5 Basics For Location Sound Pre Production Part 1

Hello all,
It has been a while so I shall treat you to this blog covering 5 very basic things to cover in PREPRODUCTION for your location shoot.
This is for both sound peeps and production!

1. Location scouting
Always ask questions about sound at different times of day/night in any location and preferably try and go at peak hours of traffic to assess the worse case senario. if your there at 3am on a sunday but your shoot is 5pm on a friday its going to sound very different

2. Carpet and cloth blankets
echo (revereration time) from 'live' (hard, reflective surfaces) needs to be covered or as I like to say killed to create a 'dead' (very low revereration time) room or space even if you like it that way! !
Remember lots of gaffer for air conditioning vents etc... The carpet can be for crew to walk on as they never stay rigidly still.

3. Have an arsnel of microphones
With not just cardiod boom mikes (ntg2) but hypercardiod (senn 416) and even hire in mikes on certain days that are needed. Remember directors and production people: location sound is the best investment in terms of its value of return.

4. Sound report sheets
I may post some examples later but use a sensible sound report sheet for not just your own skin but for the poor editors who can easily see in the edit whats good, whats bad and why, even write when directors over turned any desicions and even leave feedback at the end of sound takes to help other sound editors. Slate everything and try to always push to clap at the front and not the end of a take.

5. Get a boom op...
This will help everyone out from setting up rooms for sound to miking actors and allow the recordist to focus on the quality of the sound! They arn't just a fancy mike stand showing off their muscles and eating all your food but good ones are usually sound recordists as well, two heads are better than one... Or at least 4 hands are better than 2 :-)
Continue to 5 more preproduction basics for location sound.
This concludes the first 5 basics to do in PREPRODUCTION, dont be shy to share this article if you know the production can benefit from these 5, CAUSE THEY CAN :-)
Thanks,
Matt Price

Transducer

A transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another. Energy types include electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic (including light), chemical, acoustic or thermal energy and many more. While the term transducer commonly implies the use of a sensor/detector, any device which converts energy can be considered a transducer.


So a microphone is considered a transducer because it turns acoustic energy into electrical energy.


Thanks,

Matt Price

Q+A: How Do Dynamic Microphones Work?

With reference to the diagram below a dynamic microphone has a thin diaphragm attached to a coil of wire, which in turn is surrounding a magnet. When sound waves vibrate the diaphragm this vibrates the coil and the difference on the magnet translate to current in the wire and then goes to an external device or speaker. The speed of vibration determines the current and the resulting sound.

Dynamic microphones are generally used for live events such as concerts. This is due to the fact unlike the condenser microphone, it has a low sensitivity and can handle a lot louder environments.

Any questions or feel i have missed anything please comment below,

Thanks

-Matt Price