Post Production at the Museum of the Moving Image

Located in Astoria, Queens, NYC, The Museum of the Moving Image is a treasure and worth the trek. We had a lovely guide, Lauren, with big red hair and funky vintage frames, who gave us an hour and a half tour of the museum (minus the special exhibitions). One of the most memorable moments was when we got to the Automated Dialogue Replacement booth. Actors often have to re-record their sound if the original sound was not initially recorded well, if say there was background noise, or if the audio got messed up for any other reason. They have to get back into character and in the right emotional state (which can be challenging depending on the scene), and then while watching the original footage, they try to recreate their voice in a sound booth to get a high quality sound byte. So at this demo, three volunteers were needed, and I held up my hand not knowing what I was getting into. There were about 15 of us crammed into a soundproof booth and the task at hand was to record audio for a scene in a movie. I picked Eddie Murphy's lines in 'Coming to America', not knowing how fast he spoke! I had the first line. First I listened to it, then I rehearsed and tried to keep up, and then the recording moment! I wore headphones and spoke into a mic. I was way off! It was really hard to keep up, get all the dialogue out of my mouth without blurring my words together; I tried to annunciate, but it wasn't happening. It all happened in less than a minute, and then the mic and headphones were passed to the next person to deliver the next set of lines. Granted, if I was Eddie Murphy, I would probably be able to keep up with my speech rate, but still! It made me realize how much goes into post-production and is so seamlessly weaved into the final film so that the viewer has absolutely no idea.

Soundwalk around Greenpoint, Brooklyn

A Monday evening in Greenpoint brings many sounds to my ears as I walk the blocks near my apartment. Listening to cars swishing by, moving from sound signals in the foreground, the revving of an engine, to keynotes in the way back and then gone. Music plays from inside a car, and then disappears. Subtle rumbling of the BQE in the distance at times, and at others a more visceral rumble, when trucks thump above my head as I go under the underpass. I almost want to plug my ears. The BQE brings sounds within sounds: the sound of the trucks engine, the tire on the pavement, the echo in the parking lot under the BQE, the sound of all components that create the underpass vibrating. Further, along, away from the BQE, more toward the markets on Nassau, snippets of conversations go by; cell phone conversations, greetings, stern words to a child, music playing from someones earbuds. A baby cries in the distance. Underneath all this, a humming of a neon sign, the clicking of the traffic lights. The constant sound of my jacket swishing as I walk and my shoes hitting the pavement. An ambulance in the distance. It feels quieter on certain residential streets, but it's not actually quiet, there is the distant sound of cars and then from down the street the sound of a car door slam. As I walked along I noticed so many new sounds all the time, moving in and out of ear range, sounds in constant flux.

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday Morning from Jamie Matson on Vimeo.