The First Hurdle

The First Hurdle was a daunting challenge for me from the outset. It would require me to upskill in an area of the film production process that I had no previous experience in other than the most basic sound clean-up using the built-in sound processing available in Premiere Pro and the free version of DaVinci Resolve. However, tackling challenges and learning new things is crucial to being a film practitioner, and as I found out, trying something new is a great way to find something you enjoy.

Early on I decided that I would use Avid Pro Tools to do the sound design for The First Hurdle, Pro Tools’ capabilities would give me the room to produce the best possible result and learning the software would be another useful skill and make Pro Tools another useful tool in my toolbelt. First, I researched the capabilities of Pro Tools, its quirks, key bindings, interface various terms specific to sound design and the correct post-sound workflow. I began working once I had familiarised myself with these and the vision edit had reached its first picture lock.

Due to various complications in the production and editing process, there was never a spotting session to determine what and when sound effects would be required (I instead received messages at various times throughout the sound design process. Due to the ever-changing nature of the vision edit, as is expected with documentaries (new information comes to light all the time) I was required to update the audio sync as each new vision edit was sent through, this meant manually syncing the dialogue and being able to perceive when even a syllable was out of sync (something that is only evident with certain words, some of which will change depending on who is speaking).

Before the terror of the changing timeline had reared its trifling head, I had sorted through the audio recording to find the best recordings of each take which had been recorded with a boom and lavaliere microphones. I had been warned about the loud outdoor noises of cars and chirping birds in the interview with Jonathan Sriranganathan, however, I was able to sort this out with some basic EQ to bring Jonathan’s dialogue to the fore and minimise the background.

Jonathan was interviewed at a park that is relevant to the documentary so I thought the sounds should be included and didn’t remove them entirely, taking this further I used samples of the soundscape from his interview for the outdoor noises throughout the rest of the documentary that way the park soundscape permeates throughout the whole of the piece.

The interview with Daniel Angus was the interview that caused me the most trouble. There was the sound of an air conditioner throughout most of the interview, it distracted from his dialogue and was unpleasant to listen to. It took a lot of fiddling with EQ and other specific plug-ins to get the sound to a place that I was happy with.

What I found throughout this time working on the project was that I enjoyed the process of sound design, creating a soundscape, and repairing audio even the tedium of automation was fun. But most importantly I had a new skill, one I am eager to use again in my own projects, one that will aid me in telling the stories I want to tell.