bg

2. Ways of improving knowledge of
sound
One of the main ways to get to know more
about sound would be to take a course in it.
As people can find it tricky and it is an easy
way to improve for A2.
There are many free online audio courses for you to take:
Digital audio courses: This is useful for people who need help with the
technical side of sound and they do this by creating there own audio piece in
which they then use there new learnt skills to make it better.
You can also apply for courses to do specifically with advanced structural
dynamics and acoustics, this is the study of how music is perceived , this
helps with choosing the correct type of sound for a shot as you will know the
best mic to use for it making the sound better quality.

3. Courses available to us...
For the software part of the sound we used Final Cut Pro X
which gave us the opportunity to use ADR and change the
sound to our liking very easily.
For the type of microphones that we have are:
• Rode microphone
• label microphone
•Boom microphone
•And the camera
These were very useful for us especially the boom
microphone for the train station as it allowed us to hear the
sound more clearly.

4. What did we mainly use?
For the majority of the filming we used the
rode microphone as it allowed us to have
clearer sound and then this would have
been changed a bit on Final cut Pro X maybe
to fade out the sound or add it in to make it
have better continuity.

5. Could they have been used more?
Yes I believe that we could have used more of the microphones for specific
shots more as this would have made the sound clearer, however this wasn’t a
serious matter as there is little dialogue meaning that we just need to capture
ambient sound. Due to the large amount of wind during the trainstation
filming we should have used a dead cat to cut out the wind from the sound
however due to our poor time management we did not have enough time to get
this sorted out.

6. Affect of distance
The distance of the actors to the cameras would
have affected whether what microphone we
would use, for example if the actor was at a long
distance we would use a boom microphone and
a label microphone if they were close.
The label microphone is easily the best if we
want the best quality sound as the actor would
be very close to it meaning not much sound
around will be captured as well.

7. Weather
As I have said with the wind, the weather affects the
microphone needed as if it is windy then you need a
dead cat to stop the sound being corrupted by it.
This would mainly be seen with a rode microphone
as it takes in more surround sound compared to a
boom microphone which targets a specific object
making it better in bad conditions.

8. Location
Due to us being at a train station and having a dolly we didn’t take in
the bumpy surface, meaning that the sound had less quality as the
sound of the bumpy surface was too loud and took away the affect of
verisimilitude. This wasn’t a problem with the tracking in on the
parents argument however we had a problem with the corridor being
too narrow meaning that the wheels would hit the side just giving
the picture the wobble and again affecting the sound as the acoustics
changed when the wheels hit the wall.
Whether interior or exterior the microphone is best associated with
what acoustics there are as boom microphones are better outside
compared to the label and rode microphone being better inside.

9. ADR-business man
As we did not use a boom microphone for
when Nick was speaking we could not properly
pick it up. This then led to me having to read
his dialogue as we couldn’t acquire him.
We used a boom microphone while I was in a
room with blacked out curtains so the dialogue
would be more clear to pick up. However we
had the problem of it not sounding as if it was
far away.
This led us to adding reverb and echo to the
dialogue, while also reducing the sound of it to
make it sound from a distance. Which was all
done with Final Cut Pro X.
I thought this was
successful as it fitted very
well and had continuity
with it as it matched when
Nick moved his lips in the
shot. This then allowed us
to show the character off
more and showing how he
is stereotypically seen as
authorative due to his upper
class making him more
superior. Next time we will
have to check the weather
so we come prepared with
the correct equipment.

10. Foley sounds
For a majority of our opening sequence we use a lot of Foley sounds
for example the use of the ambient music with he trains passing by
Ethan when he is sitting down. This was effective due to it creating
more realism for our audience as they want to have verisimilitude.
I think we used a good mix of Foley sounds with our own score to
create a good mix of emotions while still keeping it realistic.

11. A2....
For the future we will take more time in planning what type of
location it is being shot and then whether the weather affects it
so that we choose the best microphone for the best sound.