Following the recce in December (I think I managed to produce good recordings) it was time to go to London and record the remaining missing elements for Hannah’s radio drama. Drawing from my experience during the recce I decided to take a radio mic. The plan was that I attach that mic to Hannah and ask her to sit close to people. This would have enabled me to record people’s chatting without being noticed, as well as recording the sounds of the carriage with my gunmic.
The plan changed when Hannah told me that she can’t come with me. On the same day Duncan commented on my risk assessment form: “Be unobtrusive”. So I decided to take two radio mics and use them as kind-of-binaurals.
Initially Hannah wanted me to go to London and spend three days there, recording the sounds of the underground. I gently refused this, thinking that three days is too much. I really didn’t want to stretch the recording this long when I had to concentrate on my Visual Culture essay. (I found that I work less effectively if I leave too much time for a very specific task.)
Then we agreed that we’re going to spend one long day in London, recording the required sounds. I offered Sunday 08/02/2009 for this activity; leaving Bristol at 05:50am, arriving back the next day at 00:20am. The first clash in my schedule happened when I found out that the filming of Remember Me was rescheduled to start from 09/02/2009 (something I expected to happen…and it did). I had to postpone the first recording session. There was no point going to London for a day and then starting the filmshoot having slept only 4 hours. That would have just meant that I’m absolutely unusable, close to being unconscious.
I phoned Hannah to explain this to her. She seemed upset first. She wanted to have the underground recordings so that she can play them to the voice actors during the voice recording session. Then I explained that my priority lies in films and this change in the schedule unfortunately affected our plans. I offered her another recording session (again, on a Sunday) in two weeks’ time. I asked her to book the equipment for me and send a list of sound effect she wanted me to record the day before my departure by 6pm.
The severe weather later on the week was also on my side and allowed me to tweak my Visual Culture essay. This first recording session was postponed for two weeks.
Today I helped Jane and Sheryl in loading the kit in their cars. Tomorrow is the first day of “principal photography” of Remember Me. I need to sleep after two weeks of mad reading note taking and writing.
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