I know they can add audio in post by Foley artists, but how do they keep sounds of equipment, people, or other background noise that isn’t wanted out of the movie?
I’m especially curious about older movies that were made before the rise of digital audio.
In: Technology
Microphones.
Microphones are designed to pick up sounds. And by changing the design of the microphone, you can modify the area where the microphone picks up sound.
The most basic kind of microphone is *omnidirectional*, which is pretty much what you’d think it is: it picks up sounds from all around, pretty much equally. This is probably the type of microphone your phone has, as well as the type of mic that’s built into your camera. The quality isn’t great, especially at any kind of distance.
Another type of microphone is the *Cardioid*. This picks up sound mostly in front of the mic, some from the sides, and very little from behind itself. If you see someone with a handheld mic, like a news reporter, that’s probably the style they’re using: when they’re holding it in front of themselves to talk, you mostly hear them. When they extend it to someone else, you’ll hear that person, but not much else.
The third common type of mic is the uni-directional mic, sometimes called a “shotgun” mic. This will pick up sound **only** in a very narrow space in front of the microphone, and only fairly close. If you pointed one of these mics at a person talking to other people in a big group, you would only hear the person the mic is pointed at.
Microphones also can use wind screens and other similar audio-baffles to cut down on unwanted sounds, but the big element is the type of microphone used.
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