Module 3.2 : Parcourt route

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Low level – 5a. Space and sound

5a-micro

Category: Sound

Objectives:

To identify the role that sound plays in the perception of space / To learn to create disconnection between image and sound to surprise the audience. 

Short Description:

Is your microphone too close or too far from the source? What impact does microphone placement have? This activity helps you exercise your ears, and understand the potential of your sound recording equipment.

Module:

Module 2 > chapiter 2 > section 5
Download the activity

Duration

20 minutes

Number of participants

Adaptable.Depens on equipement

  • A camera on a tripod
  • Microphone connected to the camera through a long cable
  • Headphones
  • The activity will also work using the camera’s built-in microphone.

Description step by step

  • Choose a text dealing with the theme of racism and interculturality (a poem? a carte blanche?). Choose a place for a chair.
  • Set up your camera and plan your shot, making sure to include the chair in the frame. 
  • Ask each person in turn to sit down and read a passage from the text.
  • With regard to his or her position in relation to the microphone, the technician, with the headphones on, can identify and point the person who’s voice is:
  • a “close-up sound”: we hear it as if the person was speaking directly in our ears.
  • a “foreground sound”: we hear it as if the person was next to us
  • a “background sound” : we hear it as if the person was further, taking part in the scene but at a distance from the action
  • The person wearing the headset can then be changed so that everyone understands the effect of sound through the microphone. If you have an external microphone, it can also be moved to create shifts between sound and image, between near and far.

Tips for the trainer

Remind participants: We often place the microphone too far away from the source of the sound, and the audience has to make an effort to understand what is being said. The microphone is usually placed as close as possible to the source of the sound: this creates an intimacy between the speaker and the listener. A voice that we want to be clear should be in the close-up or foreground. 

For both sound and image, we decide what we’re going to put in the foreground and what we’re going to put in the background, and then we try to create a dialogue between these different contents.

A lapel / lavalier microphone offers a great narrative opportunity: even if the person appears in the background, their voice can be heard as a close-up sound.

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