Filmmaking — Codex North

Fiction is a fiction

Thu, 22 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“You don’t speak to people’s minds. You speak to them physiologically. You speak to what’s underneath the mind.”
— Jonathan Bowden

When people think of midsommar, they largely think about people smashing the heads of elders with a sledge hammer, and people getting drugged, killed and/or raped in a terrifying rural cult full of nice-looking Swedish people dressed in white. I have spent considerable time reassuring non-Scandinavians that Sweden and midsommar is not creepy.

This is not because they think Midsommar, the film, is a documentary or based on a true story. They know it isn’t. It is usually not because they don’t know midsommar is a real tradition in Sweden. They know. If you ask them “Do you really think that’s what it’s actually like?” They’ll say no. However, if you ask them “Do you want to go?” you’ll also get a no.

Film is an incredibly impactful medium. It assaults your most important senses with very strong emotional impressions. Many people judge a film mainly by how strong of an emotional reaction it was able to trigger in them. So naturally, many films today seem created specifically just to evoke emotions. More crying, fear, tension, et cetera, equals more good. The film art we have ended up with as a result is refined emotional rape on disc. It will force emotions into you. A “good” film will be as impactful as humanly possible. The brain is not built for this. It doesn’t actually have any way to distinguish between the impression of a film, and the impression of a real experience. Both will shape you. Consciously and subconsciously.

After that film, when people see the midsommarstång or a white girl in a white dress with flowers in her hair, they get a sting in their chest, and a rush of negative emotions. This is important, because your conscious thoughts around things matter far less than the emotions they cause in you. Your conscious thoughts are mostly the foam of rationalizations on top of a river of intuitive and aesthetic decisions.¹

Taking something as beautiful, pure and holy as the Swedish tradition of midsommar, and corrupting it this way is spiritual vandalism. Curse those who do it. I couldn’t possibly give less of a shit about how “good” (read: emotionally impactful) the film is, if it corrupts and twists people’s intuition around what is good, and what is creepy. We should not give funding and power to people who see something beautiful, good and pure, and think: “This would be great to corrupt and undermine on film”, instead of “This is great, more people should see how great this is”.

Midsommar isn’t the only film to do this, either. There are plenty of films that take something pure and good only to corrupt and destroy it for emotional effect. You could look at the same directors earlier film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, where he takes the beautiful and sadly rare image of the black family with a father in the home, and connects it with rape and incest. “When you see a well-dressed black family, think incest!”

This is evil.

Conversely, this power of film can also be used for good. It can be used to uplift and lionize the good of the world. Lord of the Rings does this. Yes, it is full of gross and negative things, but they are portrayed by characters that are correctly and truthfully dark. Their opposition, correctly, are a beautiful and glorious band of brothers and friends. True heroes.

Such art shapes and hones your aesthetic and moral intuition in a good way, rather than corrupting it. It doesn’t make enemies out of friends, and friends out of enemies. It doesn’t portray the orc horde and poisonous spiders as the good ones, and the human sword-wielders as the evil ones. It doesn’t undermine the image of family with incest, or the image of brotherhood with closeted homosexuality. It doesn’t impose lies on your subconscious.

This is a key aspect to whether something is truly good. If it damages you and your moral intuition, it is not good. Doesn’t matter how “impactful” it is, how many views it got, nor how many tickets it sold. What corrupts and destroys is evil, not good. If it adds beauty to the world, if it hones your moral and aesthetic judgement correctly; only then can it be good.

Films can obviously still fail along the normal technical lines, such as being badly paced, having awkward dialogue, a bad sound mix, and so on. Among those criteria, however, should be if the film is or is not bad on a spiritual level. Does it corrupt and undermine the good, and the human, or does it lionize it?

Nobody thought Jaws was a documentary, however, it caused a massive drop in people going swimming. ↩︎

Professionals should use 32-bit float recording

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 04:11:57 +0200

TL;DR: In choosing a solution to clipping, 32-bit float is simply superior to limiters.

What is 32-bit float recording?

Digital Audio

Standard digital PCM audio is 2-dimensional. One dimension is amplitude, the other is time. When you have different amplitudes over time, that is a waveform. Both dimensions need to be stored in the computer using numbers with limited resolution. The resolution of the time dimension is the sample rate, measured in kHz. The resolution of the amplitude dimension is the bit depth, measured in bits. Every sample is a number, stored in a unit that is the size of the bit depth. These samples occur at the interval set by the sample rate, so commonly 44,100 or 48,000 times per second.

(It should be mentioned that with dithering, the effective resolution of any bit depth is preceptively “infinite”. This comes with the trade-off that you’ll be introducing noise at the lowest possible volume level you can store in that bit depth. Meaning that increasing bit depth doesn’t actually increase resolution, but instead it decreases the necessary level of dithering noise. However, because the electronic and environmental noise in our recordings are way beyond dithering noise, you can ignore this.)

24-bit integer audio

In the common 24-bit audio file, these samples take up 24 bits. What is key about the 24-bit audio file is that it is an integer number. The only thing a 24-bit integer can store is whole numbers between 0 and 16,777,215. Signed integers sacrifice one bit to say if the number is negative or not, so they can go from −8,388,608 to 8,388,607. The number of unique numbers a 24-bit integer can store remains the same either way. 16,777,216 unique numbers. In PCM audio, these numbers represent the range between -144 (ish) dBFS, and 0 dBFS. If you try to go above 0 dBFS, it clips. When you only have 24 bits, and they’re all 1, then you can’t add another 1 to make louder. Which means you have to avoid clipping at all costs.

That is why we use limiters. Instead of letting the waveform cut off at 0 dBFS, it warps the dynamics to avoid clipping. This is an imperfect way to work around the limitations of storing audio using 24-bit integers.

32-bit float audio

32-bit float is fundamentally different. Not just because it is 32-bit and can therefore hold a vastly larger set of unique numbers, meaning a higher resolution. But because it can store decimal place numbers, in addition to extremely large numbers. That’s what “float” means. Without getting into the technical details, they’re awesome. The smallest 32-bit float number, other than 0, is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001175. There are 1,065,353,215 unique float values between 0 and 1. Although not linearly distributed, this is way more than the 16,777,216 total unique values of 24-bit.

Will you hear this increase in resolution with your ears? In most cases, no.
Will it technically be better? Yes.
Is that all? That’s it? Oh, hell no.

The way 32-bit float audio is implemented means that it can store values above 0 dBFS. That’s beyond clipping. With the right recording hardware, it is possible to record audio that is “clipping”, but not really, because the information is still there, available for recovery. This means you don’t have to use a limiter and warp the dynamics of a recording to avoid clipping. No more messed up dynamics, no more clipping, and higher amplitude resolution.

What is the downside of using 32-bit float audio? It requires 8 more bits pr sample, compared to 24-bit. However, audio is so cheap on storage anyway, that a 33% increase in size is completely ignorable.

With these benefits, you might imagine audio professionals like us would be scrambling to make use of this great development. No more need for limiters to catch the occasional loud laugh or loud impact sound! However, no. Watch or read anything about a 32-bit float capable recorder from a location sound mixer, and you’ll hear nothing but hesitancy and people brushing it off as a “neat fallback for noobs and kids who don’t know what they’re doing”. That’s why this article is not just some info about 32-bit float and why it’s cool. It is to show that it is actually something professionals should be excited about. Not gawk at as though we’re too good for high quality audio encoding.

Answering the hesitancy

“I don’t need it, because I’m good at my job, and professionals don’t clip their audio.”

Don’t flatter yourself. You trigger the limiter every now and then. Though, by this logic, you surely turn off said limiter on your recorder too, right? Just in case you won’t need it? After all, professionals don’t clip, so what would you need a limiter for?

Our job is to deliver the best possible quality sound. Not as low quality as possible before post production or producers complain and ask us to do better. So get out ahead of the curve. Use the highest quality format available. When a bad workaround like a limiter is replaced with an actual solution to the problem of clipping, use it whenever possible.

“Camera people don’t constantly shoot in raw.”

32-bit float is not raw. It’s vastly, vastly superior. This is a terrible analogy.

Audio is cheap, video is expensive. Audio is 2D (amplitude across time), video is highly multi-dimensional (R-amplitude, G-amplitude and B-amplitude, across X and Y, across time). Audio is always captured uncompressed, video is nearly never.

Cameras still blow out when shooting in raw. If you try to clip using a decent 32-bit float recorder, you’ll hit the limit of the amplifier or microphone first. If that was how raw worked, it would be the equivalent of giving the camera sensor enough dynamic range to capture something so bright that the lens would break. While also putting an end to all banding issues. And all that while barely making a lick of difference to the file size, or how slow it is to edit! In fact, editing with it is faster than 24-bit, because 32-bit lines up better with current CPU’s word lengths. If that was how good raw recording was, you’d never turn it off! However, that’s not even close to how raw works. So they don’t. It is how 32-bit float works, however. So use it.

“My recorder/mixer can’t do it, so there is clearly no demand for it in the industry.”

There were no good train routes before the tracks were laid, so people clearly didn’t want trains. And besides, when did we start thinking it was a good idea to only upgrade when it is demanded of us? In my book, if you were slower than “the industry”, and had to be asked to upgrade, you were too slow.

“Why change the workflow, when it already works just fine? “

The simple answer is: There is no workflow change to be made. There is no adjustment to be made, no software to learn, no workflow to change. Everything just works exactly like it used to, except now, you can instantly recover peaks above 0 dBFS.

“Plugins and software don’t ‘work with’ float anyway!”

Yes they do. Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro all work just fine with float. As does any DAW that isn’t complete trash. Any decently modern DAW like Reaper also does all of its internal processing in 64 bit float. Plugins all mostly work using float too. Try pushing a way-too-loud signal through an EQ. It isn’t digitally clipped when coming out the other side. You can still turn down and recover the signal. Et voilà, you just revealed that the plugin is using some form of float.

Reasons not to use 32-bit float

“On my recorder, it increases the noise floor.”

Fair. On some recorders, like the SoundDevices MixPre II series, using 32-bit float brings up your noise floor a bit, making it a sidegrade instead of a simple upgrade. This means that it has a downside in some cases, and that you should consider whether to use 32-bit or the limiter.

“The post people are stuck using OMF.”

OMF somehow doesn’t “support” 32-bit float. A timeline interchange format like this shouldn’t need to “support” any format, because it shouldn’t need to know what format any of the files are. It should just tell you where in the timeline they are placed, and leave the files alone. OMF doesn’t because it is a retarded format made by Avid. Don’t use it. Use OTIO, XML or AAF.

“I’m running an all-digital all-wireless system, which is 24-bit.”

Fair enough. In this situation, you won’t have any use for 32-bit float at all. Let us all pray that the Audio Ltd. A20 system will be capable of transmitting 32-bit float.

“Ok, great but my recorder actually doesn’t do 32-bit float.”

The current line of pro-level recorders were released before this recent wave of 32-bit float recorders came out. So they can’t record in 32-bit float yet.

Sound Devices have this to say on their website:

The A/D converters used on the Scorpio, 888, and 833 are 32-bit resolution parts, but this is unrelated to 32-bit float files. The ability to record in 32-bit float is a future possibility.

I have no idea what this means. The first part seems to imply that these 32-bit ADCs are not built to do float recording, but the second part seems to say that it only takes a firmware update to enable the functionality. And I don’t know which is true.

I imagine they could leverage their great limiters, and program something that perfectly amplifies in the digital stage to compensate for the limiter’s attenuation. Returning in the digital stage, the dynamics that were lost in the analog limiter stage. Maybe. This depends on the power of the ASICs they use, and the bandwidth of the interface between the digital components and the limiters. This is all speculation and daydreaming on my end, of course.

In closing, 32-bit is good. You should use it if you can.

Doing sound with child actors

Sun, 27 Mar 2022 23:26:21 +0100

An entirely different workflow

As of writing this, I am half way through production on the second season of a children’s TV show. Bjørnis.

Every aspect of this production is carefully considered for us to get the best possible performance out of the child actors we work with. This has to be done because nearly every episode, we work with new amateur actors, so we don’t have the luxury of doing extensive casting in pre-production, and sticking with the same two or three kids for every episode of the show. This means we have to have a very child-friendly workflow, that can deliver the footage we need to tell the stories, but without the consistency of known skilled child actors. (This is not to say none of the kids are good at acting, a lot of them are surprisingly great, but they are still kids.) These are some of the compromises we make:

We rarely do more than 4-5 takes of anything, if they say their line with the right words in the right order and vaguely the correct emotion, we circle the take.
We use their real names in the script, and their real parents play their parents in the show. This means even the adults aren’t pro actors, but it allows the kids to act more natural around their storyline-parents, and helps keep them comfortable on set.
We shoot in their house, again, for them to feel more comfortable. We did one shoot out in boats, and that turned out to be quite challenging for the child actor.
We take breaks if they get scared or nervous, or start to feel bad about forgetting their lines, etc.
Everything happens on their schedule.
Luckily, we have an absolutely wonderful lady on set who’s entire job is to be someone they’re comfortable with. She can help out when they get nervous, scared, ashamed or maybe just refuse to say their lines or to act out a specific scene without their favorite plushie.
For the most part we never slate. Just in case any part of that process would distract the kids, or make them feel any undue pressure.

As you can understand, working with children, especially children who are not trained actors, changes the required workflow of a shoot massively.

This is why they say never to work with kids, animals or the weather.

Wiring kids

I’ve found basically no difference in booming around child actors, other than the fact that they can move a bit erratically, so you really need to be paying attention. Giving them a lavalier, however, is a process sometimes, so most my advice will center around this.

Elastic band pants seems to be getting more and more popular among kids. Instead of wearing pants that fit properly, they wear pants with an elastic band at the top. This elastic band keeps their pants up just fine, but they cannot support the weight of an A-10 transmitter with batteries in. Especially if they jump around and play in-between takes. Therefore, you will need some kid-sized URSA straps. And for once, you may actually want to use the pocket they have for excess LAV-cable, because with kids there will be a lot of excess cable.

Maybe you want to keep in mind that the kids are more likely to require a costume change between indoor and outdoor scenes. In a lot of episodes of this show, Bjørnis, a fire breaks out, and they run outside and call the fire department. That means that they’re not really supposed to put on additional clothes when they go outside, because they run out in a hurry to escape a fire. However, because we’re shooting outside in Norway, the kids usually need to put on a jacket and beanie. I cannot overrstate how great mounting a LAV under a beanie, on a kid’s forehead is. Yes, Boom is King. Absolutely. However, it’s not unusual for this to sound better than the boom sometimes.

This is because chest-mounted LAVs on kids is often not ideal. Children don’t have the convenient dip in the middle of their chest that adults have, so the consealer will show pretty obviously through the shirt, and you risk getting a lot of clothing noise. I’ve found that kids have a tendency to lean on their chest and stomach when standing in front of something. They also bring their hands up to their face a lot. Both of which will cover the mic, if it is on their chest. However, if you have no choice, they have short hair, and are not wearing a beanie, then get creative. If they have a front pocket on their shirt, then running the LAV out through a tiny hole in the back of the pocket works nicely. While I’ve never found this to work that well myself, I’ve worked with mixers that default to cutting a small hole in the back of the t-shirt collar, and feeding the mic around to the front of it. Maybe you’ll have more luck with that technique.

How to win friends

The kids will not let you mic them up unless they are comfortable around you. You could hand off the mic to the childcare expert, and I’ve had to do this in some cases, but it’s always best for someone from the sound department to do it.

There are three people on set that all need to become good friends with the kids as quick as possible. In order of importance that is the childcare expert, the director, and the one doing the wiring, whether that’s the boom op. or mixer.

Here are a few tips for making friends with kids on set.

Every deadcat I work with has a name. It’s bad luck to use a nameless deadcat. The first one I worked with is named Rufus and belongs to my best friend, and long-time collaborator Sindre Aalberg. My old Nanoshield¹ deadcat is named Rasmus. Sindre named it, I named his. They’re brothers, in a sense. This lore is always fun to tell the kids. I give it a hug and then I let them meet and hug the deadcat, that’s always a hit. Usually they’ll have a plushie of their own that they’ll want to show, or talk about. Do that. I’ll say that I have another one at home that still needs a name, and we’ll try to come up with funny names together.

This also applies to the URSA strap. Not the names and all that, but let them feel how soft it is while it’s still rolled up. Maybe even let them unroll it themselves. Helps make them more comfortable with putting it on. I usually say that it will be giving them a permanent belly-hug for the day.

Peekaboo is a classic for a reason. It’s not uncommon, if you’re working with siblings, for one of them to decide that it’s awkward to meet new people, especially young adults, like me. This means they might just be silent or only nod or shake their head if you try talking with them. You can break through that barrier over time, but we don’t have much time. We have transmitters to rig. So, I’ve found that if the sibling is more open, then you should play a bit with them. Do it in a way that is showing you’re both having fun, and make sure that the other sibling can see it. It’ll work to demonstrate that you’re a cool person, and that they can play too. Maybe they’ll even get a bit jealous and jump in pretty quickly because they want to play too! That’s wonderful, if you can all play together like that for a bit.

Now, it might feel weird or disingenuous to do this, just to make giving them a mic easier. However, I think greatest consequence of this, way above mic’ing being easier, is that they can relax and have more fun on set. You’ll really be helping them see that being an actor can be really fun and rewarding. That telling stories, playing characters and making movies is a lot more fun than just learning lines, reading scripts, walking where the director says to, and all the other things adults tend to focus on. Which leads me to the next point.

Adults suck

The most annoying thing that adults do, almost universally, and I always have to go around telling them to stop doing is: Scaring the kids. They find it funny or something. I hear this almost every time I go to wire up the kids, and it pisses me off.

“Now he’s going to hear everything you say and do, so you have to be careful!! Haha, noo just kidding, haha.”

That sentence. That damn sentence. Every time. And they always laugh, and think it’s funny. But the kid never does. Sometimes, I’m lucky, and the kid doesn’t really hear it. Other times, I’ve had kids get scared to put the mic on, or flat out refuse, and it has become a 40-50 minute process getting them to be OK with getting wired by the childcare expert, if I promise to never listen to their mic. Firstly, I don’t want to lie. Especially not to kids. I don’t like doing it. Secondly, even if I do promise that, we might have a problem if I ever need to adjust the mic. This is because the kid will go “But you promised not to listen!!”. At worst, the kid will then refuse to wear it again, because I obviously still listened, and we’re back to square one. Or, at best, it will bring down the all-important mood, and remind them of the feeling that they’re being snooped on, and make them harder to work with.

However, telling people what not to do isn’t very helpful without replacing that behavior. I could get parents to stop saying that line, telling them beforehand to not do it. But then they would just get quiet and stare awkwardly. That is definitely much better, but still can induce some unwanted discomfort. Therefore, my solution is to say that they’ll be a secret agent, and that they’ll get their own secret hidden microphone, and that they can send me secret messages. Usually combined with me pretending like I’m whispering into my own LAV and saying some stupid secret message like “Psst, do we have any waffles? I really want waffles!”. Turn it into a game. Make up some silly move that signifies that you heard their secret message. This makes it so much better if you ever have to adjust or check on the mic, because instead of being reminded of something uncomfortable, they’re glad you’re making sure the spy equipment is working.

Have fun!

This may seem like a lot to consider. Heck, I think it’s 2000 words. If only I had this much to say about essay topics in school. Anyway. Don’t let this discourage you from working with kids in film and TV. It’s a very rewarding experience, and now that you can come into it more prepared than I was, it’ll be a lot easier and hopefully very fun. Because that’s really what works best with kids. Having fun. If it is clear to them that you’re having fun on set, then they’ll be much more likely to have fun on set.

The Rycote Nanoshield is terrible. Even with the Enhancement Kit, I’d just go straight to Cinela. ↩︎