The challenge of Song 4 - Leaving Town (duet)

One of the biggest challenges I faced whilst on Jailbird was Song 4. Not only were there the complication of recording vocals live on set but now it was doubled. During pre-production we had a test on how doubling up the recording devices would work. It was a success and so was it on set of the actual shoot. Both Lucy and Kane (our cast) had the DPA and Puretone set-up. They went onto sing and act as they should of.

It was only when the project came into the sound edit did the new challenges start to occur. Due to the amount of cuts and many different takes used in the final edit, the vocals where not consistent in the slightest. On set we recorded in 3 different way. DPA's, Boom and a stereo mic. I once again made the decision to only edit to the DPA's due to their consistency and decent sound quality. I scrapped the edits audio and started from scratch. One problem that did arise is that Lucy is a much more powerful singer than Kane, and due to the height difference, when Lucy and Kane would sing near one another Lucy's voice would be picked up very clearly and what was supposed to be Kane's microphone.

The video is a comparison of the 4 microphones used. Although this is not the take chosen, it is the cleanest across all recordings.


Once I have synced up the radio mics to the visuals I needed to create the atmosphere. Similar to the white void scene I needed to create the illusion of space. The atmosphere was key but more importantly the reverberation of their voices needed to be grand.

The top reverb window is Kane's (Rick's) and the bottoms is Lucy's (Jenny's). With his voice being a lot more 'bassy' I brought down the wettness ever so slightly, not to over power the reverb. The space is supposed to be a void, therefore the voices shouldn't be echoing. However, for the emotions to come through and simply to have a more serial experience the the fullness of the voice and atmosphere needed to be present.

Creation of the music

The music was the first and also the last element within the film. Lexy wrote the songs on guitar back in the summer of 2015. Once the the group had been formed, my first task was to find a piansit and a music producer. The pianist would turn out to be with us on set, playing a midi keyboard, through Logic X and then transmitted to the Puretone earpiece via Sennheiser radio packs.

For the pianist, I tried to look as local as possible. I first contacted the Guildford School for Acting (GSA) as their courses are very heavily music based. Unfortunately none of their students were available. We then decided to get into contact with a fellow student, Urmas Salu. Luckily enough his filming dates did not clash with our own and so he was able to help out on the shoots.

For the music producer we decided to use  Mandy.com. I posted up an advertisement, requesting for any musician from across the the south of England to help us. A man called Carl Harries sent us over his work and we went from there. The director and the producers deliberated  and out of all the candidates, it was decided that Carl would be our man.

Whilst on set we recorded all of Urmas' piano. It was then logged and given to the editor, Kimmy. Depending on what takes Kimmy decided to use in the edit it would determine the take of the piano recording. Every take was different, a beat here and there made all the difference so it was important that Kimmy had the correct piano piece to work with.

Once the edit was complete the edited film, without music was sent to Carl. We had already asked him, during pre-production, to create some demo tracks. These were altered and changed throughout the whole of production and after a couple of visits to his home studio in Swindon, we had our final pieces of music.

The video shows the difference between the raw piano and the final piece.

Capturing foley - Cell door

During the visuals edit I decided to be proactive and prepare myself for the sound edit. I decided to start off by capturing necessary foley sounds including sounds for the jail. I decided to look into and research into old jails, police stations, security holding rooms, any location that may have been useful for capturing the sounds of metal and steel. It was apparent after a few days of research that a cell door was going to be a difficult find. I decided to look in more unconventional locations that may have easier access. I contacted Alligator Storage in Farnham in the hopes that their storage facilities had some very heavy metallic sounding doors. 

Once the firm agreed for us to visit, the director and I made our way over and captured everything we could think of. Footsteps as the floor was cemented, keys rattling, doors closing, impacts with the metal walls. Everything. We also decided to capture a wildtrack, the atmosphere of the place was very busy but distant, exactly like the surrondings of a basement prison cell. 

However, the doors weren't the right sound for us. They created a very good impact sound, but the thick sounding metal was not there. We left Alligator storage without the sound we went there to capture. 

Later that night I decided to wonder the streets the Aldershot, looking for all types of gates. I captured small ones, large ones, broken ones rusted ones, it was a successful trip. Also, with it being nighttime and outside, there was no echo with the sounds. It allowed me complete freedom to manipulate the sounds in the way I want. 

In the end I used a mixture of three sound to create the ideal jail cell door. In the video I have separated the the three sounds to show how each sound plays a vital part in, what should have been, a very simple sound. The sounds included are from both the alligator storage and my midnight hunt for gates.  

Editing the Vocals Song 1 - Where am I

As I started the sound edit, my main concern were the vocals of the songs. It was important to create the right balance between studio recording quality and the emotion created on set. As I have mentioned before, I decided to use the DPA 4071 to capture the vocals. I also got coverage with the Sennhesier which I used mainly for creating the atmospheres for the songs. At the start of this process I believed that a boom mic was always the best way to capture audio However I needed the DPA's for coverage and constituency. Although the DPA's did an amazing job of capturing the vocals in times where the boom could not, once I was in the edit and matched the DPA recordings to that of the Boom, there was a clear difference in the voice. The DPA's came out much more muddy, they had to be positioned quite deep under the clothing, very near the actresses chest. Ideally I would of had them on the outside of the costume and then for the costume team to hide it with fabric. The video below is a comparison of both the microphones used from the first song Where am I.It is the same take and neither of the audio tracks have been edited.

The comparison indicates the pros and cons of both microphone. The boom manages to capture the atmosphere and the natural reverb of the voice. It also contains a wider frequency range of the voice. However, there is a lot of unwanted noise and sounds that come in from her movement, especially when she hits the back of the set. Also, due to the positioning constraints given to the boom operator, once the actress moves to the back of the set, the boom cannot reach and there is a change in volume.
With regards to the DPA microphone the voice captured is consistent and clear. It allows me to manipulate the voice without having to 'clean up' anything first. However due to the characteristics of radio mics, re recording are very dry. There is not much natural reverb and the highs of the voice have been lost. I tried to mix the two recordings in with each other but for multiple reasons this did not work for this particular song. I decided to go with consistency instead of natural sounds. For song one I only used the DPA's for the vocals. It did mean that reverb and EQ had to be used very effectively.
A lot of work went into balancing the vocals into the world of the film. Because I was bringing back the highs it mean a lot of hiss and other unwanted sound came with it. iZotope helped out greatly during these processes but it was still the fine tuning of EQ that created a more realistic voice. This wasn't just a common problem in the first song, each song had to be treated in the same way. However, due to the different locations and atmospheres, each vocal track had to go through the same procedure.




Overall I am happy with the quality I managed to get out of the DPA's. It took a lot of work to get them into a state where they fit within the realms of the film but it was a challenge. There is still much to be done, some songs I would like to re-shoot as the recordings may not be as strong as I would like them to be. More work will be done to the vocals after the graduation screening, in preparation to festivals.

Research - White Void - THX 1138 (1971)

Within scene 3 we are in the location of a white void. Although this is during a song and will most probably drown out the majority of the ambient sound I still want to ensure that the sonic world feels real. 

We are in a white void, there is no beginning nor no end. Visually we are restriced by the edge of the frame, audibly, it is endless. I must replicate this space within the sound design and to do this I decided to look THX 1138. Within this film there is a space called 'Limbo Prison'. Walter Murch explains how the room tone is of upmost importance to convince the audience about the gravity of the space. 

“It’s basically the room tone from the Exploratorium in San Francisco. . . . It’s a veil of mysterious sound—it doesn’t have anything specific to it, but it is full of suggestive fragments.”

For our White Void scene I will be visiting large empty spaces to capture ambient tones. Halls, churches and indoor sport courts all have massive spaces that carry their own unique tone. I will travel to these separate locations and, with permission, capture the sounds. It will then be a process of trial and error to see what tone fits the best. My initial opinion is the larger the space the better.  

On set set-up!

The video below explains the set-up I used to deliver the music into the actors ear and how I captured it. The quality of the video and explanation may lack but it helped in order to explain how everything linked up together. 

Another sound test!

After the first successful sound test with the correct equipment I decided to test multiple radio mics to see if I could achieve the same results but just doubled. Although this time I did not have access to the DPA's and Puretone earpieces, I was able to book out the Sennheiser Radio mics and Sound Devices 633.

Overall it was a success. Below is a video of the results. One with, and one without music.