It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a movie with bad sound, no matter how visually stunning or interesting of subject, will not hold an audience’s attention–unless it is a silent movie, and even then, the music is critical.
Conversely, a movie with bad image quality–or let’s just go there and say NO picture (as in radio), will hold an audience if it’s interesting and has GOOD SOUND. When we made Dirty Habit what we heard from all the producers we talked to was “if there’s one thing you can’t save money on, it’s sound. You have to pay your sound person.” And this has been born out for time out of mind.
The average viewer won’t even know what it was that made them turn off the film with bad sound and will say, “I don’t know… I just lost interest” or “I had a headache” or “I wanted to eat a donut.”
Bad sound is the creeping death that will ruin the films of all non-believers. Get a good mic and get it in the right place.
Motherlode PIctures partners with Calf Audio and MonkSound who boast about a century and a half of recording and live sound experience between them.
We consult with these sound engineers on a constant basis and are, in fact, the best of friends. We’ve been cross-pollinating each other’s productions for years. We believe sound it is at least 50% of the filmic experience and we treat it the same way we treat any other aspect of our production–with a singular emphasis on quality.