So our class exercise was an introduction in recording sound, working in pairs we were given the Zoom Handy Recorder H2n which is a portable audio recorder. Our task was to ask our partner a question and record a short interview, along with that we recorded some background and atmosphere noises as well as some other clips.

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What problems did you encounter? What did you try to do to get past it?

A few problems include not knowing how close to hold the microphone in order to get the right sound levels. We found that as a person spoke the volume varied however we tried our best to move the microphone to try and keep the levels at -6 to -3.

What were your most successful recordings?

I think our interview was the most successful we found a quiet space with good acoustics so there was little if any background noise which was really good as we got clear audio.

What did you discover about microphone technique?

We discovered that its most important to get the correct distance and volume because otherwise the sound is not clear, which is the most important part. We also realised how sensitive the microphone is, when interviewing its crucial to have a silent room because noises are so easily picked up. We also discovered for background noises the most sharp and loud sounds are the most prominent and clear in the recordings, quiet sounds are still picked up but are very unclear.

Did you have difficulty setting levels?

I think we both started off a little unsure about using this microphone as it was both new to us but we eventually got the hang of getting the right levels.

Did you have difficulty getting clean sound, i.e. good signal to noise ratio

the most difficult part about getting clean sound was when we were outside trying to get background noise, we picked up a few tram sounds and things like that but the background noise was very muffled.

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Another struggle I had was mixing the sounds together in Adobe Audition, this was a program I have never used before. So it took me a very long time to even figure out how to put sounds all together let alone adapt them. After a while of playing around on the program I found out how to fade, change the pitch and volume, how to cut and overlay sounds together. From looking on this program there is so much more to learn, and I will continue to experiment with sound in this program for future films.