UKH

Afternoon all,
Complete camera novice here so bear with me. I've watched a lot of wildlife films over the years and I've started to wonder about the audio.

Especially on modern programs it sounds like the audio is recorded right next to the animal even whilst the camera it's self is a long way away. Also when the image is in slow motion the audio seems to match it but doesn't sound slowed down.

How on earth do they manage that?! It's great but I can't understand how it works.

Cheers,
Greasy

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:
I think in many (or even most) nature films the audio is added afterwards, i.e. faked. The sounds of sped-up leaves uncurling and buds popping are particularly grating. I'd be glad to stand corrected.

In reply to thomm:

... and the 'splish-splash' of anything leaving or entering water, especially in slow motion.

Quite often the visuals are faked too, or at least done in a studio -- virtually every shot of life in an underground burrow is done this way.

In reply to thomm:



Sorry to disappoint, but you won't be, you're quite right.

And another thing, these cutesy little narratives that they construct are all inventions by the production team out of the available footage.

In reply to Jon Read:

...and the thunder whenever it rains, even when it's clearly not a thunderstorm.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Well thanks for clearing that up everyone. I'm pretty gutted though! Streapadair mentioned the narratives being made up. Do you mean those bits refer to our.............. is really just a load of shots of random animals cut together? They're not genuinely following one poor bugger of a seal around for ages?

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Check of Chris Watson's work.

http://www.chriswatson.net

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:
Some sounds will be faked afterwards, but not all. There's usually a mixture of foley, archive and field recordings, and some field recordists will go to extraordinary lengths to capture sound - even building specific mics for certain jobs.

There's a brilliant radio doc about sound recordists here: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-sound-of-sports/

Deals with sport rather than nature docs, but a good insight into what techniques are used.

This is a great article too http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/22/rain-is-sizzling-bacon-cars-lio...

Lots of sound recorded for documentaries and film can't actually be used, because it's not the sound we're expecting to hear, so sounds odd.