I have visited a couple more locations, the first was Loe Bar (SW 64400 24165).
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| Aquarian H2A-XLR with contact adaptor on melting ice. |
It was a very pleasant, sunny Sunday morning, not a cloud in the sky, these are ideally the conditions I would like for this location. It had been a very cold night, temperatures reaching below freezing. Patches of ice had formed down the sloping cliffs, I was able to take advantage of this.
Placing the hydrophone on the melting ice patches revealed the incredible sound of the melt water, popping, cracking and bubbling.
I'm unsure at this point whether these sounds will be included in the film. However so far I've been impressed with the Aquarian, which I've only had a couple of weeks.
Further down the beach at the sand bank I surveyed the area from both sides, getting an overall sense of the space.
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| View of the sand bar. Sea on left, Loe Pool on right. |
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| Loe Pool reed bed. |
I also went down to the lake to make some further recordings with the hydrophone. A cold wind was blowing from across the lake causing large ripples to break against the shore. I made two recordings in a reed bed, and one with microphone fully extended on its cable from the shore. Searching for microsounds in the sand proved unsuccessful, what I am hoping to find is a sand shrimp scurrying in the sand. I recorded an example of this creature during the summer. Perhaps it is as of yet too cold for them...
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| View from Loe Pool shore. |
The next day I visited another location after work, located just a little further along the coast is Kynance Cove (SW 68395 13271). I was able to assess the suitability of much less this morning due to a miscalculation with the tide. When the tide is out at the cove a whole new area of beach is exposed, allowing access to
Asparagus Island. Scrambling up onto here and round the side is the opening of an underwater cave where the sea is pushed through with incredible force. There is the powerful sound of air being drawn through a small hole in the rock face and spurted back out again, often spraying a cloud of mist with it.
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| Underwater opening of cave. |
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Getting a clean recording with the hydrophone in these waters proved difficult as they are so active, extending the length of cable might be a solution. However I am not too concerned as the really impressive sounds are heard above the water. I also experimented capturing the sound of limpets feeding in a small pool, I made a note to explore this further.
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| The sun rose, shining light on new areas. |
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| View of cove from underwater cave. |
The plan was to explore cave areas more which can be seen from the photo on the right, however as I left this location and came back down the Island I realised the tide had come in stranding me! It was a case of taking my boots off and rolling my jeans up and feeling a little embarrassed as some walkers looked on from the headland. Much more attention will be paid to the tide timetable in future.
In other sound related news my involvement with a couple of my friends film projects is coming along. Information on the ten minute short set in a dystopic future can be found here:
http://marlboroughroadfilm.blogspot.com/ This should be a fun shoot, me and the director, Alex, have had a play around with the induction coil microphone, so there is the potential for some interesting sound design there. The other project I am involved with is a series of experimental shorts, the first being a dance film. No link to give, but should be gathering atmospheres at some point.
More soon.
