I have been freelance for four years and have worked on five features as the Foley artist and shot five features as the Sound Recordist. I may be found on the Web or through the all important network contacts.

Editor's Note: Julian also has his own web page now on this site, where you can obtain contact details, as well as details of work he has done so far. That can be found here.

Firstly I must say that cameras have always been designed for picture recording, sound is more of the after-thought, and on nearly all DV pro-sumer models the sound is not really as good as it could be, Sony PD 150's and VX 2000's in particular have hiss on them and they never really solved that issue. The Cannon XL1's monitor plays out a signal that is not even accurate to or as good as the one you are recording, so it is difficult to judge how well you are doing. The Panasonic AG-DVX100 allegedly has the best DV sound.

But recording separately is a little more expensive and the time needs to be taken afterwards to sync it to picture. So, if you have decided to record the sound onto the DV-cam itself then this should be achieved via input to the XLR sockets on the camera whch would lead from a portable mixer, such as the fairly indestructible and eminently reliable SQN 3M mixer. The mixer will supply the microphone with power (phantom powering) while allowing you full control of mic inputs with good limiters. If you try and judge the sound by ear alone without seeing the metering then it is all just guess work, like shooting a film without ever looking through the view-finder, it's something you just wouldn't do. For example, when monitoring sound you invariably listen to the return from the recorder, so you listen to what has been recorded not to just what you are sending to the recorder. This gives you full confidence because if there is a problem you will know immediatley, be it buzz on the line or digital drop-out. Sound is never about guess work, it is more usually problem solving. There are cheaper mixers to buy from ASC, TLA, Audio Devices, Audio Developments and more, and all are good, its just a matter of financial layout.

XLR cables are balanced and shielded to prevent hiss, unlike standard phono jack leads which are not. The Cannon XL1s does have an attachable XLR box (the MA100 and MA200) but then connects to the camera via unbalanced phono leads, which seems a bit pointless.

And finally get some reasonable headphones. Closed cup are best, which generally cover the ear by sitting on it rather than round it, and are more effective at blocking out the sound that is around you at the time allowing you to concentrate on what is actually being recorded. Sennheiser HD25's are good and rugged with great sound monitoring but cost around £130. The slightly cheaper HD25S is basically the same for about £50 less. Don't spend less than £40 on whatever headphones you buy. Each part of the chain is as important as the next (take this as note-worthy advice) sure, save money but not at the overall cost of quality. If you scrimp too much on 1 section then the whole lot can lose out.

As with many things in life, you do largely get what you pay for. The Sennheiser 416 is pretty much a standard in the industry, along with the newer Sennheiser MKH 60, but once budgets get raised then you will find professionals using the more expensive Schoeps or Neumann mics. They have a rounder sound which works better in controlled environments. The general use Sennheiser mics actually have a boosted pick up in the mid range frequencies, where most voice is, to help it be picked up above unwanted background noise. This makes them ideally suited for documentary work but by no means unsuitable for features, and certainly low-budget DV in which the ideal looking location is not always the best sounding. The AKG CK 98 shotgun mic is relatively cheap, at around half the price of the Sennheiser, but is to my mind a bit thin sounding.

About 90% of the finished soundtrack is put on after the production has wrapped, which means that the goal of the Sound Recordist is to get the best dialogue recording possible; everything else is secondary. This is even more important when you are trying to spare the expense of ADR later on. When you come to edit the sound afterwards then clean dialogue is what will make your life easier. Background sounds will jump in volume and quality from shot to shot due to set up and time of day unless you have bothered to mask it out as much as possible; this includes things like crew noise, if you are doing a hand-held shot on a noisy floor get the cameraman to take his shoes off, everything helps.

Consistency is very important. If you start a scene on a wide shot, usually the master, then you probably wont have been able to get the mic in as close as you may have really wanted, however on the next set up, e.g likely to be a mid-shot or even a close-up, then you can't just put the mic in the now offered perfect position as the quality will jump. You must try to match the sound that you have already established. In the same way that lighting has to be similar from shot to shot then so must sound. Move in a few extra inches for some enhanced clarity but not the potential whole extra foot or two that may be now possible. Some shots for the same scene may have been shot on different days, even weeks apart, and the sound needs to flow smoothly. Even though the camera jumps around the room with little to stop it other than crossing the line the viewer is able to accept such an unnatural thing because the sound is always at a similar level.

A small lavalier mic such as a Sony ECM 77b can be used as a plant mic to hide in shot if you can't get the boom mic close enough and certainly if your actors are talking and facing downwards.

Record an Atmos track or room tone. The cement that holds the edits, both audio and visual, together. Once at each location, keep the crew still and record about a minute of apparent silence. Every location has unique qualities, be it hum from practical lights, street noise, machinery etc. By recording the sound that you otherwise ignore, because you are concentrating on the action, it can be placed across all the edits as a constant background sound that does not change from shot to shot therefore giving the viewer the comfort of audible continuity.

Record any sound fx on location that may be useful in post. If you use a car in shot, take the time out to record the doors, opening/closing, engine tickover, pull away, pass-by etc anything relevent that may be difficult to find on FX CD (and then again why use an FX cd at all if you can record the real sound yourself for free?) This I have found to be the hardest part of recording sound on to camera as you need to walk off with the camera to do this and need to make sure that you have set time aside in the shooting schedule as DoPs like to set up lights with the camera there as a guide which means the only time the cam is aviable all day long is during your lunch break!

As for recording formats, modern DVD and hard-disc recorders are suitably excellent (and expensive) allowing you to record 6 separate tracks and split your sound more, rather than mixing all sources together at time of recording on to just 2 tracks, meaning that there is little that can be done to change it in the edit.

Mini-Disc I use as a backup recorder and is quite good for just voice recording but the compression system that MD uses means that it doesn't handle anything that is particularly loud and fills all the frequencies very well.

DATs are still in strong use and most of my work is still done on it. I tend to record onto camera only while doing documentary work on Digi-Beta.

The Sound Designer will take what they can from fx CDs but because they are meant to be used for an array work then they are often too vague. Foley is the art of physically creating specific sounds that are otherwise too precise to be taken from library fx cd. Footsteps, for example, are different from step to step and will rarely be even-paced; people turn, stop, jog, walk up and down steps, from one surface to another (be it linoleum to gravel) and sometimes all in one shot. Try and get that all from a CD and you'll be editing in stock sounds for days just to achieve a background sound.

How intrigrated they are depends on the mix. I have spent days perfoming Foley on a feature before now only to have most of the work buried and inaudible beneath all the other larger sounds and music. That is largley the role of Foley, to replace sound that would be more distinct by its absense, but it does come to the front in films where sound is used more dramatically, as in the battle scenes in Braveheart or Lord of the Rings in which metal needs to be clanged in all ways and cast in surround sound to put you in the midst of the battle, or creatively, like in Amelie or Barton Fink, to put you in someone elses mind.