I was approached for this project after it was filmed. The plan from the director was to only record film and do all audio in post production. Given the intimacy of the piece I decided to approach the recording process as raw and natural as possible. I started by outlining every sound effect and Foley that needed to be done. After a few attempts of placing sounds from my personal sound effect library, I realized that pre-recorded sounds would not work for this piece.

The recording set up consisted of the shotgun microphone Sennheiser MKH 416 placed over my bed aiming at the area right below my pillow. My recording rig was just an Mbox 2 with Pro Tools. I reenacted the scene about 3 times with emphasis on the sound of the sheets. Then I did more detailed recordings of the writing on the paper and I tried a pen and a pencil, and although it is a pen on the clip, the sound of the pencil fit the mood better.

We then got the talent in the studio for a recording session that lasted about 2 hours. He hit it right on the spot. I gave the director the choice of a studio microphone with the Neumann u87 and a shotgun mic, the Sennheiser MKH 416 to which he chose the latter.

Mixing was simple, I applied EQ to certain sounds I wanted louder. Close ups have more information in the high frequencies while the actor's voice is deeper in the low end. The director provided classical music for the score and he took the creative decisions on the spots where they belonged. Overall this was a quick enjoyable project with great audio and video quality.