A couple of weeks back, actor James Devereaux asked if I wouldn’t mind helping to clean up the audio on a short film he made called ‘The Audition’. I am a fan of James’ and as I find the ideas behind his work so insightful I jumped at the chance to work with him. The film is about how ridiculous the acting audition can be but if you have ever been exposed to anybody that thinks they are the big cheese… and simultaneously misses the point, you will relate to the film even if you are not an actor!

The film contained much background noise, but despite it being intentional James found that the differences in it between shots made continuity suffer. My task was to therefore even out the big differences in sound between shots and to generally have a bit of an audio clean-up. Due to the small-scale of the production the sound came from the in-built camcorder microphone used to shoot the film. This ‘plug in and play’ approach allowed various imperfections through which had to be sorted i.e. differing sound levels between the actors’ voices. There were some other imperfections that did have to be lived with, which played havoc with my (ahem) mild OCD, but I feel these do not detract from the overall experience of the film.

James was really pleased with what my efforts added so he is eager for me to contribute more in-depth to his exciting future productions: he plans a series of shorts culminating in the production of a feature film. This is something that I am very much looking forward to as I will be able to really flex my creative muscles and add to the very core of what the films are about whilst bringing in to play all of the aesthetics and theories I blog about.

Watch this space for the final version of The Audition and keep up-to-date with my involvement in the making of James’ films. In the meantime check out a promo clip of The Audition below: