Category: LO1

Again from looking at the sound bible there were some aspects that would either be too costly or just ineffective for a project on a scale this small.

But an important section on the book highlights how important people skills are when attaching mics to the actors. This is something I wanted to focus on in practise, because I feel that it is very important to respect someone’s boundaries and put them at ease while still doing your job effectively. The book mentions how you shouldn’t try and converse too much because you don’t want to break the actors focus on their lines but at the same time you need to explain what you’re doing if you are going to do something that might otherwise make them feel uncomfortable. Another important aspect was while mic’ing up someone of the opposite sex was to keep someone of authority present to back you up if the actor makes any claims that you have done something inappropriately. I made sure to keep this in mind and only mic up the female actress while the producer was present as to make sure that I always had someone to witness that I was acting professionally.

The last piece i learnt from this research was something I had been taught by Grant before but had forgotten about, was to make sure that I taped off some of the wire so that there would be less to no noise transmitted from the wire rustling against clothes, which was another technique that helped us to limit noise and improve the quality of recordings we had by the end.

http://filmschoolonline.com/sample_lessons/sample_lesson_sound.htm

This website helped to give me an insight into how I should be recording as a boom operator, giving me reasons why overhead booming is better whenever possible, but also what techniques I should look to when overhead booming isn’t possible.

From reading sections of The Location Sound Bible I was able to take some useful lessons in how to move and stand as a boom operator. The main theme throughout is that I have to keep my actions fluid and gentle so that the microphone isn’t picking up any noise from me while recording. Some of the bits in this book went a little bit too in depth for this project but certain parts like giving myself enough length on the pole and standing in a certain way to be able to move suddenly proved to be quite useful.

Another important section from this book was to make sure that I was paying attention and in a sense rehearsing at the same time as the actors, so I would be able to learn and predict the flow of the scene, allowing me to keep the mic pointed at whoever needed it and moving out of the way whenever the camera panned.

So some important research for us was finding out how to get the best results from our radio microphones, this proved to be a challege because not only does the type of tape affect the quality but also the way that you use the tape.

In multiple online forums there were different bits of advice with people swearing by specific brands and types of tape, the main ones being either moleskin tape or medical tape, we opted to go for the latter because of ease of access to buy.

This forum post was helpful with experimenting the different taping techniques once I’d found the right kind of tapes.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/remote-possibilities-acoustic-music-location-recording/412231-art-attaching-hiding-lapel-mics.html

After practising I found that making 2 loops out of tape, attaching one to the clothing and one to the chest, then wedging the mic in the middle gave the best sound with the least amount of rustling.