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What environmental noises might you get in a busy city (let's say the West End of London) at 9 PM on a Saturday night?
So far I can think of the following:
Car engines
Rickshaws
Excited voices (crowds)
Footsteps (crowds)
Wind and rain
Music emanating from clubs
Beeps from pedestrian crossings
Am I missing anything? These are all quite boring.
Would it be a seriously silly idea to walk around there for an hour or two on my own with a microphone and recording equipment?
David
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Deeej wrote:
> What environmental noises might you get in a busy city (let's say the West End of London) at 9 PM on a Saturday night?
There's a sort of hum in a busy city. Mainly surprisingly high-pitched, cos high-frequency noises travel better than low-frequency. And an almost-inaudible low-frequency rumble from underground (tube) trains - both them rumbling along the tracks, and them vibrating bits of buildings. Oh, and bloody silly mobile phone ringtones and bloody silly people shouting into them! Flappy noises: canvas canopies on shops, litter, handouts, torn posters, used cartons from the golden arches blowing in the breeze. Rustles - clothes make a noise when people move (especially waxed jackets)
> Would it be a seriously silly idea to walk around there for an hour or two on my own with a microphone and recording equipment?
Absolutely not: I've been known to chase round the garden in a dressing gown at 0300h to get a decent thunder recording!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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NW, as you're so good at answering this sort of question I ought to talk to you directly about it! I'll send you an email tomorrow, if you don't mind me bothering you. 
I've been so swamped lately by requests for me to act as DoP on other people's graduation films (and it's not just a case of me being nice (am I ever nice?): it's all showreel stuff) that I'm thinking of cutting back my own plans and coming up with a simple, principally one-man idea involving two actors and a great deal of solo sound recording.
I spent yesterday evening in WC2 (driving round and round in circles in my car -- I inadvertently visited the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Waterloo Station, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, Russell Square, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Buckingham Palace, Shaftesbury Avenue, Picadilly Circus and some extremely seedy Soho back streets, some several times, all while trying to get from Holborn back onto the A4 westwards). Despite my bad experience, I think that central London would be an excellent place to set a story, especially if the story could follow a real-life path, perhaps signified by photographs.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Buskers, street theatre, vomiting chavs, sirens, "Taxi!", bicycle bells, airbrakes (they hiss), canned music form doorways, waiters in covent garden cafes, doormen in chinatown selling their restaurant, a fight, "Big Issue!", "Got any change, Mister?"
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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A wonderfully stereotypical London! (And I mean that as a compliment.)
In sound sometimes it's necessary to go for clichés so that people can orient themselves, but on the other hand it could seem over the top or lazy. I'll have to give it some thought.
Thanks, Timmy.
David
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