Lvl 6 - FMP: Trick Of The Dark - Research 1

As trick of the Dark was set to be shooting on location inside of a cave local to our area in the north east i thought it only appropriate to find out exactly how i can capture the perfect level of atmosphere & audio quality to create the right aesthetic to the film when it comes to the sound design. i thought that the Descent would be a good place to start as they achieved what i am trying to achieve inside the same type of environment. Yet i know that there was a fair amount shot inside of the studio they had access to. I thought using the most of my time to research into different films that are also relevant to this type of experience with on set locations would be more than beneficial to really help expand my knowledge on crafting the perfect atmosphere when allocating my production time within my role on this film. Below are the sound team that worked on the film "The Decent".

from the screenshot above you can see that there isn't a lot of on set sound recording as most of the crew listed provide sound design in post production such as Foley artists & ADR specialists. From here i can see that it is defiantly going to be tough to accomplish capturing a high standard of audio on set inside the cave as you can see just from this that a lot of what was done here was not recorded on set. So from this i will look into the boom operator to see exactly what he did specifically and if he had any form of experience inside the the cave on location for this film. Colin Gregory has moved onto future work that included the new Tomb Raider film this would certainly be appropriate from the experience he gained from The Descent. Researching deeper into the film & behind the scenes i have learned that all of the cave sequences were actually shot inside of a studio. This is a problem as all that i have learned going forward is that on set location inside of the cave is going to be difficult but it has also taught me that the way in which to get around this would be relying heavily on Foley & ADR which i will be using to create the overall atmosphere of the film.

Techniques that i have already learned throughout my experience as a sound operator will guide me through this production. I will use such techniques as using to mics and crossing them to get a greater stream of audio, it will dampen the amount of mid pollution effecting each scene within the cave & on any out door location scenes. we have a blimp which is useful when trying to lower the amount of wind as well so going forward this is what i will be using instead of a dead cat as i don't think there as versatile on set. I now know that ADR will be ever present throughout the filming process and is a technique that i will need to pick up and add to my arsenal for this film.