Note to Self, Always Record Ambient Audio

john_dennis wrote on 6/26/2018, 4:37 PM

It seems that I look around in my clips for every shoot for a few seconds of audio where there is the characteristic sounds of the space minus the announcer or the program. I use it to fill the gaps where I display the titles for the next scene and to cover announcements that would destroy the context of what I chose to include next. I’ve decided to shoot a couple minutes for every event and render to wav minus the video. It’s amazing to me, the herky-jerky machinations to which I’ve resorted to get 15 seconds of filler audio... just yesterday.

Comments

Rory Cooper wrote on 6/27/2018, 2:46 AM

always , always. walla isn't just noise its always relative to a specific ambiance scene, sometimes you can use generic and it works. sometimes I forget. I have a field recorder always in my gear. If you don't see it you can forget.

karma17 wrote on 6/27/2018, 6:12 AM

I've found it helpful to have a checklist or cheat sheet I carry with me on a small laminated card. It is so easy, getting distracted in a location, to forget something like that.

rraud wrote on 6/27/2018, 10:44 AM

When I was doing sound for docus, I always made sure the cam folks had their cam mics on, For feature films, even scenes w/o dialog, I'll usually record the open boom mic for dallies and a reference for post atmos S/FX.