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OK, so we know that you must
record your film well and run it diligently through the marathon of
post to sound great, but this does not mean that all of the sound in a
film is of one variety. The thing you are recording be it an actor, an
ocean wave or a car crash will obviously determine much about the
recording we make, but here I am concerned with two other things.
First, how and where you record the sound adds as much to the scene
you shoot as does the lighting. The character of the room is to sound
as highlight and shadow is to lighting. To record in a cathedral
is to include a beautiful and ethereal reverberation in the shot -
this sound is as integral to the feel of the scene as light pouring
through a great stained glass window because every space imposes its
character onto the sound within it. The second issue is that of the
manner of recording. Over the years, there have been many kinds of
devices to record and play back sound, and every recorded format
leaves a fingerprint of its origins in the recording. So, it is that
microphones, recorders and processors are the brushes, canvas and
pigments of the still young art of sound recording.
Three things make up our sonic vocabulary: that which you record, the
space it is in and the sound imparted by the tools used to record it.
The recording made will have unique characteristics that may be useful
to an artist such as a film director or writer who works with sound.
I'm not referring here to poorly recorded sound through inattention or
bad workmanship but to recorded elements intentionally used. You can
employ many kinds of sound to make your film work. Sound can be beat
up, mangled and otherwise distorted for emotional effect or realism as
long as tweaked sound doesn't demand so much of the audience that
they'll flee. You may also process audio for spatial and harmonic
effects to make it more beautiful, but it could sound artificial or
distracting if applied excessively. Like everything in the creative
world, you look for the balance of elements that work best together.
Here are some examples of spaces and recording tools along with my
subjective impressions of what these sounds bring with them. There are
no perfect ways of mimicking some of the audio formats without
recording them on the original devices, but I'll provide some
approximate techniques.
Spaces
Cathedral
Stone surfaces and vast enclosed area make for a long reverb time. Big
verbs connote the presence of something greater than oneself or
perhaps nothingness, which may not be mutually exclusive (please
forgive my existential streak.) Since reverb decreases intelligibility
always place the mic close to the source here. If you have the tracks,
place additional room mics some distance from that which you are
recording so that reverb can be blended back in during post. The
difficulty here is that the room mics tend pick up more extraneous
noise than the close mics -- which is kind of the point. That said,
you could easily add reverb while mixing, so while the room mics are
optional close mics are not.
Gymnasium
Big and reflective like a cathedral, but probably because of the
squared off nature of many gyms this reverb is often unmusical. I
think of it as being "trashy" sounding so when adding reverb while
mixing I try to keep it to any added verb of a not pretty variety. The
close micing rules above apply here and to all heavily reverberant
spaces.
In a car
Confined spaces create a short, boxy reverb that gets into everything.
I'm not sure there is a particular emotional connotation to the
interior sound of a moving vehicle but it's definitely OK if it sounds
that way since that's where you are.
Whisper in my ear
Right up on the microphone, this can be sexy or depraved depending
upon who is doing what and to whom. Use a pop screen on the microphone
to keep it free of explosive P's and other consonants.
Theater or other performing space
If you shoot it in a small space and want it to seem big, you'll have
to add some pretty, musical sounding reverb in the mix. If it's a
small space like a cabaret or cafe, you will enhance the feeling of
smallness by making the reverb time shorter. If a mic and sound system
is involved in the shot it may be worth running the sound through a
similar system in post for a bit of realistic perspective.
Exterior near buildings
I love the sound of voices bouncing off buildings outdoors, it's an
unmistakable cue to being in a specific place and it gives some
"tooth" to an actor's performance by literally adding dimension.
Recorded Formats
Vinyl records
For a whiff of nostalgia, impermanence of artistic endeavor, rock and
roll or youth put it on a record. A needle wiggles in a groove that
collects dirt and dust to produce little clicks and pops, but beneath
this noise is a silky smooth sound. It is not usually practical to
press up a record of something just to get that vinyl sound, so I keep
a few records in my collection with grooves but no sound on them (my
favorite being the best of Marcel Marceau.) I've scratched up the
sides to varying degrees for a selection of distressed backing tracks
for songs. If you’re mimicking this format digitally, remember that
45’s spin faster than 33’s and calibrate your scratches accordingly.
Cassette tape
Use cassettes for the sound of DIY, audio love letters and suicide
notes; before people talked to themselves on the web they talked to
themselves on cassettes. This analog format doesn’t capture high
frequencies over about 12 kHz on the best varieties of cassette tape.
I add a track of audiotape hiss to the edit and I roll off the high
frequency of the combined dialogue and hiss to taste. If I'm being
picky, I'll record the digital audio from my edit onto a cassette and
then digitize it back into my editing system.
Wax cylinders
Try these for associations of history, the dim past and things that
were important a long time ago. The original cylinders from the Edison
Company had a 2.5-minute playing time and were completely mechanical,
meaning no electronics; the technology had more in common with
plumbing than a tape deck. Mechanical distortion, narrow frequency
response and limited dynamic range defines the evocative nature of
this format. The crackles are denser than a vinyl LP and these
recorders were only capable of picking up sounds that were loud, so if
you're faking it speak or sing boldly into the microphone, no
whispering. Add two tracks of crackles from the above vinyl, roll off
everything over 7000 kHz and below 150 Hz. Very crackly and squawky
but perfect.
Talking toys
There are dizzying varieties of toys that make noise, but they all use
cheap little playback devices built to be shoved into a fleece poodle
and left out in the yard for half the year. Savor the 4 kHz bandwidth
and the dynamic range of a dial tone! There is a great little $35
guitar amplifier called the Smokey Amp that is literally built into a
cigarette pack. Run your audio through one of these and record it back
into your system for a lo-fi treat.
16mm optical soundtrack
It bubbles and crackles; it’s like a vinyl record but the clicks and
pops are lower pitched. Also, because it's not a rotating disc the
crackles don't repeat like a record. It colors the sound with a thing
called cross-modulation distortion that means any sound no matter how
soft has a scratchy quality that screams old movie. Strictly, a
one-speaker affair, if a film could rise above this format to
entertain a crowd it had to be good. I keep some sound files of 16mm
leader that I put on its own track alongside sound effects that have
been added to old footage in documentaries.
Apartment intercom
Nothing says, "come on in" like a crackly plastic speaker in a little
metal box. I keep an old 16mm flatbed squawk box with a torn speaker
around to use for this effect, it adds an authentic distortion to the
proceedings and makes people think you recorded it in production. Of
course you could always record the intercom in production too, which I
think would be wonderful.
CB Radio
These are slowly going away with cell phones and all, but a very
little bit of unintelligible chatter in a police car or taxi helps to
sell it. I have a cheap pair of walkie-talkies that I use to record
this kind of thing, I get some actors in to loop or I do it myself.
Telephone
Hello? Hello? You might not even think of this as a sonic thing, but
the quality of a voice over the phone adds a dimension to dialogue.
The narrow EQ can make the voice cut like a knife or growl menacingly.
The detaching of the voice from the body can add distance or
poignancy. Be sure to observe whether the sound is coming over the
phone or direct from the actor while doing the sound edit and your mix
will go easier.
Answering machine
This rapidly vanishing victim of voice mail has the virtues of
telephone sound only worse. Or did I mean better? Add a faint track of
an overtaxed motor whirring and play it all back through the
aforementioned squawk box for the sense of poignant human futility
that only cheap consumer electronics can provide.
Car radio
Grab a shot of the driver’s hand turning the radio on and another
turning it off. You never know what you’ll need in the edit. The more
beat up the car the more terrible the radio should sound and note that
AM radio sounds worse than FM.
Jukebox
Put a trashy reverb on some music in a bar scene and roll off the high
end to around 10 kHz and you get an instant honky-tonk.
Battery powered bullhorn
Aw, just go buy a bullhorn and record through it, you know you want
to! This is great sonic pepper for any scene concerning police action,
protests, sporting events and other celebrations.
I'll state again that sonic vocabulary is not just for sound designers
but also for directors, writers and the entire creative team of a
film. Nobody shooting a scene set in a factory would avoid getting an
extra shot of an impressive and complex machine but it would be
unusual for me to get a separate short recording of that same machine
or a few "audio close ups" when a film comes to me for editing and a
mix. I'm not saying this to be an audio scold but to encourage the
whole crew to give sound the same creative weight as picture. So go
forth, listen for what makes a space or a recording sound the way it
sounds, and don't be afraid to indulge your ears as well as your eyes
when conceiving and creating your next film.
.........................................................................................................................
Carmen Borgia is the head of audio services for DuArt Film & Video
in New York City. He oversees a post production sound department that
provides mixing, sound design, restoration, transfer and printmastering.
His department caters to independent projects in all formats from mono
optical up to digital 5.1.
Editor’s note: If anyone has any
questions, please submit them to
cborgia@duart.com. Carmen will do his best to answer your queries. |
Sonic
Vocabulary