Most of the time, I record sound myself, using a microphone on a stand like this one, or
if it’s a bigger project, I'll teach someone who’s never worked on a film before how
to hold a mic and use an audio recorder. But for our last project I got to work with some
professionals, so I thought I’d share what I learned from them.
For this short film, I made an effort to think about sound from the very beginning. I knew
that the foley and sound effects would be absolutely key for this part (bike crash)
and this part (kick). I knew I wanted a refrigerator hum, and some music coming from a tinny speaker
in the takeaway scene, and with the lack of dialogue in the last scene, we needed sounds
for running, gun shots, tackles and falls. And since at least three of the scenes weren’t
going to have any music, the urban ambiences of cars going past, and far away dogs barking
were gonna be especially important. However the vast majority of those sounds weren’t
recorded on set. But that does not mean that sound effects are just something you add in
later. For example in the second scene, we could have just had Connor walk out and block
the path, which wouldn’t have made much sound at all. If that’s what we’d filmed,
then the only sounds we could really add to that would be some footsteps maybe, and the little
squeaking sounds of the brakes. But I think that scene is more effective when he kicks
the bike, because it gives us the opportunity to have the kick sound, the impact sound, scraping
across the tarmac. And it goes both ways - if you feel like the emotion of your scene calls
for near silence in every gap in the conversation, then you gotta make sure that you put your
characters somewhere that would be naturally quiet - you can't have it in a café or on
a train. Basically, the choices you make before the shoot, have a huge impact on the sound
during and after the shoot. So once you've thought about the soundscape of your film,
the main priority on set is to capture clean audio with usually absolutely no background
noises. Kristian, who was the sound recordist on this project, was in charge of the actual
recording, everything from setting levels, to placing radiomics on talent, and listening
out for any sound problems. We also had Danny as the boom operator, who would find out where
the frame lines were, so he could get the mic pretty much as close as possible without
being visible in the shot. He also followed whoever was speaking, which meant learning
everyone’s lines. Now the great thing about working with these guys is that I could totally
trust them to get great results, which meant that I could spend more time with the actors
and the DP. I’d explain the plan to Kristian, and then
he'd set up the sound while we were having a scene walkthrough. The only time I had to
even think about sound was when Kristian let me know that there was a problem with background
noise. And that is the second big thing a sound person needs to do:
Listen.
Because of my to my excellent location scouting, all of the scenes except for one, were directly
next to a train track, and right under a flight path. So when every we had a plane or a train
or a car, the entire production would wait until Kristian said that the sound had gone.
We had vehicles, construction sites, an extremely loud & extremely slow street cleaner. So if
you're filming somewhere like that, you really need to schedule in time for waiting for quiet.
The main goal with production sound is to record the dialogue completely on its own,
so in the takeaway, Kristian suggested we turned off the industrial refrigerator. That
way, in post we'd be free to chop up the dialogue without it affecting the fridge sound, and
we could individually change the volume and the tone of each sound independently. So it
really is worth having someone who is thinking about sound on set, because the chances are,
no one else will. The other big job for Kristian & Danny was wildtrack - which is foley or
sound effects that you record on location. Kristian suggested that we turn the fridge
back on to record it, and then we got some more wildtrack for pots and pans being crashed
about in the background of the kitchen, which is what you’d expect to hear in a takeaway.
We could’ve done this after the shoot, but it’s always worth getting the authentic
sound in the actual location, if there’s time. And then of course after every scene,
we recorded room tone or ambience, where everyone stays silent for a few minutes to record the
natural background sounds. This will be absolutely essential when it comes to post production
- but we’ll get to that in another video. So working with Kristian & Danny was brilliant,
and I will be in touch with them for future projects. But for the next no-budget film,
I reckon we could get pretty close to professional results, by showing some non-professionals
these tips. And practicing a lot. My name’s Simon Cade, this has been DSLRguide, and I’ll
see you next week.