We have to invent the cone of silence

Quick rant on a plane there are so many crazy and yet annoying sounds on a plane but are they really all that bad?
Now ok so kids are pretty dam annoying but like me they struggle the the volume of their voices. But I think what really drives us crazy is the hum! Its that throbbing hum that we cant really get rid of and when any other sound tries to be louder than it we just go crazy.

Rant over...

Location Scouting Part 1 Looking for Noise

Here is one for all you up and coming film makers!
Ok so we all know how annoying it is when a plane flies over head during a take... right, well this is a topic for you.

Now its weird to say but the first thing you have to consider is budget. And i am not talking about the budget on set, I am talking about the build up of money you have reserved for the post production work. And then you need to think about if your actors will have the time to come for a X amount of time in post [and there will most likely be some actor post time put in...hopefully]
Let me put out an example to you now you have this amazing drama script that you want to make on a tight budget which is completely understandable we all understand that the Australian industry doesnt exactly help very much in film making [actually it usually finds ways to get in your way!] but you find some crew that will help you out or give you a rate within your budget.. awesome news now you need to scout a location and start locking in some dates for your film.

Now of course this is another hard step because most people wont let you use their house or location [hell i probably wouldnt!] But if in this location you know that there will be lots of dialogue then you got to really think to yourself how hard/how much will it be if the location has either bad acoustics or bad ambient noise. Now for the sake of this blog i am going to assume that you cant grab the actors in after the shoot and you havent allocated enough for the post sound facilities to support ADR. So lets look back at your location.

Now first and for most what time will you be shooting?
if during the day...
are you under a flight path [knowing full well that flight paths can change as well so maybe ask a neighbor or something] if so how often do they fly by and how low?...
are you near a main street [remembering that peak hour traffic is between 730am-930am and 3pm-630pm]...
are you near a school? [schools can be ok except during recess, lunch and hometimes]
are you near a cafe, shop, or business [mechanics are pretty bad sound wise] [also some cafes will play copy written music]
and then there is road work or house development [if i need to tell you why this is bad then you must live away from civilization]

Ok so thats SOME of the concerns that you might encounter during the day, but when the sun goes down a whole new world opens up
now are you near a pub or club and if so do they play live music or have bad sound proofing?  [also dont forget the people who leave pubs drunk disorderly and LOUD]
planes wont be as bad in these areas but that doesnt mean that cars wont be late nights seem to bring the louder show off cars and it will be people circling the block showing off their life savings in the form of loud farting machine that i struggle to call a car and they will like to find quiet streets and speed down them, you have been warned
another thing to consider is that neighbors will have house parties aswell

Now people tell me that cant we fix this in post and i tell them a few things
Actors are not robots, an actor knows what ADR is and they know that they dont really want to do it and in consequence they know that if a plane flies over their performance then they will either have to go again or come back and do ADR. And on a side note ADR is a hard thing and some actors might struggle to replicate performance especially if its emotional or at lib.

So remember that having planes flying over or loud cars passing or having nearby house parties etc will disrupt the workflow of the shoot and can affect on set performance. But lets just say you have this perfect location that LOOKS just right but its under a flight path. Try setting shooting times when planes are least likely to fly past, maybe find ways to insulate the set from ambient noise or if that all fails factor in more time for the shoot so that you can add the waiting for plane time. And remember the closer the mic gets the less the audience will notice the back round noise and you might even get away with it!  

Now i could rant about this allll day but i will cut it up a bit and i might add things here are there, so for now this is the first part in the next part we look inside the location and talk about the illusive room tone and reverberant spaces. Tune in and or ask questions if you would like to know more of my experience!