Praises to the D50

The other day I heard a robin tweeting away on the studio's front patio and so I planted my Sony D50 recorder as gently as possible in an attempt to record it. Of course, i scared him (her?) straight off but I thought that if I left the recorder in place for a while he might come back. I shut the sliding door and carried on with the day...

Two days later, as we were gearing up to go on a family stroll to the local hills I remembered about poor old D50. There it was, still on the patio, unmoved, still waiting for the robin to come back. With my eyes closed I switched it on, fearing for the worst. When i re-opened them it turned out the memory was full and there was still one bar of battery (albeit blinking). Hurrah! She was still alive! I downloaded the files onto the computer but there was no time to check if the unit was working properly so I took some fresh batteries and left for our walk in the hills. 

I'm very (very!) happy to say that the Sony D50 worked perfectly. Here's a recording of a leaves rustling to a subtle breeze in the hills.

The D50 had survived two nights out there. Luckily it has been the one and only week in the year where we have had no rain, I'm not even exaggerating, but still Ireland's autumn nights are very damp. I've carried this recorder around the world for more than 5 years and it has always delivered. It has overcome tank pass by splashes in England's wet winters, a year of 100% humidity conditions in tropical Sri Lanka, sub-zero temperatures in the Swiss Alpes, scorching 45+ degrees in the Andalusian summer, sand storms in Xinjiang's Taklamakan desert and torrential downpours in smoggy Beijing. The batteries (4x AAs) always last more than you expect them to, and the quality of the recordings is far above decent. 

All my respects to this little recorder, probably the best of its class.

To finish off here's a recording of another group of patio visitors, taken that same day.


Do you have a piece of kit that has survived the odds? Let us know below. Have a great week!

Sound Postcard 04 // Cannes 2015

Cannes- undoubtedly host to the most glamorous film festival in the world. A week of premiers, private yachts and helicopters coming and going, as the film world's finest descend on a small town on the French Riviera. 

I was working there, but got to spend an evening soaking it all up- this is what it sounds like...

The poster at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival paid homage to Ingrid Bergman

First Time At The Pictures

I took my daughter to the cinema for the first time last week. We'd been thinking about going for a while, but wanted to wait until she was ready- and for a film to come up that would be good enough to go down in the record books as her "first ever trip to the movies". She's 2 years and 4 months, and was pretty excited about it!

Paddington is on at the Kids Club at our local picture house, (I'm thankful that I didn't have to be subjected to Peppa Pig The Movie)- which means the screening was chock full of little'uns, and I didn't have to worry about her getting bored or talking through the film. She was as much into the popcorn as she was the movie- but it was still a really proud moment for me! Her face when she saw the screen (the "Vewy big telly"), was priceless, and it's something I'll never forget.

 The film itself is really great- it's based in a magical version of London and is reminiscent of great old kid's movies like Mary Poppins. It's full of imaginative, colourful images and adventure- rather than the model-looking, stick-thin portrayal of heroes too often churned out by Disney. All in all, I'd recommend it, whether you have a kid or not.

Going to a cinema that is full of children is a great experience. There were lots of collective "Ahhhh!"s and "Oh noooo!"s- they get so into it, it's fantastic. It reminded me that film is, in it's essence, a form of story telling. Which is great to be reminded of if you've been subjected to a week of cutting horse hooves in a darkened room. We're definitely going to make it a regular thing.

Have you ever taken a kid to the cinema? Or do you remember your own first visit? Here's some links to a couple of recommendations, and also an introduction to Sound for little ones...

Have a great weekend!

Sound Postcard 03 // Berlinale Palast

A few weeks back at the Berlin Film Festival, we were invited to the premiere of Gone With The Bullets. When the stars are gone and all is said and done, this is what the red carpet backstage sounds like...

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

Here's a few cool finds...


Berlinale Talents 2015 Round-up

It's been a week since the Berlinale Talents wrap-up party and we've finally recovered! Here's a round-up of what we saw / heard… (If you don't know anything about the Berlinale Talents Campus, here's a quick intro).

There were too many interesting sessions going on to attend them all but the most valuable experience by far was being immersed in a totally film-focused space for a whole week. Meeting a wide range of talented film-makers from all over the world (75 countries represented at this year's edition), is a great opportunity. From what we gathered, there is nothing on this scale in the festival circuit (let us know if there is and we'll go!), so we feel privileged to have experienced it first-hand and would strongly recommend it to anyone thinking of taking part. 

Here's some of our personal highlights from the Berlinale Talents 2015:

The Memory of Violence
Joshua Oppenheimer (The Look of Silence) & Marcel Ophüls (The Memory of Justice) talked about documenting the search for truth in some of history's darkest episodes. How do you get assassins and torturers (many still in power in Oppenheimer's films) to speak in front of a camera about atrocities they've committed in the not so distant past? Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" won a BAFTA for Best Documentary and was nominated for an Oscar in 2014. His latest film The Look of Silence is a sequel to TAOK, and deals with a family that survived the genocide in Indonesia. Within the film, the men who killed people in that family are powerfully confronted.

Many of Ophüls films also revolve around atrocities committed in wars. It was humbling to see how Ophüls (87) was in awe Oppenheimer's work; Ophüls also received a Camera Award for his life work at this year's Berlinale. I haven't seen any of the films of these two guys but the clips they showed were powerful pieces of filmmaking- definitely for 'the watch list'. 

You can watch this session here (film extracts removed for copyright reasons) 
 

Sound Studio composers and sound designers (from L to R): Warren Santiago, Xingyu Li, Ng Chor Guan, Zethu Mashika, Adriana Espinal, Howard Shore, Agatha Chodyra, Nick Buckton, Victoria Wijeratne, Carlos Andrés Gutiérrez Quiroga, Ania Przygoda, (bottom row) Angel Pérez Grandi and Blair Mowat, (not in the frame) Olivier Militon, Olivier Alary, Jana Irmert and Linus Nickl. (Pic courtesy of @BlairMowat)

Howard Shore: Scoring Goals + Meet the expert
The 3-time Oscar winning maestro spoke about his trajectory, his approach to composition, his long-standing collaboration with Canadian fellow David Cronenberg and how The Lord of The Rings has taken over the best part of his last 10 years. 

We (the Sound Studio folk) had a private session with Mr. Howard Shore the next day, where we got to bombard him with questions. He seemed very proud of his work on Silence of The Lambs so I asked him, when did the sound design stop and the score start in this scene? His response: "Silence came out in 1991, too long ago to remember"! 

Speaking on how he approaches a new project, Shore explained that he gathers and absorbs as much information related to the subject as he can before writing single note. He then puts all that information aside and writes the music without looking back. He never composes on a piano or any instrument and he's always thinking of harmony and counterpoint. He encourages collaboration with the sound designer (hurrah!) and doesn't attend the dubbing stage because there is never a chair for the composer. And because, as he rightly puts it; it's a war zone! 

All-in-all it was great to meet a composer of his stature and a generous gentleman too.

Watch this session here (film extracts removed for copyright reasons)

 

Berlin's The Post Republic cinema stage

Dolby® Atmos Masterclass 
As part of the Sound Studio we had a day-long session mixing three soundscapes at The Post Republic's Dolby® Atmos dubbing stage with German re-recording top dogs Martin Steyer and Lars Ginzel (whose necks you can appreciate in the picture above). One of these soundscapes was our own which you can listen to below in a pseudo A-B (pre/post Atmos mixing) comparison. This session was a real eye-opener to the possibilities offered by object-based audio editing, mixing and playback. In essence, Dolby® Atmos truly expands the width and clarity of the audio-visual field. The surround experience is so immersive that sound placed in that space blends naturally, as opposed to the "traditional" surround channels that have to be used more subtly. Definitely the way to go for sound technology - the question remains, how long is it going to take before it becomes the standard?

Watch this space for a deeper look at Dolby® Atmos in the coming weeks!


Here's a few other sessions we missed but would've loved to attend:

- Imaginary Worlds: Exploring the Unknown with Alex McDowell, Bruno Setola and Jeff Watson (USC/5D Institute)
Building experiences and worlds in which stories unfold in new mind-blowing ways, redefining the limits of design and narrative, moving into a landscape where art and science, design and engineering are inseparable.

- Road, Movie: Films in Motion with Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and Sebastian Schipper (Victoria)
Discussion with two filmmakers whose literally "moving" films can exemplify the best of what cinema can offer.

- Kill Your Darlings  
Editor and director Susan Korda (For All Mankind) believes "Good editing is like good sex" and in this masterclass she proves just how.

- "Bigger Than Life" with Sir Ken Adam (Dr Strangelove) and Alex McDowell (Minority Report)
An exhibition featuring drawings, photographs, films and objects from Adam's work; from idea to paper to set to screen. The tour was led by production designer Alex McDowell and concluded with a get-together with Adam.

And there were many more… To watch some 25 panels and masterclasses that took place at the 2015 Berlinale Talents, head to their Youtube channel.

So, did you get to go to Berlinale too? What were your personal highlights? Did you see any films you'd recommend? Are you planning to go next year? I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts...

Happy Weekend everyone!