During week 3 of Semester A we had a guest lecture by Lol Hammond – music supervisor at Vertigo Films.

From his talk we learned about spreading out music budgets for big and small productions. He made it clear that many parties are involved when it comes to choosing the proper musical arrangements for any production – Record companies, publishers and so on.
A good pointer was that a good idea would be to contact the artist directly as they might like the project it self and would like to be involved with it which makes the process of getting their music easier. He also reflected upon how using a composer is much cheaper than using an existing piece of music. All in all it was a very informative talk. (LO3)
What I learned from the lecture is that it would be a useful thing to discuss with my group an audio budget and make a proper budget layout so that I know where I stand with the scoring of the documentary. I also learned that when asking to use an existing track I have to formulate a list of criteria to give to the relevant people to let them know how their track is going to be used. Furthermore a good point was made that sometimes music could take attention away from the scenes and the actions on screen – the concept of “Sometimes Less is More”. (LO3)
This week I also met with my group and ironed out what was expected of me. We also prepared for our first interview shoot. We discussed equipment, work plan and details about location and duration of the shoot.
THE INTERVIEW:
2 Local cosplayers making parts of their next costumes and preparing for MCM Comic Con London 2015 held this October.
The equipment I booked out was – 2 lapelle microphones to close mic the interviewees and also a Rhode Shotgun Microphone to capture some room ambiance, spot FX and also some of the dialogue when the interviewees move around the room. To record I booked the Sound Devices 633 Field mixer and a Zoom H4n portable recorder just in case. –

In field and location recording, a team of three people can work together to achieve balance of microphone positioning (whether by boom or lapel), live sound mixing where more than one microphone is being used, and record keeping of the sound log. Well established professionals in film sound production argue that there can never be enough sound recorded in terms of correct positioning, sound direction angles, ambiance and keeping the sound track recording going long before the assistant director’s shout of ‘action’ and ‘cut’.
(Crook, 2012) 

This week I also had a look at similar documentaries to help me brainstorm ideas on how to score the piece.

Crook,T. (2012) The Sound Handbook, Milton Park/Oxon: Routledge.