I have never had much experience or given much thought into audio recording, so when we were given this exercise I was quite unsure about how to approach it. After doing the exercise, I now have a better understanding of the importance of sound recording and the amount of planning that is required to capture a specific environment.
The objective of the task was to “describe” the location using sound so that it is identifiable to the listener. Shiwen and I decided to try and capture the scene of a person at a tram station. The sequence of events we recorded was the sound of footsteps, a door opening, going outside, pressing a button that gives the tram arrival information, and the sound of a tram arriving and the doors opening. I think the recording of the tram arrival information as well as the sound of the doors closing was integral for the audience to understand the scene. As an overall clip, I think we have successfully captured our goal, as it is clear that the environment was a tram stop, but we missed the objective of the task as we have captured more of a journey than an overall “feel” of the location. We could have captured more of a combination of atmospheric sounds, such as the sound of the tram stopping and the footsteps of people getting on and off the tram.
The main takeaway I had from this exercise was the importance of detail when capturing a sonic environment. Before, I had always thought of audio as just an accessory to the visual, but through experimenting with capturing the sound in an environment, I have realised that what you hear is just as important as what you see in a scene. We don’t realise the sheer amount of sounds in the environments we are in during every day life, and our ears don’t take particular notice of all the sounds we accept as normal background noise. To try and recreate an environment, films are made up of incredibly complex layerings of sounds that contribute in making a scene seem realistic. I’ve realised that a lot of thought goes into planning the audio recording of an environment, and now have a deeper appreciation of the role of sound to accompany the visual.
