Tag / backing tracks

by harrietread

My Take on Filming with Sound

PB3’s deadline is just around the corner, and today I have just about wrapped up shooting the original footage for the final cut.

My only problem is: I am not used to editing or producing films with dialogue or externally recorded audio. I haven’t done so much as stretched my wings beyond little experimental timelapses and music videos.

My first problem that I am encountering is recording audio. To put it bluntly, I simply don’t enjoy recording audio, whether I am using an H2N Zoom or my iPhone 6. Conceptually and technically, I struggle with understanding how to edit or improve sound that has already been recorded; alot of the time, I cringe at the quality of what I’ve recorded, particularly if it’s my own voice.

Jumping that hurdle and getting over the fact that I have an issue with understanding aural media is not something that I am keen on doing. But I’ll need to do something about it if I want to improve and appreciate the quality of my productions more.

by harrietread

This past week, I went down to Mornington peninsula with 4 other friends on a photography expedition. Armed with a Canon EOS 1200 DSLR and a Nikon FE2 film SLR, it was a nice break from the world to go down south and indulge in the incredible natural world.

There’ll be a follow up post about the developed film, but I gotta say, it was a little daunting. I only had about 25 shots a roll, and neglected to bring more than one. Oopsie! I was also nervous because the night before, I had managed to tear apart my last film roll trying to take it out of the camera. Lesson learned: Read the manual.

The shoot itself was daunting, because the beach (whose name I forget) and rocky rock pools that we visited was the epitome of ‘treacherous nature.’ Clambering up rocks and over agonisingly lumpy stones was exhausting, but worth it entirely as we saw the ocean breathing and crashing so close to us.

by harrietread

Learning about Sound

The most I’ve understood about anything related to sound in my life has been how tempo and beat works; I used to dance when I was a kid, and you’d get a glare if you missed your cue. Thus, I have little interest in the finetuned details of the physics and nuances of sound/music/etc.

At the same time, however, I have always had a significant interest in editing films with sounds, music, soundtracks, foley, etc; so clearly, I have a little work to do in terms of getting a sense of the whole shemozzle.

Going through the reading given on Sound was my first step in understanding sound in media, and focused on the technical and physical aspects of how sound occurs, how we hear it, and how we can record it. Now that I know big words, like that cardioid, super cardioid and hyper cardioid microphones are the kinds of mikes good for recording sound from a single perspective, I feel as though I am clearly the no.1 expert on everything aural even though just trying to press the chords on a guitar cramps up my arm.