French Foley artist and film sound supervisor Nicolas Becker has been using his tried and trusted inventory of DPA microphones for new Swedish film, Sound of Noise, to record construction machinery and performance cars including a Ferrari and a Ford Mustang Shelby GT. The film’s soundtrack is composed of real sounds gathered over the course of a year, which are ‘replayed’ during the movie by actors using machinery and a variety of inanimate objects.
Becker was introduced to DPA microphones three years ago by the company’s French distributor Audio2 while working on Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist. He found that using a DPA 4041 large diaphragm mic dramatically improved his work as Foley artist. “I was amazed by the low self noise of the DPA 4041 and the headroom this mic offers, which allows me to record sounds almost outside the range of the human ear,” he says. “I can amplify these recordings and still have a high quality signal to use in my sound design work.”
For Sound of Noise Becker miked up the 440 horsepower Mustang with two 4006s in WINDPACS near the exhaust pipes, with a 4006-TL omni inside the car and a 4062 miniature omni under the bonnet to record engine noise. The resulting deep roar of the American Muscle car will have earth-shaking effects in the cinemas.
Becker has now used DPA microphones on more than 25 movies including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005); 28 Weeks Later (2007); The Golden Compass (2007); Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) and Babylon II (2008). He’s built up a large inventory of DPA mics, including a 3532-S matched stereo pair of 4041 large diaphragm mics, three 4006-TLs, three 4007 high-SPL reference mics, two Hydrophones, a 4062 miniature omni and a number of WINDPAC windshield systems.
This arsenal of high quality microphone technology allows Becker to capture the most natural sounds possible, and to get his recordings right the first time. This is invaluable as he prefers to create an entirely new sound library for each movie, or what he terms, in true French fashion, ‘the Haute Couture of sound effects’.