Coming from a musical background, I have had my head firmly entrenched in the world of sound for quite some time. To be perfectly honest though, when it comes to writing and recording, I pay very little attention to the quality of the sound. For me, it really is as simple as plugging in a couple of 1/4 inch cables and making sure the sound doesn’t creep too high into the red zone on the interface. And for the most part, this works. I have an m-audio fast track c600 which clearly identifies anything that is peaking.
But recording sound with the intention of synching it up to video appears to be much more of a challenge. There’s boom-poles and cables and mixers and in’s and out’s and buttons, and on top of that, the camera needs to be operated as well. I understand how the principles of recording music and recording sound for film is the same, but it is the added equipment and tools that amounts to a daunting task. Like all things to do with filmmaking though, practice will be what helps to make recording audio a simpler task.
Two points that I took out of the class were to do with the use of the clapperboard and recording wild lines. I’m not sure how the use of the clapperboard has gone over my head for so many years, but it makes perfect sense to me now. Besides the obvious visual reference of scene and shot numbers, the peak that a clapperboard produces in an audio waveform can easily matched to the peak captured on the cameras ‘shitty audio recording system’. This makes it a hell of a lot easier for editors. And, recording the audio of the whole scene with the lens cap on frees up the filmmakers options when it comes to editing a scene in post production.
– Gabe