Microphones:
Small Diagram Condensers For Foley-
Upon initial research i found that many foley artists and engineers used the Neumann KM184 due to its precise, detailed capture of higher frequency sounds, low self-noise and tight cardioid pattern witch causes clean and accurate recordings of subtle effects. However, unfortunately neither I or the college have one and the cost:benefit ratio would not be worth buying one. Luckily, there are other options such as the Audio Technica 4041. This is a very good option and i will most likely use it. Online reviews talk about it having a “natural tone and wide frequency response”. in comparison, to the Neumann KM184 it is said to have a wider frequency response and slightly more self-noise but is a very good option for foley still.
Se electronics se4 is the other option i have but i find it to be less desirable for foley in most situations. The positives are that it can handle softer sounds well, but can also distort with louder sounds. Its sensitive to background sounds witch makes it more challenging to smoothly blend in with the video. This could be fixed by treating the acoustics in the room where i record but this would come at a cost. Due to these reasons its unlikely that i will use this mic.
Dynamic For Foley-
When recording louder sounds, a shotgun or dynamic microphone would be a lot more appropriate. This is down to the KM184’s low SPL tolerance witch would cause distortion on higher db noises on small diaphragm condensers. I researched the price of good, budget friendly shotgun mics and they start at around £130. This is unfortunate due to shotgun mics being the a great way to record highly directional sounds as well as to cancel out background sound.
A good alternative to capture louder sounds (slamming doors, gunshots, etc.) that I may need to consider would be a Shure SM7B, which is a dynamic mic. This mic is good for this due to its high SPL. In comparison to shotgun mics, the SM7B is less sensitive and captures less nuance. Although it is cheaper, it will lack in some important areas, such as having more room noise and capturing less nuance. If the SM7B had a supercardioid setting, this would address reverberation, background noise, and directional recording issues, but I’m not too concerned about this because the mic is already very good at canceling room sound due to its cardioid pattern. The SM7B is also successful at handling louder sounds up close witch isn’t a shotgun mics strong point.
Production Sound techniques
Music And Score Intergration:
When scoring music for Film/Tv its important to find the balence between the music enhancing the scene but without over powering the dialogue. I could do this by using automation on logic, this means i can reduce the amplitude when there is dialogue or in a more tender moment of the film and then increase the volume when the dialogue stops. The main thing that im focused on with my scoring production, is to not to over power anything in the film, only to enhance it and further evoke the emotional impact. Most of the time the music i add wont be front of attention because film music is used to support the film.
Final Mixing And Mastering
This leads on to Mixing and mastering as a whole. There are many aspects to think about when combining all the layers of foley, SFX, ambience and vocals. One of these is reverb matching, this is important because all sounds need to match the size and reverb of the room or space its recorded in. The dialogue will also already have some forms of room ambience or reverb in most cases so i could choose to eq some of the ambience out or adjust the reverb to create the directors desired effect. Balancing levels is one of the most important parts because nothing will sound good in the final mix unless its all the sounds are balanced and levelled to match the feelings that the scene evokes. for example, in a sad scene there would often be very quiet dialogue and dark lighting so id make sure to match the volume of the dialogue with the tone in the actors voices and add some very soft ambient piano or keyboard music.
To further improve the sound production value of the film i will add surround sound to give a cinema like sound. This is when i place audio in different speaker channels. its used a lot in films when something happens from behind the audiences POV such as a knock on the door, or a glass smash. there is also binaural audio witch is very clever but harder to pull of successfully. Its when there is 2 mics placed at the height and distance apart of human ears, there sometimes even attached to a mannequin head. This replicates how humans hear, sound hits one ear before the other or is louder in one ear to show what direction the sounds is coming from. This makes for an immersive experience for the listener but its hard to do without the proper equipment and you could achieve similar effects just through automating pan through Logic.
Sound Effects And Ambience
In project 2 i found all my background sounds online, background sounds can be rain, traffic, running water or anything els that you would hear in day to day life. The issue with finding them online is there often recorded on low quality mics that will shape, compress or distort the original sound. To fix this i will try looking for the best quality sounds possible but if none are suitable i can replicate sounds of nature with random house hold objects such as frying bacon to sound like rain or plastic wrap to sound like fire. These effects and ones like sci-fi noises can all me manipulated, stretched and layered to get more realistic and detailed sounds.