Reading Notes

Reading Notes

Recording Sound in Video Productions

• Unlike radio, television and video demand that microphones are hidden away from the camera whenever possible. But, crucially, you need to keep your sound synced with your camera.
• The recorded sound needs to match the movement of the mouth. When your audience can see dialogue out of sync, you risk parodying badly dubbed martial art films.
• It's not uncommon for the voices of the performers to be buried under sounds of passing cars, wind and random background noise.
• You will most commonly get the best result from external microphones, all cameras tend to have input jacks for these, which will keep them in sync, and they will dramatically improve your sound quality when used correctly.

When it came to the production of our documentary, we made sure that the shot gun microphones we used where out of the camera frame. Also, when we recorded our interviews with Ben's Rode microphone, it was vital that we synced that sound to our video footage we had gain as the microphone on Ben's camera isn't the best quality microphone for picking up dialogue. Luckily, very little of our documentary was shot outside (apart from cutaways where sound wasn't needed) so we ensured we recorded some ambient noise of the piercing studio.

Shooting on Location

• Keep in touch with your crew, discuss what you're going to be doing and keep interpersonal relationships strong. Without the co-operation of your crew, you will not succeed.
• Shot exterior shots first, the weather may change. Start with the hardest and most important shots incase you run out of time.
• Establishing shots are essential. Always shoot more than you think you should

Keeping in touch wasn't a problem for our group as we created a group Facebook chat to keep in contact with each other. When we filmed in town, we should of taken more cutaway footage at first as this would have avoided the situation of myself and Ben having to go back into town to Punktured Piercing to gain more cutaway footage.

Research and Development

• Your ideas for a concept can be broadened by personal experience, media, new research, looking for ideas
• It vital you plan and research your documentary topic, be open minded about it but read, read, read! You must aim to become an expert in the subject that you are dealing with. Get your facts right!

Unfortunately, our documentary concept change a few weeks before the end of term so we had to re-research our documentary's subject field. I searched up about types of piercings and procedures as well as looking at the flyers and adverts of Punktured Piercing. Becoming an expert in the field triggers more interesting questions and discussion during an interview, thus gaining better quality footage.

Notes on Preparing Interviews for Documentary

Editing