Recording quality sound on location

Recording when you are on location is tricky however it is completely achievable with the right equipment depending on the conditions. This equipment can help achieve this:

• Quality condenser rifle microphones. This will help to capture quality sound while on location by having a specific direction of sound, this can only pick up sound that is in that certain direction. 
• A Wind Shield/Dead Cat. This goes over the top of the microphones that you have ended up using and they then shield some of the wind/environmental noises from being able to be heard. 
• Mobile recorder or a back-up recorder. These are to make sure that the sound that you are wanting to record is actually recorded, making sure that back ups are on hand will help just in case the primary source stops working or if there is any technical issues. 
• Headphones. These are essential to have, especially when they are closed cup/noise cancelling meaning that you are able to hear what the recording sounds like, then you are able to make quick decisions about how you can make the recording better. 
• Boom/fish pole. This has the rifle microphone(s) attached to them. This means that you can have the microphone quite close  to the actors or what you are aiming to record and then you can stand further away from the action and still be able to hear and control where the microphone is especially the height.
• Lavaliere Microphones.  These microphones are small and compact and can have a dead cat or wind shield on top. Having a small microphone means that they can get closer to the talent and then there are 2 options of sound to use when it comes to editing. 

Synchronisation

When a media production team is making a film or television show there are 2 elements that they need to sync together during post production, this is sound and visual. There are two options that they could go down to achieve this, these are: 

1. Using a clapperboard/slate. This makes a sound when they are shut, this then gets picked up by the audio and visual which creates a spike in the track which can be seen during post production. This then means the two tracks can be put together by using the tip of the spike as a guide/reference. Then one of these tracks can be deleted and the chosen audio track can be used. 
2. This option is using the editing software that you use during post production to sync both the audio to the visual. I use Adobe Premiere Pro in all of my post production projects and have used this option a few times. Once you are on this software you select the tracks that you want to  sync together. Once you have right clicked with your mouse or laptop and there will be a drop down menu, you need to then choose the synchronisation option. It will then pop up with another window with the sync options. Only select the audio option on the screen and then press 'Ok', this will then sync your audio and visual together and you can then delete whichever audio track you have decided not to use and continue to edit. 

SMPTE

SMPTE stands for Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers and is pronounced "simtee". SMPTE is another word/name for time code, this can be used when they are editing and making/showing the final cuts. The time code is simple to read, the first digits is how many hours, the second digits is how many minutes, the third digits are how many seconds and the last digits are how many frames it is. This is used to be able to locate precise frames or specific scene/piece of audio while editing that may need improving before getting the final project. 

When you are on Premiere Pro you can add a time code onto your project. To do this you need to add a transparent video on top of your project. Then you must stretch the transparent video over your whole project to fit its length, then you can add the time code effect to it from the effects bar and then you have to make the time code's source to be the clip/project that you are working on (which you can do in the effects bar). 

Audio Content

Within a scene in a film or television show there will be lots of different pieces of audio either all happening at the same time or at different times. The first element that is probably the most prominent in any scene is dialogue. Depending on the script depends on how much talking we hear, it could be that we hear a main character and a loud crowd of people or it could just be one person's voice. For example, in this scene in Gilmore Girls you can hear 2 main characters talking about jumping but you can also hear the crowd that is behind them and there are some more characters who talk on their own as well as the 2 main ones. Getting the balance between them is the key to a good scene and audio. 

There are some scenes that are in need of music as well as dialogue or instead. There are 2 types of music that could be heard musically throughout a scene. The first type of music that you could hear throughout a scene is non diegetic music, this type of music is normally heard when there is a montage as the scene or there is music/a soundtrack playing that the characters in the scene cannot hear. My example of non diegetic music in a scene is in Scooby Doo 2, in this particular scene they are having a montage with music over the top that the characters cannot hear. The second type of music that can feature in a scene is diegetic music, this is the opposite to non diegetic so it can be heard by the characters in the scene. An example of this is in the film Rocketman. In this particular scene is Taron Egerton playing Elton John is singing I'm Still Standing and his singing can be heard by the other characters in the scene as well as himself. 

Some scenes may have dialogue and then things happening in the background or there could be a car chase scene, without sound effects that scene would be quite boring, and quite possibly be in silence. In this particular scene in Man From Uncle there is a car chase scene where both cars are shooting at each other. As well as dialogue in the scene there is also gun shots and car engines and lots of other noises that are covered by sound effects. 

There is one more element to audio in film and television that is worth mentioning and this is called a Wild track. A wild track is something that is not recorded at the time the original scene is being recorded. Wild tracks could be lots of different things, the first could be location sound effects like general scene ambience, this fills the dead space in the background and makes the scene seem more natural like it actually happened. The other element to a wild track is recorded extra lines  for either dubbing purposes or if in the scene that was recorded their audio cannot be heard so the extra lines go over the top. The dubbing purposes is if the film is rated one rating but it wants to be shown on day time television or a network that doesn't permit language that was used, therefore the actor dubs their own voice with another line. 

Documenting Recordings 

When documenting specific audio recordings that have been used there is a process of storing, marking and documenting the audio. This is usually marked on a time code log sheet. On this sheet there are 8 columns to fill in all together: 

1. Tape Number (What tape did it record on)
2. Shot number 
3. Take Number (Howe many times did it take to get it) 
4. Time Code start
5. Time Code Finish
6. Shot Description 
7. Audio Description 
8. Use? 

All of these columns are filled in for every pierce of audio that is recorded and is then given to the editing crew to know which audio pieces are good to use or are exceptable to use in the project.