Noisy Indoor – Stairs by the Balcony Café
When we were filming our footage indoors in a well-known noisy area of the college, we came across a few sound issues. The noise of people coming up and down the stairs was making things difficult because we couldn’t hear what Jess and Dan were saying. Also a majority of them were talking and/or using mobile phones, which meant that when we came to edit the sound, we could hear the buzzing noises from the phones interference. I think to improve it we should go and film at a quieter time when most people would be in a lesson. Also we could use tie mics instead of a boom because then the sound would be louder and clearer.
Another thing we noticed when we were filming was the buzzing and tapping from people using the computers we were standing by. They were very noisy and I think there are only two solutions to get rid of the excess sounds would be to use tie mics or move away from that area. We also found that there was a noticeable echo on the sound. We think this was due to the high ceilings and empty space; solving this issue would also involve using tie mics because they would help to cancel out unwanted sounds and make the presenters clearer.
Quiet Indoors - Classroom
Filming in the classroom, although it was quiet we still ended up with a few sound disturbances. When we started to edit our footage we found that the noise from the Macs’ fans was really loud and noticeable. We could have avoided this by turning all of the Macs off because the mics are very sensitive to any noise. Again we also had problems with people’s phones being switched on, even if phones are on silent you can still hear the buzzing noise when someone is sending a text/making a phone call/ receiving a text/phone call. I think if we were to film in this type of location again, we would ask people politely if they would turn their phones off just whilst we film to make the best possible sound for a quiet area.
Another thing we had to be careful about was the lights, you may not hear them when you are sitting in the classroom, but because the mics are so sensitive to sound you can hear them buzzing. It is very important to do a sound check before you have settled on a location because things might not be noticeable until you listen to the sound track in editing.
Outside - Next to the Car park
When we were filming outside we were faced with quite a few problems with the sound. The first thing we noticed when were editing the sound was the noise of the cars in the car park. As it is a public car park we couldn’t tell people to turn their cars off so we could film so if were to do it again we would film their at a different time either early in the morning or late in the evening. Another thing that disturbed the sound was the main road just down the road from college, it is very loud and we could hear it quite loudly on the sound track. To avoid problems like this we would think about other locations we could use. Another solution would be to extend the boom pole so it is closer to the presenter’s mouths so that they can be heard more clearly.
We also noticed that people are entering and leaving college all the time, which makes it very noisy. Also people use the area outside to smoke and socialise so it is quite a noisy place all throughout the day. We also had problems with the weather. It was a very windy day, we couldn’t do anything about it at the time but if we were to do it again we could make sure we planned ahead so we knew what the weather was going to be doing, or we could have stood in a sheltered area so the wind couldn’t interrupt our filming.
