The Sound Blog - Audio Insights

In my career, I've worked a fair amount as a production sound mixer (PSM) on feature films. In the process, I have used quite a few portable audio recorders, like the Deva 5.8, sound devices 788, 664, MixPre 10T and recently, the Scorpio.  Here are some thoughts that I have.  I hardly did any location work on the Nagra. And very little work on DAT recorders when they started replacing the Nagra.  The earliest DAT recorder that I worked on was the Fostex PD4. It was a professional, 3 channel, timecode capable DAT recorder.  Fostex PD4 It was soon superseded by the DVD-RAM based machine, the Fostex PD6 shown below.  The Fostex PD6 All these Fostex machines were very rugged, built for professional work and had many features, hence they were full of knobs and buttons. Each knob or button generally controlled one function.  I then moved on to the Deva 4, and the Deva 5.8 and did quite a few projects on them. Then came along the Sound Devices recorders. The DVD-R...

Hi friends, For a location sound mixer, recording dialogue can be a challenge. Dialogue can be very dynamic. The softest dialogue as compared to the loudest dialogue, (by the same artist), can easily have a 30 db swing! In film school, we were taught how to use a compressor. But back then, I never paid attention to how a compressor could even out the dialogues, so that a soft whispered dialogue and a loud shout can be heard comfortably in the theatre. I am sure, our professors taught us all this, but somehow, I can't seem to remember it. One of my first jobs after passing out was at a place where we did not use compressors while recording music. It was a purist way of recording music. So I spent several years of my early life, working without compressors. For the first time in my life, I actually realised the importance of a dynamic compressor when I was shooting a television show, sometime in the nineties. I was new to multicam television shows. A 12-channel analogue mixer...

Hi friends, Here is a video interview with Manik Batra, a reputed production sound mixer who has been working in Mumbai since 2008. He has worked on numerous feature films, ad films, Netflix projects, etc... In conversation with will be a series of video interviews of prominent people from our industry. This is the first one in that series. Manik talks about: How his journey began (00:10) Talks about his early days (01:05) The audio recorders he has worked on (06:10) His wish list for a film shoot (08:14) About ADR films (11:26) About sync sound shoots (13:27) About the shoot of '83 (15:26) About working on a Netflix project (19:56) About what needs to change in the Industry (23:12) About life during the lockdown (25:23) About shoots starting post the Covid-19 lockdown (27:23) Hope you like this. Until next time, CC Blog: www.thesoundblog.in Website: www.cheeragcama.com E-mail: cheerag.cama@gmail.com Twitter: @cheragc PS: The music used in...

I have been freelancing as a feature film production sound mixer and television mixer for quite some time now. Every shoot is a collaboration of many many people, belonging to different departments, each doing a specialised job and working towards a common goal...to make a good film or a good television show. A lot of planning goes into getting a day's work go off smoothly, but in spite of the best of efforts towards this goal, things do go awry at times….a new camera turns up without cards, a portion of a set collapses due to overnight rain, the colour on the walls of the set don’t turn out the way the director expected them to...and most filmmakers get going with the shoot in spite of accidents, mistakes, errors, setbacks and upsets. People improvise, innovate, change, adapt….but the shoot must go on. Every department faces problems. Be it the art dept, casting, production, camera, ….. everybody faces problems at some time or another. Some problems are purely due to...

In conversation with Resul Pookutty - Sound designer of the film LOVE SONIA Can you tell us about your relationship with Tabrez Noorani, the Director of Love Sonia? RP: I have a very special equation with Tabrez. He was one of the line producers in Slumdog Millionaire. More than that, when me and Danny had a fight on set, and I walked out of the film, he was the one who actually talked to me and brought me back into the film. So I am eternally indebted to him for whatever happened post Slumdog. Tabrez was hellbent that I should finish the film. So I came back, finished the film and rest is history! And actually when they sent it to the Oscars... when they made the DVD cover, to send the film for submission, Tabrez sent me the layout with a note saying that, “I feel so proud to see your name on this DVD cover”. That's why I have kept the DVD at the entrance of my studio! So that way, he is very special and we clicked very well as friends... we became very close friends. I b...

Hi Friends, A few years ago, I was asked to be the A1 for a wrestling show to be shot in India! For those who don't know what an A1 is, in the USA, the Chief Audio Engineer on a television show is called the A1. This wrestling show was to be telecast on a General Entertainment Channel in India and the Director of the show as well as many of the wrestlers were coming over from the USA. I had never mixed a wrestling show in my life! I imagined there would be two or three commentators, some in-ring announcers and the wrestlers fighting it out in the ring. In fact, the primary mics would be just the hand mikes with the in-ring announcers. But how wrong was I to think that this was going to be simple! Very soon, I found myself sending e-mails left, right and center to people in the USA who wanted to make sure that everything is done according to the way they do things out there. I was briefed in great detail about how they normally do such shows back in the US. I learned that...

Hi Friends, Before I continue with my post today, I just thought I should clarify once again, that in this blog, I am posting my personal views and comments. I just want to share my experiences of the past 33 years with my readers. Today, I want to write about the evolution of sound in the television industry in Mumbai … purely from my point of view. I started working in Mumbai in the field of audio from 1986 onwards, but serious work for television began in 1994. My friends Dileep Subramaniam and Inderjit Neogi asked me if I would be interested in working along with them on a daily soap. I said yes and started working as a freelancer on UTV’s daily soap SHANTI, sometime in 1994. This was India’s first daily soap and telecast on Doordarshan. It made Mandira Bedi a household name! We used to shoot 6 days a week. Since Dileep and Neogi were established freelance recordists and also had many other projects going on simultaneously, they would ask me to go on the shoot of SHANTI whenever t...