Now that I have edited the film and had it critiqued by both Mr. Bomboy and my peers, I now recognize what could have been done to improve the sound within the film. At the time, I thought my logic regarding utilizing the boom mic & shotgun mic combination in the bowling alley had been sound. The intent was to capture desired sound (lines) while also recording background noise such as the dropping of bowling balls and the bumping of balls on bumpers. Even so, I did not seem to factor in the background music that would be playing within the bowling alley. While we could have at least asked to see if it would be possible to have the music shut off for a bit, we did not particularly feel comfortable doing so. In the editing stage, I did my best to be rid of background noise and humming (i.e. in the classroom scene in which the air conditioning can be heard buzzing in the back, so much so that it detracts from the lines being delivered).
While working on this project, I discovered that a lot of background editing may be necessary in order to clean up the sound...I was grateful that I was able to do this, because it ended up saving audio clips that I originally thought could not be used. However, next time, for lines in which heavy dialogue is the focus, lavalier mics will be used to record so as to have sole recordings of primarily just dialogue. If sound effects are needed (or simply desired to get a feel of the location in which a scene takes place), I will go back and use a boom mic at the same time to only capture the effects. The strongest portion of good sound in this film is the car scene. The car sound effects, music, and voice overs made a wonderful combination. I couldn't be happier with the outcome of this scene. I would like to learn ducking though, so as to be able to drop out the music when the voice overs come on so as to highlight their importance to both the plot and how heavily these thoughts weigh on the character of June.
