Sound

Basics

  • Ambient Sounds: background sounds that normally occur in a specific environment (can include room tone)
  • Dialogue: Includes speech delivered by characters in a scene and voice-over narration accompanying a scene
  • Direct Sound: Sound that is captured and recorded directly on location. Direct sound also designates an absence of reflected components in the final recording. 
  • Diegetic/Non-diegetic sound: sound that characters in the scene can hear. Movie soundtracks/scores are typically non-diegetic.
  • Dubbed: audio–typically dialogue–added to the shot in post production.  
  • Dynamic Range: the difference in decibel between the noise level and overload/distortion point of a sound system.
  • Gain: amount of sound being input to the recorder.
  • Noise Floor: gain level of all ambient sound in an environment.
  • Room Tone: ambient sound present in a particular room or set. Not typically heard by the average listener, but will pick up on a microphone. Be sure to capture a view minutes of just this tone to use for editing purposes.
  • Score: music recorded specifically for a scene 
  • Sound Perspective: Use of sound mixing to direct the viewer’s eyes to certain visual elements in the shot.
  • Soundtrack: pre-existing song added to a scene by the film producer. Also can refer to any sound element present in a scene, including dialogue, ambient sound, and music.
  • Synchronic sound: audio recorded simultaneously with the video.
  • Voice-over: spoken dialogue added over a scene. Can act as narrative or to communicate inner thoughts.
  • Volume: amount of sound being exported from the recorder to monitors or headphones

Equipment

  • Boom Mic: overhead telescoping pole that carries a microphone, allows for synchronous sound recording without restricting movement of actors.
     
  • Multitrack Recorder: records sound from multiple sources (tracks) simeltaneously.
  • Recorder: device that captures sound. Cameras often come equipped with sound recorders that capture audio simultaneously with video. 
  • Shotgun Mic: type of unidirectional microphone that captures sound from the direction in which it is pointed. Best used to capture a specific sound source such as an interview subject. 
  • Omnidirectional Mic: records sound at equal gain from all sides of the microphone. Best used to capture an environment rather than a specific sound source.
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