Just Another Day (Short Film)

Boom Operator, Dialogue Edit & Foley

Year:

2024

Role:

Director Of Sound

Client:

Pedro Costa (Portugal)

About

“Apenas Mais Um Dia” (“Just Another Day” in English) is a cinematographic project by final year students from the Art School / Escola das Artes – Universidade Católica do Porto.

Plot

“After the loss of his best friend, Rui tries to move away from everything he knows, repressing his feelings, thinking he could live better that way. However, his attempt to escape leads him to face his guilt and move towards acceptance.”

“Apenas mais um dia” is directed by Gonçalo Dias. With producer: Pedro Costa, Dir. of art and photography: Tiago Sousa, Ass. Director: Camila Pereira, Dir. Sound: Nuno Pinto de Carvalho. Actors: Rafael Ferreira (Rui), Rita Duque (Margarida), Carolina Mendes (Diana), Sebastião Varaine (Filipe).

We spent a whole week filming inside a house, in a village of Luso region (Mealhada, Portugal) and for the last day, in a park at the Mountain range of Bussaco (Serra do Bussaco).

Sound direction and capture

I was in charge of directing the sound, with operating the boom+recorder and choosing the best locations to capture and orient the shotgun mic properly, both indoors and outdoors.

Using a shotgun mic indoors isn’t easy because the sound can become really boomy sometimes, especially when placed around corners and near ceiling. Capturing a clear dialogue without the capsule appearing in front of a camera requires constant calibration and testing, but I loved every part of it.

This was mid January. Inside the house, we were very comfortable and warm, but the last day, at “Serra do Bussaco”, out in the open, was really really cold. Kind of like -2^ºC to 0^ºC I believe. We had a good time though, and mic didn’t complain. 😉

“Serra do Bussaco” is an amazing place to relax by the way. Far from the city, you can hear the sounds of birds, water flowing in the lake, wind shaking the trees and all. It was nice!

Got the chance to capture many interesting sounds there, and some were helpful later in the post processing.

Every scene shot was carefully planed previously (locations, positions, etc) by the production team, which made my job in getting the best sound possible easier and efficient.

The most challenging, and funny, part was the “fighting scene”. I had to move fast in order to capture the actors moving (steps, clothes, shouts, breaths) and avoid hitting the boom mic against any object.

Post Production

Few months later, and after the team taking care of part of the footage, I was tasked with editing the dialogue and create the foley for the different scenes.

Dialogue Editing

Having worked in dozens of VO/Dialogue/Vocals and syncing them with video, this was a straightforward process. Never the less, it takes time choosing the best audio take for the camera angle, sync it with the picture, apply the necessary tools to enhance the audio and sometimes replace words from other takes to get clearer speech.

For the dialogue recorded outdoors, in the park, I had to use specific tools for reducing the background noise.

The recordings near the lake, as you can imagine, were really noisy. The sound of water flowing in abundance, is perceived like a white noise or hiss.

Taking off or reducing these ambient sounds needed special attention, in part because the level of ambience (background noise) in these varies from angle to angle, depending on the position of the boom mic.

After processing I had to make sure the audio quality was similar in each recording, so that any transition to the next take/angle happens smoothly, without alerting the viewer that something in the audio changed.

The goal, as always, is to make the sound of the speech coherent and clean as possible, without making it too artificial with processing.

Removing all noises and echos from a recording makes it unnatural/unrealistic, especially in this context, outdoors in the park.

Foley production

After the dialogue being done and shared with the rest of the team, I moved to the foley creation.

Some scenes needed simple sounds like cloth rubbing and footsteps in gravel, while others required more complex sounds.

Some I managed to re-use from my own libraries (water, birds, etc) and from previous boom recordings (tv falling/breaking, different takes from “fight scene”) while others were created on the spot (rubbing of clothes, slap, breaths, etc).

A good slap, for example, can be obtained from a mix of clap and a snare hit on top of a regular slap. Sorry for all those slaps Rui 😆

Final Product

The movie is still not available to watch fully, its being sent to a couple of festivals/events, but you can check the teaser trailer for the time being.

“Apenas Mais Um Dia” Teaser:
https://youtu.be/UDgPmQxx8CI

Instagram page of the movie:
https://www.instagram.com/apenasmaisumdia_03

Cast and Crew:

Direction: Gonçalo Dias
Production: Pedro Costa
Text: Gonçalo Dias
Direction of Photography: Tiago Sousa
Direction of Sound, Capture, Dialogue Editing and Foley: Nuno Pinto de Carvalho
Art Direction and Color Correction: Tiago Sousa
Actors: Rafael Ferreira (Rui), Rita Duque (Margarida), Carolina Mendes (Diana), Sebastião Varaine (Filipe)
Ass. Director and Setup: Camila Pereira
Sound Mix: Bernardo Bento
Score: André de Carvalho