Recording Sound On Location and ADR

Within this post I will be taking you through 'Sound' in film, and not as in sound itself but how sound is captured when producing the film and how to avoid any mishaps that can occur when trying to capture sound.

When filming outside there are seriously to many things to count that make noise, you have natural noises that can't be prevented such as wind, water, and even nature such as birds tweeting. You also have man made noises such as cars driving past, airplanes and helicopters flying over, and even the sound of someone sneezing or coughing. Although there are ways in which that all this can be prevented but it can become quite costly when using sound proof rooms. Also theirs the chance of catching a day with absolute no wind at all cutting down on the cost of not needing to use a sound proof room, or even film the scene on day and the audio another at the studio.

 This type of equipment can be instantly recognizable watching Jeremy Kyle because whenever one of the fools from the stage runs off because they have either found out the truth that their boyfriend has been sleeping with another girl and now for this poor the camera operator has to run after them, you can see most of the times some poor man or woman trying to keep up, holding a fairly long pole which looks like a feather duster attached to it..........,

 Well actually that 'Feather Duster is in fact a 'Mic' and the occupant who carries it is known as the Boom Operator.......................

 A professional Boom Pole can span up to 18 feet,...............

 And all this is just held right outside of the frame of the camera, but unfortunately sometimes though due to the size and awkwardness of this equipment the boom operator may become quite tired after hours on end of holding this on a film set and may duck in the frame, which for some critics this is condemned and the whole gets scrutinized for it.

OK, so that wasn't really on accident and was done on a purpose to make people laugh but you could imagine in a professionally mannered film that at the start of this clip when it just dips into the frame that could possibly happen in a movie. 

So what does the 'Boom Equipment and it's Operator' do in film now, is that it can allow the actor/s or actress/es to move freely around the set without there voice quieting as they get further away from the camera or louder as they get closer because the cameras mic inst as powerful or cannot span as far unlike the Boom Pole.

AUDIO TECHNIQUES

 

ADR and this stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement........ 

This is the process of what is known as Pre-recording in a studio in absolute synchronicity with the picture being displayed on screen. 

A great example of Pre-Recording is in the film 'Sweeney Todd'. Below I will show you four videos, showing you one scene where Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter sing together as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett and the other with Johnny Depp talking about him in the studio and the same for Helena:

This video below shows first of all Johnny's talent for singing but shows what pre-recording does as a whole and what it looks like:

The Role of the Sound Editor & The Film Score Composer

Sound Editor

These are responsible for providing the screen with the sound effects that go alongside with clip, this can either be done by creating the soundtrack themselves or using previous soundtracks and adapting it into their own work.

Film Composers

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This role as a film composer is to produce and provide all the music to go along with the movie in action.

A fairly popular score composer is Hans Zimmer, he was genius behind the:

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

He's A Pirate 

Now I will be demonstrating what you may have already heard before in films but never really paid attention to it, but after reading this and learning about it, the next time you hear it. you'll never not hear it again.

THE WILHELM SCREAM!!!

This scream originated on a film called 'Distant Drums', and over the time it has been used in more than 500 movies.

 The Top 10 Wilhelm screams below:

Film Pitch, Feedback & Evaluation of Feedback

One part of our task was to create a pitch for our thriller.

Below is the pitch that we produced, and at the end questions we're asked .

Evaluation

From this we have gathered a greater understanding of how our film will be filmed and created. Changing things, and creating things along the way to create the best possible film prior to filming on set.

My next post will be the treatment.

Identified Target Audience

Within this post I will be showing you what age range of our Thriller will be for, and from preexisting films, what would be the best and most succesful

Below I am going to embed at least 2 examples of films that are similar to our thriller which is 15+.

Title - Secret Window

Age Range That is Most Popular - 15-24 (52%)

Genre - Horror, Drama, Thriller.

Secret Window although classified as a 12A, the majority of people who went to see was between the age of 15 to 24, and that is who we are trying to aim our film for. So therfore it gives us a good understanding of our target audience and helping us to create a good Target Audience Profile (TAP). It also helps us to understand what our audience likes.

Title - The Tourist

Age Range That is Most Popular - 15-24 (44%)

Genre - Drama, Thriller.

The Tourist again is another classified as a 12A but like Secret Window, the majority of people who saw this film was between the age of 15 to 24, and that is who we are trying to aim our film at. So this gives a great understanding of our target audience and helping us to create a good Target Audience Profile (TAP). It also helps us to understand what our audience likes.

This research is like our own thriller as in the films there are bits in them that are incorporated into our own film. They have the same suspense in their thriller that we have in ours. They create the same tension as we hope to create in our thriller, there are no scary parts like a horror has but there is suspense and tension. The age range of these thrillers is the same as ours so we hope to create the same effect as these ones do.

Using this information we are going to create a Target Audience Profile (TAP) for the perfect target audience for our film.

TAP

Show, Don't Tell Me!

Last week we were given a task to create a short film but on one condition, strictly no dialogue or sound. So the main aim of the task was to edit in our own audio to make it seem realistic and that we had recorded sound. The main task about this was to make sure that we told the story through camerawork and technique and not deliberately relying so much on dialogue to move the naration forward.

Here is the story line that we had to follow:

Two characters (character 1 and character 2) are sitting at a table, and are playing an intense game and one of the character 1 is losing. Suddenly, the character 2 gets up and runs to the toilet because they are not feeling well and while they are in the toilet, the character 1 takes the opportunity to cheat so that they are able to win. When the character 2 comes back, they sit down and both continue the game where character 1 immediately wins.



As a group we are happy with what we have created and were happy to accept constructive criticism to help us improve our work. After our work was published we were given some feedback which was useful for us so that when we next given a task we will be prepared and will be about to put out a video that is near perfection.

Below is the feedback we received.

The next post will be about introducing the production and team logo of our main task.

Production Team Name, and Logo

Within my post I will be showing you the challenge that we was given, we had to come up with a team name and logo for our production company. It had to be something easy to recognize and one that would grab the audiences attention.

We hope for something as eye catching and world wide recognized as these:



Now the team logos and name from our little group:

From those three logos we chose:

My next post will be my Film Pitch, Feedback and Evaluation of Feedback.