This week the guest lecturer for level three audio production students was Jez Riley French, Jez is an experimental sound artist who works primarily with field recordings, he has presented his work in galleries and has also worked with the film and game industries. For example some of his latest work is featured in the latest Blade Runner film. Jez explained how he carries his recording equipment around with him at all times so he can intuitively record anything that takes his interest.I personally found his work very interesting, he showed the class a collection of recordings which  varied  from a microphone breaking to the sound of a hazelnut burning. Interestingly he doesn’t apply any processes to his recordings and presents them all as raw captured sound, he was quite adamant that modern equipment and production techniques have damaged our(humans) ability to hear a range of frequencies.

Jez explained some of the more interesting recordings he has done before, such as recording an entire orchestra from the outside of a building using 30 contact microphones, he went on to talk about his use with hydraphones and the challenges such recordings can present. His two main pieces of advice were to have patience and record in excess, so that you allow the nature you are recording to return to how it was before it was disturbed and so that you increase your chance of capturing interesting sound.