In this week’s classes we split up into two different groups, and each attempted to shoot a scene revolving around a two passengers in a train. With seven different people in each group, we were able to split up the required roles amongst ourselves. Although I feel that audio recording and editing is my weakest point, I put my hand up for the role of the boom operator, mainly because of my height advantage. Initially I was hoping for a more minor role in the production, as I didn’t feel I had enough knowledge in any particular area to perform at a high standard. I told myself that the only way to improve and learn about something new is to actually give it a try.
Most of the other crew members seemed to know most of the technical aspects surrounding the use of the boom mic, which made it a lot easier to get feedback and advice immediately, whilst we filmed. Some of the feedback included wrapping the cord of the mic around the pole to ensure that it didn’t get in the way of the shot and the people involved in the scene and holding the pole loosely so that it the sound of the cord hitting against the pole wasn’t detectable. I was glad to be able to find out about these tips whilst we filmed, so that we were able to produce a better audio quality for the final product.
The audio quality was obviously significantly better when we used an external mic compared to the camera’s inbuilt mic, however, I think there are still some more improvements I can make when recording audio in the future. I believe the biggest problem with our final audio is the sound of the wind which varies from shot to shot, making the audio slightly jarring at some points. I think by learning how to shield the boom mic better from wind in the future, and investigating any camera settings and editing tricks that can be used to fix this problem will improve my future work.
Overall, I am quite pleased with how our scene turned out, and I think that it shows a significant improvement from the last task we performed and recorded in class. I have included the final cut of our footage that I completed with Dusty and Siobhan below.