Week 4

This week, our group undertook tasks similar to the ones given last week, but instead of lighting, we dealt with sound. Again, being located in the new '10 Meyers Studio' at UNSW, we intended to harness the full capacity of the space not only inside it, but outside of it.

Initially, we intended to begin our exploration of these sonic devices by seeing how far they could pick up sound, including the clarity of the voice of the individual speaking in addition to the pickup of background noise. We started by doing a "super close" recording of dialogue from the script of our proof of concept assignment. Using a Tascam DR-70D and a phantom microphone, we then did a "close" recording of the dialogue, which sounded very similar to the "super close" but with none of the ASMR-esque sounds (mouth and tongue movements).

We then did a medium distance test and saw a real difference here, as the microphone was in the same place the whole time, it struggled to have a firm grasp of the subjects sound. Subsequently, because of this sound reduction, it made the background noise far more noticeable - an interesting insight for when we film properly later on.

After doing a few tests of how the microphone sounded with and without its dead cat and learning that the sound is actually clearer without the dead cat, we went outside to see how a "super close" recording faired with wind breezing past and people in the middle of conversations walking from class to class. Even though the background noise was certainly noticeable compared to the last few tests, we actually liked the sound, as it gave an element of depth to what the subject was saying, making it sound like he wasn't simply just talking into a microphone like before. Furthermore, we attempted to record the same dialogue outside in a breeze way and in a wide open space with as less distractions and noise as possible. The breezeway proved that even though the microphone doesn't pick up the wind with the dead cat, the wind does partially silence and distort the sounds the subject is making and thus proving not ideal. On the other hand the recording in the wide open space was still very clear and concise, sounding the most similar to the one recorded in the studio. Then lastly, we wanted to record a longer test to see how the flow of the sound felt and was from an outside area, in to a large open indoor space, then to a legitimate production studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu7QwdGVwL8