The importance of great audio.

Interesting Charles Chaplin film clip, a clip from one of the greatest actors, but…what else can you identify from this clip besides the great actuation from Chaplin? Yes it is in black and white and yes, NO SOUND.

A movie used to be silent before 1930’s, and nowadays is basically inconceivable to make a silent film. So why is the audio so important in a film? Well; for starters it let you comprehend better the action that is going on in the movie and of course it adds a psychological impact to the film and the drama that the director is intending to achieve in his/her audience. Audio is now considered to be on par as the most important elements in a film, and surprisingly, the audience seems to be more annoyed by a bad audio than a bad cinematography. So what techniques does the directors use to create the best compelling audio in film?

1.- Use a separate recording device:

Generally the quality of the built in mics and preamps in a camera is pretty average, cameras also can have tapes or hard disks running and other electronics that make noise which can be often picked up by microphones. The best solution is to use a separate audio recording device, that is away from the camera (an external microphone and recorder). Many portable recording devices have built in microphones that are far superior to camera or camcorder mics. The best devices often has XLR inputs, which locl the cable in place and provide a much more reliable connection. Another thing to have in consideration is that audio metering in cameras if often poor, and also it’s hard to monitor these at the same time as concentrating on filming. Automatic Gain Control is also something to be avoided at all if possible, as it can introduce compression that may not be of the best quality. Also if you have a couple of mics you can record them onto separate tracks in the recording device and mix these to suit later in edition.

2.  A Two-Man Job

The answer to achieve best levels and quality of audio lies in having two people doing the job. One responsible for the audio recording and the other one responsible to monitor the sound.

Those are two of the main jobs for a good quality audio, find more advices in here. Also of course then comes the edition process, where you have to synch the audio to the video and be careful with the time codes of your audio.  You can use natural sound from the scene or work in Foley (re-creating the sounds yourself) in order to have a great quality audio. Remember, seeing a video, TV show or film should be a complete experience and having a bad audio could make you forget how great a cinematography or story can be.

Here is a trailer of inception (winner of best sound Oscars a couple years ago) just for the sake of having an example of what great video and audio can achieve.