Digital Video - December 2007 - (Page 55) most valuable and relatively undiscovered technical areas on the Web. It includes an immense database of contributed articles, circuit diagrams, and tutorials about audio and electronics. Equipment Emporium (www.equipmentemporium.com) A sales and rental house, with lots of useful articles on soundtrack production, and downloadable manuals for some common gear. Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) Cast, crew, and occasional trivia for just about every movie ever made—Hollywood features, made-for-TV, low-budget indies, the works. Museum of Broadcast Technology (www.wmbt.org) The growing site of a new brick-and-mortar museum in Rhode Island. Articles and photos about how we got where we are today. Quantel Limited (www.quantel.com) This film and video equipment manufacturer has assembled a large downloadable library on digital audio and video, workflows, and interchange systems. The site also offers a free, downloadable 150page guidebook to digital broadcasting. Rane Corporation (www.rane.com) Rane makes equipment for commercial sound installations. But its site includes valuable information on all forms of audio, including a library of downloadable technical booklets and a complete audio dictionary. Rycote’s Microphone Database (www.microphone-data.com) Technical specifications for thousands of microphones, sponsored by a maker of professional shockmounts and windscreens. Rycote doesn’t do its own measurements, but if a mic manufacturer publishes any, you’ll find them neatly organized here—complete with polar patterns and response curves when available. Video University (www.videouniversity.com) This site has a few basic articles on audio, www.dv.com plus a lot of information about the technology and business of video. A few of these sites require free registration, but I’ve never gotten spam from any of them. Many also include links to other sites, so you could spend a few lifetimes exploring and learning. Of course the Web doesn’t stay still, so some of these references might disappear before you get to them. TEXT ME Computers also made possible an explosion of up-to-date books by working experts—people who’d never consider writing in the days of manual typewriters and stodgy publishers. Some can be valuable for beginners and experienced pros alike. Here are a few I’ve learned from. Most of these are available from standard sources; links for all of them—with discounted prices, where I could find them—are on the DV Readers’ page of my site (www.dplay.com/dv). ARRL Handbook. The American Radio Relay League updates this 1,200page encyclopedia every year, with a CDROM containing articles on just about every aspect of audio and radio electronics. It’s unabashedly technical, but deep and reliable—and you don’t need the latest version to learn a lot. Audio Postproduction (Jay Rose). OK, I wrote it, but it’s used at a lot of schools worldwide, including Russian and German versions. Downloadable samples, critical comments and more are all at my Web site. Dialog Editing for Motion Pictures (John Purcell). Video and film sound evolved with very different editing methods; each has its specific strengths. Film style is much better for telling long stories shot in short takes. Video style can be more powerful for documentaries and pieces using voice-over, and it’s faster. While these styles evolved because the technologies were different, modern audio software makes both available all the time. My books come from a videocentric point of view, while Purcell’s are from film; we each explain tricks and techniques the other never covers. I recommend reading both. Besides, Purcell is as good and clear a writer as I try to be. Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound (David Lewis Yewdall). The differences between film and video workflows affect the entire process, from preproduction through mix. Yewdall covers the entire film sound process. This wide-ranging topic means he can’t get as deeply into specific techniques as my books or Purcell’s, but you can learn a lot from his extensive experiences in the feature world. If you want to learn how things are done when there’s a Hollywood budget, this is the book to read. Producing Great Sound (me again). See listing under Audio Postproduction; details also at my Web site. Sound for Film and Television (Tomlinson Holman). A bit more for the technically minded than Yewdall’s book, and definitely oriented toward feature film workflows, despite the title. This makes sense, since Holman is the “TH” in THX, as well as a respected sound designer and teacher in Hollywood. Total Recording (David Moulton). This thick book, written by a Grammynominated engineer and audio educator, explains how to get the best results from just about every gadget and person in a music studio. A lot applies to film and video as well. If you’ve got the time and commitment, you can also benefit from the listening exercises in Moulton’s separate Golden Ears audio training CDs. A disclaimer: Purcell, Yewdall, Holman and I are all published by Focal Press, but I have no financial interest in any titles other than my own. In fact, I’ll even point you to a great Web resource for people who’d rather borrow books than pay for them: www.worldcatlibraries.org. Enter a title, author, and your ZIP code, and this meta-catalog will locate the library copies closest to your home. DV Jay Rose, C.A.S., is a nationally respected sound designer who readily admits he’s still learning. Reach him at www.dplay.com. dv december 2007 55 http://www.equipmentemporium.com http://www.imdb.com http://www.wmbt.org http://www.dplay.com/dv http://www.quantel.com http://www.rane.com http://www.microphone-data.com http://www.worldcatlibraries.org http://www.videouniversity.com http://www.dplay.com http://www.dv.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.