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Filmcartel: Tell me about your new 25 hour movie.
SURF: All in due time, dear maverick, due time.
I use jump out, cut back, slip side, and montogram in my edits.
Place the microphone close to the
source of sound. Put the microphone in the engine.
Stick the microphone in the person's mouth.
The signal is whatever you
want to hear clearly and the noise
is whatever else. If you want to record the engine,
stop the talking: "hush now ladies and lads, hear this
purr." Grass is a weed in the flower bed, but flowers
are weeds in the lawn.
After you finish the recording in the car, other sounds
will be laid on top of it, music, sound effects, some atmosphere.
If your signal is polluted by noise it will restrict the
composition of these other sounds. Whenever you turn up
the volume to hear your signal better all the noise will
get louder too. You want to separate
the voices from the engine (i.e. separate the sound
you want from the background sounds). Once you understand
the two kinds of sound separation you will be able to record
in any situation including iceplant meadows by the freeway.
frequency separation - a musical
note has a narrow frequency range, the ocean is all frequencies
frequency range of the human voice
frequency range of a ford motor car
volume separation
db level of human voice at 1 foot
db level of ford motor car at 1 foot
You manipulate frequency range indirectly by choosing where
to record and who to record. For a movie shot in a car it
makes sense to cast high voices: most women, children and
alto males.
Move everything that will interfere with the frequency
range you want to record away from the microphone to make
it quieter. Get your actors to project.
The 4 types of microphones and their uses
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2 |
3 |
4 |
shotgun
(hyper-cardiod) |
omni directional |
lapel
(lavalier) |
stereo
(on camera mic) |
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shotgun
hyper cardiod
Point the microphone at the person's mouth. Pull it away
when they yell or laugh and push it forward when they whisper.
For recording other sounds think about, where does the sound
emanate from, what is it bouncing off. Sound moves like
pool balls and bounces at right angles.
omni directional
Place the microphone in between two people talking or at the
place in the room where everything sounds best. Turn off the
engine and roll up the windows.
lapel
(lavalier)
You can use this with the windows rolled down, just watch
that it is not brushed by a hand, clothes moving, a scarf,
or the wind.
stereo
(on camera mic)
Using two microphones close together creates the impression
of 3 dimensional space. It takes sound slightly longer to
reach one microphone than the other unless the sound is
dead ahead of both microphones. It's best to record some
room tone with stereo microphones. "Room tone"
is the sound of noise, you take out the signal-e.g. get
the people to stop talking and record what the silence sounds
like without moving the microphones or turning up the volume.
Look for my next article: How to
record sound on the moon. Most people think there
is no sound on the moon because there is no air to propagate
the sound waves. I record sound on the moon using a seismic
microphone. The man on the moon is a tenor.
SURF - I make movies in cars and at the beach. You wanna
look, campo?
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