"The Race to Sustainability" - Documentary Sound Edit and Mix

PROJECT DETAILS

Date: January-March 2023

Location: Salford, United Kingdom

Tasked with creating a 10 minute documentary on any chosen subject matter, University of Salford undergraduate student Amber Jones produced and presented a short documentary on the current issues surrounding Formula 1 and its relationship with the sustainability crisis.

Working closely with Amber through the duration of the production, I mixed and partially recorded sound for the documentary. The two batches of narration, one recorded into a Blackmagic Pocket cinema camera with a RØDE lavalier (lapel) microphone simultaneously with the talking head videos, the other recorded in a non-studio environment using a USB microphone, had massive differences in tonality, background noise, and overall sound. In addition to these, there were bits of audio recorded through Zoom and Teams calls, distorted by noise suppression and compression algorithms.

My biggest task was to match the narration tones and to bring the video conference recordings to an acceptable state where they wouldn't stand out or distract the audience during the documentary. I did this to the best of my abilities using the limited amount of time I had.

After the audio was edited and fixed, I went over the final edit on Premiere Pro, making sure audio & video clips were in sync, levels were similar, and there were no issues overall with either the edit or the audio mix.

The full documentary is available to watch below.

Full Documentary: