Sound is one of the most neglected areas of film making when it comes to low -to-no budget films and it was a trap I wasn’t keen on falling into again.
With my short film ‘I Did’ which I released on my YouTube channel on the 14th February, I was determined that as well as looking good, it had to sound good. In fact I was more obsessed over the sound than I was over the look of the film.
Now this isn’t to say that I completely ignored the visuals, of course I didn’t, but I was clear on one aspect – I wasn’t going to need to do ADR. Thanks to a little bit of prep and some budget management, we never had to do any ADR.
So how did I do it? In the video above I talk about hiring microphones and sound recorders and how they benefitted production. But why didn’t I just hire a sound recordist? The truth of that is that ‘I Did’ was filmed as part of my stag party and the crew were friends who I had worked with on films a long time ago and this was a ‘rekindling’ of making films – although now we had a budget, a very decent script and a decent amount of lights and not just a handycam.
I mentioned above about the budget. The budget went on two things, actors and sound. I’m not made of money and this film was completely self-financed but I still wanted it to be the best it could be, if nothing else to do Chris’ fantastic screenplay justice.
I made sure that all the actors & crew stayed in a hotel where they could relax after the shoot (apart from Holly and Pippa – Pippa was only on set for 1 day and then the reshoot happened in Newbury where she lived, and Holly stayed down the road at her parents house at her own insistance) & the crew who lived locally either had the choice to stay or go home for a night.
Next I made sure that everyone was fed throughout all filming days with good home-cooked meals as well as nibbles and lots of tea and coffee (a film crew marches on its stomach – period).
That was 60% of the budget right there for the cast & crew. Then 25% went on renting the Seinhessier G3’s and Zoom H6 from hireacamera.com. For 4 days rental it cost me £660 plus insurance. Then in November for the reshoot I spent £280 on a Rode Link Film Maker Kit and a blimp for my NTG2 which cost £180. So in total over the whole shoot I spent £1,120 on production sound.
I spent this because I knew I could get good sound on the day and I could rely on the actors performances to carry it because we had spent time in rehearsal planning it.
Being paranoid about getting it right on the day is only worth being paranoid if you haven’t planned. If you’ve planned, you’ve got the struggle of getting through each day on time without daylight and the world around you giving you problems.
Even if you can’t invest the same amount of money I did into sound, invest the time and principle of what I did do. I made sure that on the day, everything worked, that we could move quickly with very few setups and most importantly that everyone was relaxed and having a good time whilst working. If you can nail those, then you’re halfway to your next production.
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