standard, then we wouldn’t get the opportunity to retry. This was not the case, and I quickly realised that the amount of takes needed for the many camera angles were more than enough to accommodate for any bad audio takes. Also while on location, I found that background noise is much more of an issue than once anticipated, especially when listening back through headphones. From this, I believe my ability to source problems and rectify them has improved, and I believe that my listening skills have improved as a result; I can now expect common problems and know how to overcome them. Another skill I believe I overlooked before the project was the simple ability to hold the boom pole in the correct position and move it without it affecting the recording. I had not previously realised just how sensitive microphones can be when attached to a boom pole, and from noticing how even the movement of fingers on the pole had huge effects to the recording, I was able to develop my skills in making sure I was positioned correctly and comfortably before the shoot.

The post-production stage was a similar process to what I am used to, in the fact I had a good amount of practical experience in using the sound theatre. What I believe I learnt the most is the ability to work as a group, realising ideas of others when the correct terminology is not being used; only two of us were experienced audio engineers, the media production students have little audio experience so working together was difficult yet rewarding. I have learnt that patience is important in a situation like this, but others having creative input really does help the whole process. Recording the ADR was also a learning curve, directing actors to perform their parts exactly as they had been on camera. This was not a difficult process as had been expected, but from this I have learnt that although inexperienced, it is possible to perform ADR to a good standard by being patient with actors. This will be key in the future, as I am sure this process could be very long winded in certain situations with different actors, and directing them correctly will greatly help with getting the work done.

Towards the end of the project, time constraints as well as double booking the sound theatre placed considerable strain on the group. Until this stage, we had all managed our time effectively, and it obviously became quite stressful in the final stages. Thinking back on this, It would have been very easy to become stressed and unproductive, as well as argue with member in the group. I believe this aspect is often overlooked yet can have a huge effect on the final product, be that amateur or professional. Fortunately, the whole group worked well together and I believe this reflects in the final project, however I will never take the ability to work well in group for granted, and realise that working with film crew that I may not socialise with is inevitable.

In conclusion, I feel that this project has allowed me to excel in the areas of Audio Production that I am interested in, and the final product will be a good showcase of my talents to add to a portfolio to show to future employers. I now understand how stressful the film making environment can be, and I believe I have adapted my skills to suit this. Even through working 15 hour days on both location and in the studio, I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and I hope it will help me to excel myself in my chosen career path

We spent the day finalising the project before mixing, ensuring that we had a completely full atmosphere track, as well as all the foley sound that were needed. We also fully arranged  each component of the audio into separate tracks, fully colour coded them and created any sends to reverb/delay plugins on bus channels. The full project was now presented looking clean and easy to work with, as to reduce time in the mixing stage.

We also spent today sourcing most of the music for the film, which all had to be royalty free or free to use. We searched many websites containing music licensed under the Creative Commons system, which gave us a huge selection as long as we correctly attributed the creator. All the music we found had to be very fitting with the scenes, and so we used jazz/lounge music for the restaurant and cafes scenes as background music. To portray emotion, we carefully selected piano music along with some music from a friend which was very fitting. Making the music sit well in the mix was hard work, and required a lot of careful mixing, but eventually worked well, which I believe is evident in the film.