The Sound Blog - Audio Insights

 Here is a link to an article I contributed to PalmTechnology magazine. https://www.palmtechnology.in/Article-147-CHow-I-Prepare-for-My-Shoot.aspx

Recently, I  went abroad to shoot a feature film in the desert and spent close to 60 days out there. As the shoot progressed, I kept making notes about the shoot - especially of things that were not going as expected, and what I would do, if given a similar chance again.  Below are some tips / suggestions / observations that I thought of sharing on my blog.  For any shoot that you go to, preparation is the key to having a good and satisfying  outcome. Especially when going away from your city, or going to a foreign country.  Plan … Anticipate … Prepare … A good sound team is one that is well prepared for any eventuality. No matter how much you plan, things will change … that is the nature of filmmaking. And the better prepared you are for any change that happens, the better your work will be. If you accept this one fact, you will not feel distraught when things change midway in a shoot. Call sheet may say something, but on set, things may change at any time, and...

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  Fostex PD4 It was soon superseded by the DVD-RAM based machine, the Fostex PD6 shown below.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...