What price sound, indeed? And what price the skilled Sound Engineer? Following on from the General Meeting on Sunday 2nd June, at Twickenham, I want to draw attention to several instances last year, which caused me bouts of sheer depression, whereby documentary and corporate productions undertook shoots without a Sound Recordist at all !
A British Gas training film required my services for a day, as there was quite a complicated radio mic set-up involving Steadicam. When I enquired, hopefully, about the possibility of further work, it came to light that as a rule, their unit Production Manager 'did' the Sound !
A large grocery retailer produces a monthly visual magazine report for its staff. This keeps a good cameraman friend of mine fairly busy. He would love to get me on the unit to work with him but the Video Editor comes out of his suite to 'do' the Sound.
A documentary unit went off to film in Brunei. The Director and I had worked together in the past and I should have enjoyed being involved in his project. But no. On this occasion, it was going to be the Camera Assistant who would 'run out the mic.'
This is possibly even worse. I had been working with a cameraman, who was bemoaning the fact that he was off to Australia and the Far East. He was expected to work single handed carting around and setting up, not only the camera but the lights as well - no Assistant or Spark, and yes you guessed, he was supposed to record the sound whilst shooting.
The one linking factor concerning the above examples is that the medium was videotape and the shooting tool, the camcorder, albeit professional Beta SP, and the point being that the sound track is recorded on the same carrier as the picture. Modern developments in technology have done away with, at least in this particular field, a separate machine for this function. Chris Burt made the point that we must be careful of the machinery taking over. The manufacturers have apparently made it so easy for Sound to be added to previously silent images. Just plug in a mic or use the on-board one and bingo! Therefore we don't need a separate person to handle the Sound. Anyone can do it. Anyone is.
I have spent 30 years learning my trade as a Sound Recording Engineer, and at present, work in the field of documentaries and corporate productions, drawing on skills derived from both Broadcast Television and Feature Films - even encompassing Music Recording - to produce an intelligible soundtrack that is usable. It has to be; no opportunity to 'fix it in post' with ADR for me! I would challenge any of the persons 'doing the Sound' mentioned earlier, to offer greater experience in this field. As Gerry Humphreys stated: "There is no substitute for years of accumulated knowledge". So what course is open to me in order to take part in this multiskilling operation? Well, part of my earlier, very extensive, training was in the camera department, and having also been a Boom Operator, one learns a very great deal about lighting and lenses, not to mention composition. So wouldn't it be quite good to be a cameramen who actually knows lots about Sound ?
Or, - (for on the panel, we had Producers and Production Accountants) - I would be happy to utilise my computer skills and my Accounts software package together with my mobile phone and notebook and pen, to carry out your work - oh yes, and 'do' the Sound. Easy peasy! Now, if your retort is that your jobs require specialised knowledge and training, and that one person cannot combine two jobs, then you have understood exactly the point that I am making. The difficult lies in making that same point to all those concerned in the budgeting of every production.