Preliminary Equipment List and Sound Recordist

25.10.16

As well as personal projects and music video production, I am also doing sound recording for Wallpaper (Dir. Megan Oxley) which will be a new opportunity for me and will challenge me to learn and adopt to a new role. Wallpaper is a story about loss and discovery. (See Megan's blog for more details).

What has challenged me about this project so far is thinking about what equipment will be best to capture the absolute best audio possible. I have emailed our sound technician regarding equipment and he gave me advice about recording dialogue. He said that the type of microphone used depends on if you are recording audio outdoors or indoors. For outdoor recording he suggested using super-cardioid microphones, which are directional microphones (as they have a heart-shaped pattern of sensitivity). These are more efficient for outdoor recording as they hone in on the subject that they are pointed at, and don't capture much of any other sound. Cardioid microphones, on the other hand, are Omnidirectional which, simply speaking, means they are much better suited for capturing interiors as typically there would be less background noise to be filtered out and is good for recording dialogue between two, three or even four characters.

"In rooms with poor acoustics, close-micing with cardioid mics can work wonders at minimizing reflected sound."

One piece of equipment that I need to be inducted on is the 633 Sound Device and Integrated Recorder. The 633 is a compact, six-input mixer with an in built 10-track recorder. It records to both CompactFlash and SD. All six inputs plus output buses left/right can be recorded to individual tracks. The 633 records up to 10 separate tracks, each in 24-bit, 48 kHz uncompressed WAV recording (96 kHz and 192 kHz sampling up to six tracks) to SD and CompactFlash memory cards. The two cards can be set independently, recording either identical material for a real-time backup, or combinations of WAV and time code stamped MP3 files. This is a very special piece of kit, however, I will have to be inducted on it in order to use it for the grad film so I will have to figure that out and find an alternative if it doesn't work out.