nofilmschool » audiorecording

Shotgun Mic with a Built-In Flash Recorder: the Shure VP83F

Micah Van Hove — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:27:16 +0000

Audio technology is a pretty stable industry, but manufacturers are continuing to experiment with new features to help sweeten the deal. This time, it’s an interesting approach from Shure: a shotgun mic with its own internal recording capabilities called the VP83F. Hit the jump for the details: (more…)

Get a Crash Course in Production Sound from 'Parenthood' Mixer Nicholas Allen

Joe Marine — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:11:49 +0000

Getting good quality sound on-set can sometimes feel like an impossibility, especially on lower budget productions. While the sound mixer can often go underappreciated on many of these productions, their job, if done correctly, is right up there with the 1st AC (or focus-puller). If your movie is not in focus it’s going to distract the audience, and at the same time, bad audio will be even more distracting. SoundWorks Collection has profiled professional sound people from all across Hollywood, and today we’ve got a video that goes in-depth with Nicholas Allen, who is the sound mixer on NBC’s Parenthood. (more…)

RØDE's New smartLav iOS Lavalier, VideoMic Upgrade, Plus Apogee's iPortable Recording Studio

Dave Kendricken — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:57:28 +0000

We recently posted about RØDE’s iXY microphone and Rec app for iOS devices. While perhaps not suitable for everyone’s needs (or inversely, budget), it marks another step toward a lone multi-purpose tool handy to the crafty filmmaker — the iOS iPhone/iPad. While I’ll never own one, even I have to hand it to the iLeatherman. In a pinch, it’s a light meter, it’s a GoPro, it’s a shot designer, and with iXY and RØDE Rec, it’s a dual-system audio recorder, too. Now, RØDE continues its drive to make iOS a viable field sound-rec system with the smartLav lavalier microphone — as does the Apogee ONE, a like-minded iPad portable ‘recording studio’ system. RØDE has also upgraded its VideoMic for those run-and-gun shooters unsatisfied with smartphone sound — check out the details of each below. (more…)

Listen to the Oldest Surviving Voice Recording with Music, Finally Digitized

Dave Kendricken — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 14:30:11 +0000

As many of you know, one of the goals of NoFilmSchool is to keep our readers up to date regarding the latest in acquisition options and upcoming formats, as well as ways to put it all together. Less often are we able to move in the other direction so to speak, and bring you news about really innovative recording systems — from over 100 years ago. As digital filmmakers, videographers, and photographers, in a technological sense, we’re standing on the shoulders of giants. I’m sure there are moments in which many of us forget the years it has taken to bring our tools to the advanced level they’ve reached, and in which we just plain take those tools for granted. Why wouldn’t we? The recent (re)discovery of a comparatively ancient audio recording — one that allegedly features the world’s first recorded musical performance, as well as its first blooper — may help to remind us how good we really have it! Read on to hear the recording, and to find out how it was made possible. (more…)

Reinventing the Movie Musical: Recording Live Performances with Tom Hooper's 'Les Misérables'

Joe Marine — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 03:39:07 +0000

Academy Award wining director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) is taking an untraditional approach to making a movie musical with his new film, Les Misérables. While musicals will typically go into a sound studio months before to record the singing, Hooper has decided to have his actors actually sing on set, and use that audio the same way one might use recorded dialogue. Click through for a behind-the-scenes look at the film and an explanation of the technique. (more…)

How to Get Great Audio on Location -- a Crash Course from Zacuto

E.M. Taboada — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:00:55 +0000

How often do you take a location’s audio characteristics into account when choosing where to shoot? What kind of mic is better suited for a shooting range vs an indoor dialogue scene? In an on-going series of informative sound tutorials courtesy of Zacuto, Clinton Harn delves into the importance of these questions while aiming to provide filmmakers with a basic introduction to sound recording for film. Not only does he cover the tools of the trade, but he delves into many of the choices we as filmmakers have to make when deciding how to capture a given sound. For example, how would one record an interior car scene? (more…)