Audio for Single Camera Operation

14 Sound balance and location acoustics

Sound balance

At each location, you'll be faced with human voices which you want record intelligibly, plus other sounds relevant to the location itself. These form an aural background, and you need to obtain a balance between the two. Otherwise, if you eliminate the background sound altogether (perhaps using extremely close mic technique) the result will probably sound much as if it had been recorded in a studio, whilst the pictures tell a different story.

Ah, the magic of television. Whilst the main concern when dealing with contributors is to record intelligible sound, you also want to match the sound to the pictures. For example, if you interview someone in an open-plan office, you expect to hear phones, ...