21.07.10

The basics for shooting and editing sound

Film making encompasses mastering a range of different disciplines, from scriptwriting to filming to audio recording. With low-budget movies, the director will quite often be the camera operator and editor. When there are bigger budgets in play, you will find skilled people who specialise in their fields. In the first of a three-parter, Photography Monthly Film Master John Campbell takes a look at sound.

Sound is one of these specialities, and it is a really large part of film making today. It is important that you grasp the essentials, such as where it has come from, its meaning within film language, how to record it and how to manipulate it. Over the next couple of months, I will be discussing audio — its relevance in the theoretical sense and also its practical implications within the medium of film.

This month we will look at a general guide to recording sound and understanding its place within film.

History of Audio in Film
Sound has always linked up with film in one way or another. In the early days, accompanying music was often played live during a showing, or someone commentated as the film was projected. These were ‘silent films’. Some theorists have even argued that audiences’ vocal participation during films were actually soundtracks of their own.

However, the general consensus is that sound on film first came about at the introduction of recorded sound that was played simultaneously with a film. Though developments were happening all over the world at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, I will be concentrating on American inventor Thomas Edison to give a basic outline of the history of film audio.

Kinetophone
After developing the telegraph and telephone, famous American inventor Thomas Edison became consumed with the challenge of recording sound. He eventually developed the phonograph, and on 12 August 1877, the first words ever recorded were reportedly ‘Mary had a little lamb.’

On 17 October 1888, Edison unveiled another new concept, the kinetoscope, saying it would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. This camera worked by passing a roll of celluloid film over a light source at high speed (pretty much the same as today), so that an image could be viewed by one person looking through the viewer at the top. The film was looped so it could be viewed continuously over and over again without rewinding it.

After discussions with Eadweard Muybridge some years earlier about the possibility of sound being united with pictures, The Edison Company had started playing around with combining the kinetoscope and the phonograph to create the kinetophone. The phonograph was housed in the same box as the kinetoscope, which you listened to via two ear tubes connected to the machine, while you looked down at the film in the top viewer.

In 1894, Edison Company employee William Dickson made ‘The Dickson Experimental Sound Film’, which showed a man playing a violin while two men danced, with synchronised audio.

The novelty factor of the kinetophone only lasted a short while, due to the new development of projecting an image so more than one person could view the film at the same time. Dickson left the company, and work on the device stalled for 18 years. Then, between 1913 and 1915, Edison tried out a new version of the kinetophone that projected an image and had synchronised audio, but it was operated with a system of pulleys and levers, making it very difficult to maintain synchronisation.

Edison made 19 talking pictures, but through dissatisfaction of audiences with bad synchronisation due to poor training of projectionists, the project foundered, and the company stopped making them.

Film continued to play in small theatres, where it remained a secondary source of entertainment, often with orchestras playing along. It wasn’t until the talkies era of the late 1920s, after the First World War and the Great Depression, that projected films became popular again.

The Talkies
In 1926 in America, Warner Brothers and Western Electric combined forces and created a new system of capturing audio. They recorded sound on a wax disc that was then synchronised to the film projector. To show off its new development, Warner released Don Juan, the first motion picture to have synchronised sound effects and a film score, but even though it was a smash hit, most other studios refused to embrace this new technology. They did not believe that this would last — just like the kinetophone; it would flitter away into the annals of history. But Warner continued to develop it, and with the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, studios could no longer refuse the lure of the new talking picture sensation, creating one of the key turning points in motion picture industry.

Sound and recording your DSLR

The principles of synchronised sound have not changed since the days of The Jazz Singer, only the way we deliver it. Note the advancement of Dolby surround sound and the like. As sound became important, it soon became a part of film language, creating extra meaning and reflections of emotions and mood within a scene.

Alfred Hitchcock was a master of this. His film scores helped to create suspense, his layered sound effects produced tension, and masterful cinematography techniques allowed him to create films of astounding complexity. Sound was as important to him as image.

Sound recording on DSLRs has yet to catch up with the incredible improvements made to recording video. That said, it is important to understand the principles and be prepared for when the improvements to capturing audio are made.

Microphones
Audio on your DSLR camera is recorded automatically through either the onboard microphone or an external microphone source added to your DSLR. At present, the biggest setback to a DSLR’s sound capabilities is the ability to monitor the sound levels being recorded. This is something I hope will be amended in future versions of DSLRs with movie modes. Currently you have little control over what sound is recorded from your onboard microphone as it has such a large field from which it picks up sound, and the quality is poor. You can hear the camera’s operating noises when played back.

The best way to counter this is to buy a stereo external microphone. It’s a minimal cost and you will notice the vast difference in quality immediately. You will find that the sound is more controlled and clearer, and without the camera operating noise that you get from the onboard microphone.

Pick-up ranges
Microphones pick up sound from a variety of fields, all of which can be used for different reasons (it can help to think of microphones and their pick-up ranges as you would lenses and their field of view). For example, omni-directional microphones  are generally used by singers and musicians, as the ability to hang one, say, above a choir, means it will be able to pick up all the singers that are singing clearly and evenly.

In contrast, a rifle microphone  would only pick up one or two members. One of the key microphones in a film maker’s sound bag is a rifle microphone. This is very much like a telephoto lens’s slim field of view. It only picks up sound within a small band directly following the shaft of the mic. With such a small field in which it picks up sound, a rifle microphone greatly reduces the excess noise that is picked up with a mic that has a wide field.
This microphone is most appropriate to use when you have no control over sound in busy environments, so are ideal when interviewing people on the street. This is quite often the soundman’s first choice in his kit, as you have almost complete control over what is heard. These are the microphones you see soundmen holding on the end of a big stick, called a boom. They are usually covered with a hairy sock, which helps significantly reduce wind noise.

 

Words of Advice

Safety First:
Always tape down any leads that run across the ground, especially in public places — you don’t want people tripping over a loose cable. Many productions have fallen foul because of neglecting this, often leading to compensation claims. Remember to scout your location first to note camera positions and possible pitfalls, and this should prevent you from making silly mistakes.

Take Control:
If you are interviewing someone, get the subject to stand or sit still and make sure they are not holding any paper or something that they can fidget with, such as a pen. This will avoid strange noises popping up on your footage. Also, if they have jangly jewellery, ask them nicely if they would mind taking it off and explain why.

EXERCISE
Set up your DSLR on a tripod in a place that has a fair amount of background noise- let your family all talk in the background, for example, while someone stands ready to talk five feet away from the lens. Frame the camera in a close-up.

Without plugging in an external microphone, press record. Ask your subject to speak. When they finish, pan the camera away from them and refocus the camera onto another subject.

Now do exactly the same using an external microphone. Hold the microphone just out of shot but as close to your subject as possible.

Load both sets of footage into Windows Moviemaker, and listen to the difference. You may find that the clip with sound from the onboard microphone is cluttered with background noise and is not really separated out from the person speaking. Perhaps as you pan you will hear lots of bumping and clicking — this is unavoidable using onboard microphones unless you have a completely static shot with no camera movement and focus pulls. This makes your film making very limited.

Next, try the clip with the external microphone. Is the sound much richer? Can the person speaking be heard above the sound of the external sound? You may hear the occasional bump, but this is due to the way in which you hold the microphone. If you held the microphone with the lead connected to the camera, just hanging the lead tugs on the microphone, sending vibrations down into it, so even adjusting your fingers while recording will cause little sound bumps. This is why soundmen use the boom pole and cradle mentioned earlier. The cradle suspends the microphone within the outer case, preventing vibrations affecting the sound.

I doubt you have a microphone boom knocking around in the garage, so try your best to avoid sound bumps with the following pointers:

1. Coil the lead once into a loop, at the end nearest the microphone and hold the loop and microphone in your right hand. Get your hand in a comfortable position and don’t move while recording.
2. Take up the slack of the remaining microphone lead. This will give you the ability to move the microphone if necessary and prevents you from tugging on the lead.
3. Try to not get distracted — keep your microphone positioned at the subject. If you pan away too much (especially with a rifle microphone) you will hear the sound change dramatically. If your subject moves, you will have to follow them, maintaining a constant distance from them.
4. Remember where your edge of frame is. There is nothing worse than getting into the edit suite and seeing a microphone that has crept into shot. If your subject moves away from the camera, you will have to adjust your position by lowering the microphone because of the field of view increasing. If they do move, ideally you should stop and change camera angle (though I know this may not be practical in certain circumstances).
5. A mic stand may come in handy, especially in cases like a wedding where being discreet is a must.
6. Having someone holding a microphone in front of the bride and groom will be awfully annoying for the whole wedding party, but a well-placed microphone that is hidden from view will give excellent results.
7. You may find that the lead that comes with your microphone is very short. Get extensions for this lead — several different lengths, as buying just one 10ft length for everything could get you in a messy ‘whoops-I-tripped’ insurance situation in public places. Get a 3ft length, great for things close to camera, like interviews; a 5ft length, your middle range selection that is good if you need to continuously move around close to camera (you may be interviewing four or five people at the same time); and a 10 footer, great if you need to be discreet and have to run a cable over a distance.

 

We will learn more about the history of film audio; voiceover, planning and recording; how we visualise sound with audio waveforms; what to do when you have recorded your sound; how to layer several audio tracks on the edit suite; and how to manipulate sound with simple effects. In the exercise, I’ll tell you how to create a soundscape, showing how little things can drastically alter the mood of your film. For more information, visit www.photographymonthly.com.

BIOGRAPHY: JOHN CAMPBELL
John Campbell received his MA in film from the International Film School, Wales. He won the cinematography award at the Bristol International Film Festival for a short film called Blue Morning You in 1999. He now works as a freelance film maker for public bodies and arts organisations across the UK and Europe.

This feature is from the June 2010 issue
Back issues can be ordered by calling 01858 438840 or by sending an email to photographymonthly@subscription.co.uk

 

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