Robot Cousin’s Audio Feed

So, in the next few days, I shall receive my M-Audio Microtrack 2 in the mail. Well, technically a visiting friend has agreed to pick it up for me and bring it with him. This means that I’ll have a mic that’s actually worth a damn to record some new stuff. That is, if I actually have anything to say or talk about.

Who here wants lessons in audio and sound theory?

In the meantime, I may turn this into more of a blog about sound/audio/music. I can’t see too many people minding. To kick off this post, I’ll post a rant/essay/thingy I wrote for the New Brunswick Film Maker’s Co-operative. It’s a short little write-up on the importance of Room Tone when recording sound while shooting a film. Here goes…

 

“Working with the Room” by Jordan Roherty

There’s nothing that takes anyone out of the movie-watching experience faster than bad sound. Bad acting you can laugh at, bad lighting could be considered intentional, bad camera-work could be the next Blair Witch. However, bad sound just doesn’t work. And it never will.

I don’t want to hit on every aspect of proper sound recording. I’m only going to discuss one; Room Tone, otherwise known as RT. For the uninitiated (and there are a surprising number out there), room tone is the general ambient noise of whatever location you are currently filming in. Fridges, stoves, crowds, crickets, the hum of the lights, or the ticking clock… all of that is considered room tone. Why is it important?

Imagine watching a film, and every time there’s a different shot, the film’s audio all of a sudden becomes a little louder or quieter. In other words, it sounds horrible. Having adequate and proper room tone, which should be about 30-seconds per location, allows the post-engineer to layer and loop it over the edits, and it helps the cuts to blend in with one another. Most importantly, it keeps the viewer’s focus on the art, rather than have their attention stolen by something that should be transparent. Proper sound editing easily goes unnoticed, but in a way that’s how it should be.

Imagine the tense moment when Vader tells Luke who he really is. You’re pulled in by the story, and wonder what’s about to happen. You’re not sitting there listening to the droning of the Death Star. This is because that droning/ambience is always there, and it’s acting like a sonic varnish to an already well-stained deck-of-a-scene.

RT should ideally be recorded at the scene, preferably right before the first shot. I say “before” and not “after” due to the fact that before you start filming, everyone is mentally checking themselves, getting prepped for some movie-making. That is the PERFECT time to ask for 30 seconds of silence (out of respect for the sound guy, hee hee!), because everyone’s more willing to do it then. “Hey, we’re all on a film set. Gotta be professional!” tends to be the general feeling of the cast and crew at those times.

If you find yourself at the end of the location shot list, asking for 30 seconds is more difficult because, by this point (depending on the director), everyone just wants to get the heck out of there, and fast. They might be hungry, they might be tired, they could be planning a coup to overthrow the art department, and RT is the last thing on anyone’s mind.

To directors: Recognize this as a crucial element of your final sound mix. I realize for a lot of people, this might be an afterthought as most good post-production sound guys will find a way around it. In the immortal words of Frank Zappa, they’ll “fix it in the shrink-wrap”. And that’s true, they might be able to do that. But let’s say you get a sound guy who might not have some generic RT lying around… it’s not only helpful and considerate to include some with your sound files/reel, but it also saves everyone a lot of time and headache from going and either searching for some, or recording their own later on. And if you’re paying for post-production by the hour, why did you leave it until now, when it only would’ve been 30-seconds before?

For sound recordist/mixers/boom operators: You have a responsibility and a (non-official) right to ask for this every time a new location is being filmed. Seasoned directors will recognize this, and although they may be all excited to get filming, they’ll definitely appreciate this later on, as they most likely have put up with no RT in the past. You may interrupt someone’s “flow” if they’re practicing their lines, or if they’re adjusting some art direction, but you’re also doing a very important part of your job as well. We all make better films when we all work at our highest capacity. 

Of course, if they give you any guff, you could always ask them what their favourite silent film is. Without you guys, we’d still be watching those.

For everyone else, please keep any and all guff to yourselves, at least until the wrap party. Tell me how good The Dark Knight was with the sound off. Yeah, exactly.

Taking 30-seconds out of every location change is never going to horribly shift the shooting schedule. It’s never going to kill the mood. It won’t cause bad filmmaking karma, ruin a (good) joke you’re about to finish telling, or cause food in the oven to burn. It can and will only do good.

You wouldn’t build a brick house without any mortar. You shouldn’t have to do audio post-production without RT.

Hugs,

Jordan

Ok, so I get what an MSRP price is. Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. What normally happens is the manufacturer puts out an MSRP, and then distributors/vendors sell it for a fair deal lower. So, if something had an MSRP of $1000, you could probably find it for around $800.

The M-Audio Microtrack II has an MSRP of $649.99 CDN. Long & Mcqaude is selling them for $250!!!!!

If anyone is interested in a good personal recorder, I would seriously suggest checking it out.
I just got one, and I’m waiting for it to arrive. When it gets here, I’ll be testing it out and probably doing another episode, finally.

Hey all, long time, no post. I’m still kicking. Busy, but still here. For the longest time, I was having trouble with my MySQL database settings. The dreamhost staff told me what to do at first, and I tried my best. Turns out, I really don’t know what I’m doing at all when I try and edit some SQL settings. Finally got around to emailing them last night, but this time, I made sure to include “I don’t know what I’m doing at all, the fate of my page rests upon your shoulders”, or something like that.

Within 10 minutes, the site was back up and ready to go. So, after I get a few projects finished, I’ll be putting up another episode.

‘Richard King‘ for his work in ‘The Dark Knight‘. Makes sense, since that film wasn’t only visually pleasing, but also sonically well-done. Very well-done.

The winnder of ‘Best Achievement in Sound’ went to ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘, for the work provided by Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, and Resul Pookutty. I’m looking forward to finally seeing (and hearing) this film tomorrow night.

Robot Cousin’s Audio Feed – Episode 4

Links of relevance:

• www.benunderwood.com
• Hobnox’s Audiotool
• AudioSurf
• RPM Challenge
• Terminator 2 Sound Design with Gary Rydstrom (and a clip of T-1000)

Ok, so I’m not that good at this podcast thing, in respect to putting out episodes. I have tons of ideas, and they’re all saved, and I am going to put them together very soon. I guess I’m just unsure of what audience I could possibly have. Audio Engineers would listen to it and think “Well, duh”, as I’m not really reporting on anything new or advanced that they’re not aware of, or not able to find on a better site. Should I aim for the everyday internet-surfer, interested to learn about audio from a distance? Perhaps. 

Either way, the point of this post is not the paragraph I just wrote. It’s about the RPM ‘09 Challenge that I’ve enrolled in and want to help get the word out. Basically, it’s a call to all songwriters/composers to create 10 tracks or 35 minutes of original music in the month of February. I’ve decided to partake this year (unlike last year, where I kind of flaked out during, and never released anything I had worked on) and put out a bunch of new music that I haven’t even thought up yet. I’m excited, which is probably the main ingredient in a project recipe like this one.

-Jordan

Ok, another non-podcast update, but it’s not like I’m going to record myself giving my opinion about, or reading through the roundtable questions and answers.

The Hollywood Reporter has a roundtable interview with Danny Elfman (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands), Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings, Doubt), Jan Kaczmarek (Finding Neverland, Unfaithful), A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Golden Compass), and it steps into what they like and dislike about scoring a film, and a bit about their personal approach to a new project.

I’m not going to copy and paste it here, but I do suggest you check it out (otherwise, why would I be posting about it?). Personally, the most interesting thing I took away from the article was the mantra ‘Keep the pencil moving’, which is to say…

Never stop creating.

Hey all, happy holidays! I just wanted to let everyone know that, although I’ve been quite busy lately, I haven’t forgotten about RCAF, and I’ll have a new episode up in a little while. Most likely after the new year. And I’ll try to make it longer, and worthwhile.

I of course am fully aware that this is a podcast-based blog, but since I won’t be recording anything for a little bit, I figure I should mention this now, as I just found out.

According to nytimes.com, ‘The Dark Knight’”s musical score is ineligible for an Oscar nomination, due to the fact that ‘too many names were listed on the official musical cue sheet for the film.’ (a cue sheet is a list of music that has been showcased in a film or tv show, and is submitted to royalty distribution companies such as ASCAP in the States, and SOCAN in Canada.) The people listed on the aforementioned cue sheet are Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Alex Gibson, Mel Wesson, and Lorne Balfe.

Why is this grounds for disqualification? The only thing I can think of that would cause a problem would be… who gets to take the award home? Personally, if I were to win that award, even with 20 other people, I wouldn’t care who had it, I would just be proud of our work.

Speaking of their work, you can pick up a copy of the soundtrack here. Do it, it’s excellent.

Just a little notice that www.robotcousin.com has gone live, although it’s almost done. Everything is there, aside from the Demo Reel, but I should be uploading media to that either this coming week, or the next.

-Jordan