Sound Advice

Another from my occasional series offering hints, tips and advice on video.

Sound vs Vision

Do you have any idea how important sound is to a successful video?

It’s one thing to have great visuals and a compelling storyline, but the one thing that will push your audience away is poor sound.

Ask any decent videographer and they’ll tell you this. More important than picture quality, is the quality of sound.

Now I’m no sound engineer, but I have built up enough basic understanding to know how to organise a video shoot to get the sound quality my clients need. That’s even when they don’t know what they need. Mainly that involves not allowing interviews to happen right next to a road drill. It means knowing when to use a boom mic, when to use a lav mic etc.

One of the first things I learned was to get the mic as close as possible to the sound source. That means those little shotgun mics you see mounted on cameras, well they’ll do an ok job. But if you really want to hold audience attention, nothing beats a close mic on the speaker.

Sound Analogy

In this way, I find it easier to think of sound and microphones in the same way I think about light and studio flash. By placing a flash close to the subject I can more easily control the balance between flash and ambient light (that is, daylight or room light).

Similarly, bringing the mic closer to the subject captures more of the speaker’s voice, less of the background noise. With sound it’s then easier to mix in ambient sound from a separate recording of the space if needed. It’s not a perfect analogy, but it helps.

Terminology

I don’t wish to bog you down in the complexities of sound capture, but it’s worth understanding a couple of basics. Why, as a client, would you need to know this stuff? Well it’s so when I talk to you about where best to shoot an interview, you have an understanding of what I’m thinking about and why certain options might be ruled in or out.

Depending on the space and its ambient noise, there are some basic choices to start with. First will be location. Of course this might be dictated by what the visuals demand, but wise choice of microphone will help eliminate the issues a particular location might have.

There are a few different types of mic, and the below are the ones I use:

Close-up photo of a SE Electronics pencil condenser mic clipped to the end of a stand against a white background.

A pencil condenser mic will give the best result for indoor interviews

Lav mic. For outdoors, lav mics work pretty well. A lav (aka lavalier, or lapel microphone) clips to the lapel. They’re designed to pick up as much voice as possible, ignoring background noise, but they’re not perfect. I have a couple of lav mics for when I need two people on sound.

Boom mic. A boom mic is a long, slim microphone that sits on the end of a boom arm. Sometimes shielded in a blimp (one of those Zeppelin-looking things, sometimes covered in fur), a boom mic is designed to pick up sound from a very specific angle and is best for outdoors use when conditions permit. It’s a bit like how a telephoto lens is designed to narrow-in on a scene. I have one for when the need arises. In fact it was the first mic I used regularly because they can be picked up quite cheap.

Pencil Condenser mic. My personal favourites. These look like stubby boom mics (see photo). They can have a variety of ‘fields of view’ depending on their internal design. For reasons of sound physics (ie something I don’t understand well enough to explain), they work better indoors than boom mics. I have two of these as I prefer them to lav mics and they’re great for two-person interviews.

A Trunk Full of Sound

Now a proper sound engineer will have a suitcase full of microphones. Many of each variety, more than I’ve mentioned above, and duplicates of each in case of technical failure. They’ll have mics which will have cost £thousands because they need the best quality and longevity. Consequently, for the services of a sound engineer, expect to pay a hefty price. It’s not unjustified, but it’s more like Hollywood budget than SME marketing funds. By contrast, I have more than my average client needs, but nothing like the quantity or quality of a full-on sound engineer.

My aim with sound is to make sure my clients get better than they thought they needed because THAT is what will hold audience through their video. And if getting people to watch your video to the end isn’t your goal, what is?

Real World Example

As a real example of the challenges faced by the videographer tackling sound, the video below was recorded in a very echoey space with noisy engineering works going on next door. Setting the mic as close as possible to the sitter helped with the worst of it, but now I have better mics and more experience, I’d do an even better job today!

For more examples, see my Video page. Or just to have a chat about whether I can help with your next video project, drop me a line.

 

Say CHEESE!

Finding a photographer is as easy as finding cheddar cheese in Cheddar, and in case you were unaware; Cheddar is an actual place and it’s where cheddar cheese originally came from before everyone from the Irish to the Azerbaijanis decided to make “cheddar cheese” themselves and flood the market with their filth. Even so, there is an awful lot of cheddar in Cheddar and it’s easy to find, trust me.

Sorry, I digress. It’s just that living in Somerset, about 30 minutes from Cheddar, I’m a little fussy about where my cheddar comes from. Although, at the risk of prolonging this needless digression further, there’s an excellent Somerset brie which I highly recommend. Apologies to Brieland.

Right, back to my point… which was? Oh yes, photographers are easy to find (yes, I said that already, get on with it Tim!) But actually, like cheddar, not all photographers are the same. Just like Canadian cheddar, there’s a lot of rubbish out there (sorry Canadaland, but your cheddar is pants*). And even amongst the really excellent cheddars, not every cheddar will suit your pallet, just as not every excellent photographer will suit your requirements.

Some cheddars are creamy, smooth and mild. Others are crumbly, borderline gritty with a bite that gives you that weird stinging sensation at the back of your jaw. I actually love a strong cheddar, but it’s not to everyone’s taste and it doesn’t suit all occasions.

So what I’m saying is, yes it’s easy to find a photographer, but make sure they shoot what you need in the style you need it. There is rarely any merit in hiring a wedding photographer to shoot your corporate website (I accept a few exceptions to this rule, but only very few). Likewise, I really don’t ‘do’ food. For that you need a food photographer, who will have all the tools, both mentally and in terms of equipment, to make your dishes look mouthwatering. Hire me to photograph your food and I’ll probably just eat it. It’s also well known I don’t do weddings. Why would I when there are some superb wedding specialists out there?

When hunting out the best photographer for your job, you’ll probably start with a search using the terms for the kind of photographer you’re after, eg: business, portrait, photographer, Bristol, or whatever. This will return MANY sites to consider and you’ll probably want to start by quickly dismissing the part-time photographers, the wedding photographers and the “I have a camera and will literally point it at anything you want me to” photographers.

This is no easy task, but usually a few moments spent looking through their online portfolios will tell you whether or not they do what you need AND are competent at it. Also if a portfolio is a scattergun of different genres, subjects and styles, you might want to move on as this can suggest either that the photographer is not consistent in their field, or that they’ve been stealing other peoples’ photos to build their own portfolio. Perhaps shocking in the age of the internet, but yes this does happen.

It’s taken me years to find the right cheddar for my tastes. I like Wyke Farm Extra Mature for everyday eating and for recipes, while I’ve yet to find a cheddar which quite matches the joy of Westcombe Dairy’s prize-winning offering. So having found my favourites, I stick with them. The same can go for your photographer if it’s a case of shooting the same subject or genre of photography and the photographer shoots to the style and quality which matches your standards.

Just as you can constantly chop, change and shop around for your cheddar cheese, you can constantly chop and change your choice of photographer. However, if your corporate communications end up looking like a ragtag of styles and qualities, well that’s just hard cheese.

*I’m using the UK definition of ‘pants’ as in ‘underwear’. Yes, Canada, I’m sorry, but your cheddar tastes like grey y-fronts. I love Canadians though, and they make the best maple syrup.

Space – Time Continuum

A recent experience reminded me once again of the importance of two particular aspects of a corporate portrait photography session, namely space and time. In fact as these two elements are inextricably linked, we can refer to them as a continuum.

Setting aside the fourth dimension for a moment, on this particular occasion I was shown into a vast board room, which would have been perfect except it was mostly filled with immobile boardroom furniture; massive table and countless chairs. At the same time I was told I could only have the room for half an hour, which is approximately how long it would have taken me to set up the lighting kit even if there had been space to do so.

This would have left no time for any photography to happen, let lone the two hours I was booked for. A continuum conundrum, no less.

Thankfully we were able to find an alternative room which, though smaller, had much more clear floor space. It was also available for two hours, which was just about enough – not perfect, as I was booked for three (and could happily have filled them with the shots listed as required), but better than zero minutes by quite a considerable percentage.

Of course when you’re setting up a photo session, coordinating the schedules of everyone involved is often a headache, but it’s worth thinking of the room and the time required as if they were two more people in the schedule. If a room or the time in that room are unavailable, it’s a no-goer.

The time required will depend on how many people are to be photographed and the brief to which I’ll be working (more varieties of poses etc will obviously require more time) and at least 30 minute’s set-up and break-down time should be factored either side of the session.

How much space is needed will depend on whether it’s close head shots or full-length portraits required (full-length requires a great deal more space), but as a rule of thumb for headshots, you need to allow approximately 2.5 – 3m width x 3m length (length being the distance between where I’ll stand and the next wall or immobile obstacle).

This is approximate, but it is a realistic guide. You can easily add another couple of metres to the length for full-length portraits.

The photo on this article shows an example of where I’ve had more space than I knew what to do with (it was in fact one half of a hotel ballroom!), but seeing the set-up gives you some notion of how that space is used.

So remember, when you’re booking all the executives and colleagues for that all-important photo session, don’t forget to plan the room and ring-fence the time. Without those two elements, the space – time continuum breaks down and everything else becomes academic.

Work Experience Advice

Perhaps the best piece of advice I can offer any student of photography when seeking work experience is let the application itself be part of the experience. I should preface by saying that I rarely offer work experience placements for a multitude of reasons I won’t go into here, but follow a few simple rules and your application will stand a better chance of finding success.

 

  • Get the photographer’s name right and use it. Just saying “Hi” suggests you’re sending a round-robin email.
  • Don’t send a round-robin email and NEVER use the CC or even BCC functions to send out mass communications.
  • If you cut and paste an email text, make sure you tailor it to each individual recipient.
  • Do your research. Look at the photographer’s website to establish whether they’re working in the specific field you’re interested in.
  • Talk about the kind of photography career you’re interested in, but more in terms of the business than the style. Saying you like to photograph people isn’t the same as saying you want to shoot pictures for businesses (what I call corporate communications photography).
  • When looking at a photographer’s site, look at the kind of work they’re doing and establish from that whether they’re studio-based, work only on location or a mixture of the two. Students often ask to join me in my studio, but it’s possible to work out from my website that I don’t have one.
  • Make sure your contact details are correct, including mobile number and email address.
  • Check your spelling, punctuation and grammar and get someone else to check it for you – this should be someone who is really good at checking these things, so ask a teacher, lecturer or other competent person.
  • Be sure to include your ability to travel – do you have your own transport?

I could go on, but hitting these main points should get your toe in the door at least.

Although I can’t often offer work experience, a competent application will at least get a response from me. Usually I’ll make an offer to have a phone conversation about what the applicant wants to do in the industry, the opportunities and where else to get advice, but I’m astonished how often my email reply goes unanswered. Which of course makes it harder for the next student to get a response from me.

Work experience can be invaluable, it’s how I started out as a press photographer, but the industry structures for training, nurturing and furthering a career have either changed or disappeared since I set out on my journey. Students today will need to find their own tracks into their chosen career, but get these basics right and you never know, you could find yourself ahead of the game and on your way to doing probably the best job in the world.