Andrew Siedenburg

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of recording sound for film and moving images. Sound is crucial to immerse viewers in a performance, whether through clearly recorded dialogue or through field recordings made in a landscape. This relies on the recordings made by the sound recordist, or production sound mixer, and we will deconstruct and learn what this important role entails. We will cover different approaches to recording sound, including for documentary, narrative, and experimental works. Through hands-on practical demonstrations and class participation, we will learn how to best capture high-quality audio during production, focusing on the critical relationship between sound and image. Topics include dialogue recording, field recordings, sound effects, portable recorders, boom mic operation and techniques, lavalier microphone operation and techniques, cross-department collaboration, and synchronization with camera. Each week, we will better familiarize ourselves with different aspects of recording sound while opening up ourselves to the technical and conceptual possibilities present in the medium. By the end of the course, students will be proficient with sound recording equipment and have the tools necessary to record high-quality sound on a film set or for their next project.

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of recording sound for film and moving images. Sound is crucial to immerse viewers in a performance, whether through clearly recorded dialogue or through field recordings made in a landscape. This relies on the recordings made by the sound recordist, or production sound mixer, and we will deconstruct and learn what this important role entails. We will cover different approaches to recording sound, including for documentary, narrative, and experimental works. Through hands-on practical demonstrations and class participation, we will learn how to best capture high-quality audio during production, focusing on the critical relationship between sound and image. Topics include dialogue recording, field recordings, sound effects, portable recorders, boom mic operation and techniques, lavalier microphone operation and techniques, cross-department collaboration, and synchronization with camera. Each week, we will better familiarize ourselves with different aspects of recording sound while opening up ourselves to the technical and conceptual possibilities present in the medium. By the end of the course, students will be proficient with sound recording equipment and have the tools necessary to record high-quality sound on a film set or for their next project.

Sound has immense importance in film language as a semantic, metaphoric, and affective device. It is in-frame, out-of-frame, in our memories, in the room, and elsewhere. Outside of film, our relationship to sound in our daily lives can be cultivated and honed to be more receptive to our own world—which, in turn, informs our experience of cinema. This course will cover a brief history of sound in film, from its early days to the advent of digital technology, while emphasizing its ever-continuing role in shaping narrative, emotional, and cognitive experience. Through a combination of lectures, readings, screenings, and hands-on group conferences, students will explore the mutable relationship of sound, film, and everyday life; the philosophy of sound; and the phenomenological aspects of auditory perception in both cinematic and everyday contexts. We will have short written assignments critiquing the use of sound in film from in-class screenings and a final, more substantial, writing assignment that critiques one of those films through the lens of sound using selected essays/texts from class readings. Hands-on group conferences will include making field recordings as a group that function as reflexive exercises or punctuations for our lectures about sound and image.

This course will explore the foundational workflows of post-production sound for film and moving images. From dialogue editing to sound design and creating immersive soundscapes, we will break down the tools and approaches available that help shape the sonic experience of a film. Starting our lessons in Adobe Premiere and moving our work into Pro Tools, students will learn techniques to edit and layer audio tracks in both softwares while organizing them into Pro Tools templates for editing and mixing. We will cover topics such as equalization (EQ), compression, reverb, Loudness Units Full Scale (LUFS), noise reduction, room tone, aux buses, cinematic sound effects (SFX), and ambiences. Students will collaborate with film production classes to finalize post-production sound for a picture-locked cut in Pro Tools, using the skills learned in class. We will cover a basic intro to field recording with Zoom recorders to capture stereo ambiences that can be used in the projects that students make for class. Through hands-on exercises and critical listening, we will focus on how sound creates atmosphere and brings a cinematic world to life.