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.

This week was the first time a guest gave the third year audio production students a lecture. The guest lecturer this week was Dean Humphreys a re-recording mixer and sound editor who has been working in film & TV industries for 43 years. Over the span of his career Dean has worked on over 250 movies and been credited on 175. In 1994 Dean got expelled from his school with two O-Levels. He got a voluntary job at Twickenham studios where he was acting as a runner, he was working there unpaid for 22 months before he started working at a TV studio.

Dean’s lecture was about how to get into the media industry and the characteristics/personality that is required by an individual. He explained a phrase called TCP which he believes is key to being successful in the media industry.T stands for Technical Dean suggested that it is fundamental for anyone aspiring to work within the media industry to a have a solid understanding of the technology currently available that will be required to do your job.C stands for creative input which is vital as the media industry is seen as a creative industry. Finally P stands for people politics Dean insisted this is the most important out of the three, he said that it is very important to learn how to deal with people in a professional way and at times learn to yield when people are opposed to you.

From listening to his lecture I have learnt that it is vitally important to be a team player and ensure you are always on time and professional. He also made it very clear that as young people going into the industry we must be prepared to do the leg work and gain the trust from our employers by doing tasks that may seem laborious. Once we prove ourselves to be reliable we will hopefully get a chance at being creative.