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Another low light issue was in the scene in which Natasha was trying to solve the Lament Configuration. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a group of candles, while Lucifer watches her. While the candles add a nice dark magicky touch, it doesn’t provide a whole lot of light, and the light that is present is very low. Perhaps the best solution in this scene would have been to add a lot more candles to the room. It wouldn’t add a lot of light, but every little bit helps. After that, purchase a few flickering light bulbs and hide them in a couple strategic places. Once again, this gives the illusion of candlelight, but eliminates the fire hazard and provides a lot more light. And to soften the harshness, hang thin sheets or gauzy curtains in front of the light.
Lighting in low light situations can get very tricky, because if you add too many light sources it becomes glaringly obvious that you’re desperately compensating for a lack thereof. But this is where screen tests come in (and now, thanks to digital technology, these are very cheap!). Grab your camera, a bunch of random lights, and a couple friends, then head out to your location at night and take a bunch of practice shots, experimenting with different lighting combinations. Go back and review your “dailies,” and pick the look you like the best. Though it might get tedious, this will save a lot of time and hassle on the shooting day, and after a couple night shoots under your belt, you’ll probably have a perfect combination of lights all figured out and won’t have to bother with screen tests anymore. (Well, it’s always a good idea to pre-test, so you’ll probably still do test shoots. But you’ll definitely do less of them as you get more experienced!)
Use of Audio
I really loved the music in this film. It was a great touch using a version of the “Agnus Dei” at the beginning. Not only was it a beautiful piece of music, but the song itself – “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us” – matches well with the dark and demonic theme of the film, as if echoing the cry of humanity that often serve as pawns in the games that demons and angels play with each other. I also liked the music in the closing credits, Evanescence’s song “Lies,” and the scene music used when the passageway to the Labyrinth is finally opened. Though, for future reference, songs used ought to be included in the closing credits. [Note to the Director: If the failure to include the song titles in the closing credits means that you haven’t gotten permission to use the music, I would highly recommend changing the music to a song you have the rights to before submitting this film to any film festivals, even fan film fests.]
The dialogue audio was fairly decent, especially considering that the filmmakers used the camera’s on-board mike--usually a very big no-no due to poor sound quality and internal camera noise. They originally purchased an Audio Technica ATR-55 shotgun, but it introduced a high pitched tone, so they elected not to use it. I found mixed reviews for that particular microphone, though most people seem to think it’s a decent piece of equipment if one can’t afford anything better. One filmmaker in particular said that the humming noise can usually be attributed to the microphone’s cable. It only comes with a three foot cable, and doesn’t have balanced XLR line, so if one adds an extension cord, that can introduce the added tone. [Note to the Director: Additional hum, buzz, and/or tone are commonly reported issues with less expensive Audio Technica mics in general, especially the battery-operated shotgun mics. Most of their problems can be corrected in post with a sound clean up program, like Sound Soap or the Sony Noise Reduction Plug-ins. However, be sure to test this ahead of time if you want to work with Audio Technica in the future. If not, Sennheiser has a really nice basic shotgun mic that we mention in our introduction to audio article here.]
I do have a few general audio complaints. Firstly, there were several inconsistencies in echo and vibration. In some scenes, such as when the characters were standing in a kitchen, the audio echoed a lot, and in other areas there was much less echo. This is something to pay attention to during future films. Obviously it’s impossible to completely eliminate all audio echo in a kitchen or bathroom, but it can be minimized tremendously by taking out or covering as many hard surfaces as possible and hiding lots of soft surfaces off-camera. Even adding a couple more people to the room while shooting will reduce an echo somewhat. The more you can do to prevent as much of it during shooting, the better off you’ll be, because, in all truth, there’s not a whole lot you can do to remove echo in post production. (For further information on dampening echo, we actually cover this in more detail in our article on creating an ADR studio here.)
There were also some level issues that could really stand to be adjusted. When Natasha drives her car out of the parking garage, the sound was almost deafening. There were many other times when music was way too loud, and then it would dip suddenly to where I had to turn up the volume. Then loud music or dialogue would start up again, and I had to turn the sound back down. Audio levels can easily be adjusted in any digital editing program, and it’s best to test them out by burning a sample DVD and playing it on a couple different TVs and/or computers, then adjusting levels as needed. (As a rule of thumb, most dialogue should be mixed to –12 Db. Music would normally be mixed at –18 Db if people are talking over it or –12 Db it’s the main audio. Sound effects are usually a little louder than speech, but no more than –6 Db.)
Now, there was some nice use of post-production voice distortion for the character of Angelique, one of Leviathan’s minions. This added a nice demonic element to her character, but at the same time it made her a little hard to understand.
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