Cognition – Page 4

Luke Pickering- Guest Lecture #3

October 27, 2016December 6, 2016Guest Lectures

Luke Pickering is a former graduate of Audio production at the University of Lincoln and currently works as a studio assistant at Church Studios in London. It is one of very few large commercial studios left in the UK.

Luke showed us a slideshow of pictures of the studio which consisted of the main studio, studio 2 which is primarily for mixing tracks and a writing room for artist to write in.

Milico is a company who headhunts audio mixer freelancers which Luke suggested we come apart of if we want to pressure a career in multi-track recording. They own a few studios in London but manage a lot around the world.

Luke then described the different roles you may find yourself in one day of you ever wanted to work in a recording studio. The roles were:

Studio Assistant- Keeping equipment working and tidy. Managing files. Managing plug-ins and files. Basically making the assistant engineers job easier.

Assistant Engineer- Knows the studio inside and out. Usually based there. Good at reading situations and atmosphere. Making sure the session is running smoothly. Making the Engineers job easier.

Engineer- Responsible for making the recording happen. Understands technically how to achieve sounds. Saves and stores work. Vast technical knowledge. Efficient and experienced in studio workflow.

A very useful topic Luke discussed was how to apply or jobs and the do’s and don’ts which I felt were transferrable across the sound industry.

Dont:

Say you’re a producer

Say how amazing you are at DAW

Showreels

Write more than a page

Talk about yourself too much

Explanation marks

Create work for the reader

Do:

Nice layout

Apply for the position listed

Appear flexible

Appear curious

Include picture

Acknowledge mundane jobs

Follow up application

I felt this lecture was interesting as Luke explained a little bit of a taste after what post uni life is like. A lot of hard work went in to get where he is now which was inspiring. I particularly liked do’s and don’ts when it comes to applying for jobs.

Jez Riley French- Guest Lecture #2

October 24, 2016December 6, 2016Guest Lectures

Jen Riley French- 17th October 2016

http://jezrileyfrench.co.uk

Jen is an renowned sound artist who records raw, unprocessed sounds a variety of locations. He played us his recordings from his previous work in which he used contact microphones. He uses contact microphones to capture the frequencies across the whole of the object that he is recording. This creates interesting and obscure sounds that you would get from just listening to it with your ears.

An interesting piece he played was one he recorded in Italy. He used contact microphones to capture the sound of a stretched wire (Teleferica) being hit at various points. He has also worked with the recording of insects and the sound that they create that we wouldn’t necessarily hear.

He has recently been recording buildings and learning their acoustics by using them as a filter for other sounds. Using a vast amount of contact microphones to capture what certain sounds sound like at different points of a building.

Not only does Jez record with contact microphones, he records underwater with Hydrophones and records the earths movement with Geophones.

He outlined the importance of field recording as it’s all about capturing real and raw sounds that aren’t processed or manipulated. He stressed the importance of recording more than you think you’ll need as there is always a chance of capturing something different and unique that was there before.

Overall this session was incredibly interesting as it showed me a side of sound that I can use in this project. As Cognition will be a sound driven piece, the sound design will be complex and Jez has helped greatly in that.

Group Meeting #5

October 24, 2016December 17, 2016Group Meetings & Tutorials

Group Meeting #5- 18th October 2016

Our primary topic of discussion in this meeting was the location. As an audio crew, we stressed the importance of the most deadening and quiet location possible as it can effect the dialogue track drastically. The ideal location for the set is a basement so we discussed where possibly locations in Lincoln could be. We decided that one person from the audio crew would go location scouting with Hannah, Lauren and Jamie so that we could give an audio perspective.

Just prior to the meeting, we had come back from Lincoln Drill Hall to look at their basement for a possibly location to shoot in. I went and felt like the setting was great but audio wise not so much. There was busy traffic just outside and a busy public foot path, which would cloud dialogue. I explained that if we were to go with this location, the audio would potentially be compromised.

These are the draw backs that were discussed about the Drill Hall

>The shoot would be rushed as we would only be allowed to be there 10am-4pm. This is including emptying the basement from Drill Hall property as the basement is used as storage and also time to dress the set up.

>The dates for shoot are too spread out as we would only be aloud to shoot on the 31st of October, 14th of November and the 17th of November.

>Too noisy, compromising the recorded dialogue.

>Low ceiling restricting overhead booming. As discussed in my research, this would effect the dialogue track as we would only be allowed to scoop, cutting out the higher frequencies resulting in a mid heavy track.

Plant Microphones

October 24, 2016December 6, 2016Research

Plant Microphone Techniques (Veirs, 2012, 103-113)

Plant microphones actually aren’t a type of microphone as you can use a variety of microphones to capture the best sound depending on what situation you are in. It can be used as an alternate mic placement to reduces the loss of dialogue if your boom can only capture a bit of the scene. They can produce natural sounding reverb, eliminating or reducing the need to add artificial reverb. Plant mics are stationary and can be hard-wired or wireless. Hard wired is preferred as there isn’t a chance of signal loss. If using hard wired plant mics, make sure the wire is slack as in most cases, you will need to reposition them.

They can also be used to capturing sound effects on set. When plant mics are on set, they are referred to as zones. This is so when actors are moving around set, the production mixer knows which microphones in which zones are picking up the dialogue. Moving from zone to zone can cause phasing issues but when in post-production, you would switch in between captured dialogue. You can always apply the 3:1 rule to solve this issue.

When using plant microphones, always remember the inverse square law. Since plant microphones are stationary, the intensity of sound picked reduces as sound moves away. So like a boom microphone and a LAV microphone, you have to get the plant microphone as close as possible without entering the frame and if you can’t do that, double the gain.

Lavalier Microphone

October 24, 2016December 6, 2016Research

Lavalier Microphone (Viers, 2012, 13, 25, 67-83)

The Lavalier microphone is one that connects directly onto the talent. They are good for noisy locations as they are usually an Omni-directional microphone pointing upwards towards the talent mouth. They can also be used as a boundary microphone when planted on the talents chest acting as a sound board, so it can also pick up dialogue from other sources. Great for when Booming or Boundary microphones can’t be used as the frame of the shot may be too wide to fit in.

However, there are many draw backs from using a LAV microphone:

>Acoustic Shadow: The acoustic shadow is when sound waves from a sound source don’t directly reach the microphone, making the sound dull and flatter. Objects blocking sound waves reduces the higher frequency pick up from the microphone creating this effect.

>If the talent is moving their head around whilst acting out a scene, the recording level would fluctuate as the sound source (their mouth) would be moving to and from the microphone.

>If the talent leans over hard surfaces, it can create harsh echoes and slaps picking up unnatural reverb. To reduce this from happening, place an acoustic sheet or carpet over the surface. However, you can only do this if the surface is out of shot.

Hiding LAV Microphones

Hiding LAV mics is also an issue you will face. Clothes absorb higher frequencies so mic placement is key. It also loses sibilance which is at the range of 6KHz- 10KHz. You can buy microphones with have an increased sibilance pick up to reduce this problem

Always try and place the microphone at the center of the chest. If the talent is talking to someone on their right, place it more to the right, the opposite if the talent is speaking for someone on their left. Choose what placement works best for the scene. Find out where the talent will be facing when delivering lines in a scene. This will allow you to determine which placement is best.

Contact noise

This is when clothing is in contact with the microphones creating noise that will cloud over your dialogue. You can prevent this by:

>Using a static guard.

>Ask the costume departments to use guards.

>Rubber alternatives to jewelry.

>Check microphones regularly to make sure they are still in place and aren’t rubbing on any clothing.

Underneath is a link that shows techniques of hiding you LAV microphones and reduce noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D85HmR825wM&spfreload=10

3:1 Rule

Many microphones on set can cause phase cancelation. Phase cancellation is when noise from microphones dip in and out as a result of interrupting each other’s waveforms. This makes the recordings sound hollow.

The 3:1 rule is when you turn off inactive microphones when in close proximity to active microphones and then turn up the active microphones to get rid of any phase cancellation.