At 3:33 PM -0400 6/18/04, Walter Knapp wrote:
>From: "Rich Peet" <>
>>
>> I really feel that many of the movie production people have missed
>> the boat on surround sound and with their camera based thinking
>> always want the recorded sound in front of the source.
>
>The movie folks are just going along with human design. Humans are
>primarily visual, with hearing secondary. So sound as support of the
>visual is the way it's going to be, particularly with movies. And
>without movies it's hard to keep people focused on the sound.
1. Audio mixers usually face one direction too. One of the reasons I
spend so much time working on the low-end is establishing distance
coming from all directions so it feels like I am in the middle. In
my opinion, the ideal system would not only have matched, full range,
all around but each would be bi-amped with a separate subwoofer. The
single .1 sub is a front prejudice too.
2. Its possible to make an audio program that overpowers the visual
and provides more grounding. The result is refreshing and not
disorienting. The more I explore how space can be portrayed with
sound and image, the less comfortable I am with the convention that
humans are "visually dominant." The attention dedicated to visual
stimuli in mediated portrayals may even be compensatory.
3. The idea that audience expectations necessitate a front soundstage
will soon fade. My sound class made 12- 5.1 movie soundtracks this
Spring that ignored front and even the grandmas in attendance at the
public screening said they enjoyed hearing things decentered.
We're not focused on what "most people do," or we wouldn't be
recording the stuff we do. Because we are trying to capture species
interacting in natural locations, we are in good positions to
experiment and suggest improvements. Even if one realizes one working
stereo or surround set-up in a studio, it's important, not hermetic.
It's rare to find a human that is not fundamentally intrigued by any
program or experience that draws attention to how his/her perceptual
systems work. Rob D.
>
>Remember, most people watch movies on TV. With crude stereo at best.
>Putting a lot of money into the sound is not practical.
>
>And stand alone sound is now mixed for car audio, as near as I can tell.
>
>> The concept that you have to mic surround from the "outside in" is an
>> error and not just yours. It is a widely believed error.
>
>Probably more correctly applied to playback. I mic from a spot, don't
>use widely separated mics. I guess that makes me a "inside out" thinker?
>
>> Even though I work with and like wide spaced mics, that does not mean
>> that I am trying to mic from the outside in. In fact, what I am
>> doing is to simply enlarge the size of the inside and I still think
>> in terms of micing a space from the "inside out".
>
>I'm still working on visualizing your system. Would it be like a super
>large Decca Tree, but with the point mic a stereo one? That's the
>visualization I'm getting.
>
>> On another note. From vehicle to recording in four channel I am under
>> 5 mins setup and have three hours battery life. It would still be
>> under 5 mins in eight channel but I currently don't have the mic
>> preamps for the other four. This is good by todays standards but
>> remember most anyone can do this with two minidisc recorders. My door
>> is open to anyone that wants to sync and hear playback for things
>> that they captured by any method.
>
>You must be running to set up that many widely separated mics and run
>cables. And the record location must be easy to traverse. Takes me 5
>minutes or so to set up one tall tripod and cables ready to go from
>their traveling storage. And that if it's next to where I'm parked. In
>that case I run a long line into the cab and set in relative comfort to
>record. And have extremely long battery life available.
>
>Walt
>
>
--
Rob Danielson
Film Department
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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