The guest lecture on 7/11/16 was given by Vertigo’s Music Superviser, Lol Hammond. Lol has worked on several popular films such as It’s All Gone Pete Tong, The Football Factory, Monsters and London To Brighton. Lol gave an interesting insight into what it’s like to work in a big-budget production company from an audio perspective and the intricacies of gaining rights to use music from record labels.

Whilst my audio project is not related to film music it was interesting to find out how industries work in terms of sourcing music and who gets royalties from doing so. It was also interesting to see how few music supervisors there are spread around each film production company, making it seem like quite a close-knit community. This is in some ways similar to the world of a music producer, with many different artists’ production being spread between only a few different producers.

Monday the 17th of October’s guest lecturer was Composer, musician (intuitive), artist, field recordist, listener, curator, publisher, lecturer, instrument & specialist audio device builder Jez Riley French.

A large portion of the lecture covered things like hydrophones and contact microphones. While I’m not using either of these things I found it very interesting how buildings and other huge objects have their own sounds that aren’t audible with standard microphones. The ambience of buildings is something that can be related to my LO3, which concerns the sounds that different rooms can create. Jez gave me an understanding of how ambient and other-worldly sounds can be created using very standard objects and how important the sounds of spaces can be.

One of my aims for LO3 is to capture ambience used on Muse’s Absolution, which was recorded in some very interesting recording spaces, such as a swimming pool for example. This lecture was useful therefore in demonstrating how important recording spaces are.

Post Production Sound for Factual Television

On Monday the 10th of October I was present at Lucy Johnstone’s guest lecture. Lucy is a freelance sound editor who has worked on shows such as Grand Designs, Top Gear and The Voice.

While I personally am not focusing on audio for TV in any of my projects I did find this lecture useful in terms of understanding the time-frames allocated in real-world working environment. Lucy explained that for a 1-hour factual programme, there would be around half a day spent laying tracks, half a day spent adding voice-over, a day spend doing a pre-mix and a day spend on the final mix. While this sounds like quite a long time for a 1-hour programme she made it clear how much work needed to be done in that time.

There were also aspects of recording voice-overs that are relevant to my own personal projects, as many of the practices involved are the same as setting up microphones to record vocals or guitar for example. With regard to mixing, the sentiment that often less is more is one that I intend to use in my own projects.

In terms of working in the industry of sound, Lucy gave some useful advice, both for those wishing to go freelance and those hoping to get positions in companies. She advised that the easiest way to get a job in an audio company is to start right at the bottom and work your way up. She also said that working hard is absolutely essential.

In relation to my Audio Project, the lecture was useful in demonstrating how good time-keeping and organisation will help hugely with meeting deadlines and relieve pressure and stress with projects.