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Plan for the Noise Before You Arrive

Urban sound is rarely random. It arrives in cycles: the rush hour, the school run, the eleven o'clock delivery window, the bin lorry on a Tuesday, the pub emptying at half ten. Scout a location at the same time of day you plan to shoot and you can write yourself a rough noise diary — noting bus stops within earshot, extractor fans that switch on, church bells, road works that appear overnight and the knot of traffic queuing at the lights.

Armed with that, you can make honest decisions. Maybe the dialogue scenes shoot early on a Sunday, while the wides, where lips don't matter, go in the busy afternoon. Assume nothing can be fixed in the mix. Traffic noise is broadband and lands squarely in the middle of the human voice, so a line buried under a bus is a line you'll be dubbing later. Plan for it, and you'll be delighted when you don't need to.

Microphone Placement That Buys You Headroom

Every dialogue set-up should ideally have two sources: a boom and a lavalier, recorded on separate tracks. The boom gives you the natural, on-axis sound; the lav gives you the safety net.

For the boom, get as close as the frame allows — just above the top of shot, angled down towards the actor's chest rather than their mouth. That keeps you off plosives and reduces how much street you collect with every line. A hypercardioid is usually the right choice outdoors. Work out which way the wind is blowing and stand downwind of the microphone.

For the lav, placement matters more than the mic itself.

• Under the collar or at the sternum, never on a lapel that swings.
• Loop and tape the cable in two places — a slack loop at the waist, another on the chest — so a turning head or a hand in a pocket doesn't drag on it.
• Test with the actor moving exactly as they will in the take: sitting, standing, hugging, unbuttoning a coat.
• Avoid rustly fabrics and jewellery, and listen before you commit. If it rustles in rehearsal, it will rustle in every take.

Taming Traffic Without Moving the Camera

Traffic is rhythmic, not constant. Time the lights: most city junctions give you a forty to ninety second window between surges. Cut your takes around the gaps rather than fighting through them. On a long dialogue scene, ask an assistant to watch the road and signal — hand up for hold, hand down for rolling — and keep timecode running so the editor can join the pieces.

If the shot can't move, protect the performance. Let the actors play the scene through with nothing rolling so they aren't fighting the traffic for rhythm, then take the audio in short, focused chunks. You'll rarely get it all clean in one pass, and a good editor will make the result feel seamless.

Room Tone and Wild Tracks: The Safety Net

Room tone is the ambient sound of a location with nobody speaking. It's what lets an editor bridge two takes, soften a cut or hide a replaced word. Record at least sixty seconds at every location, with the microphone where it's been all day, and ask everyone — cast, crew, passers-by — to stand still and silent while you do.

• Capture several: windows open and closed, morning and late afternoon, inside and just outside the door.
• Read the details aloud on the recording: location, mic, time of day.
• Keep the same gain settings as your dialogue takes so the tone sits in the same sonic world.

Wild tracks are even more valuable. As soon as a scene is wrapped, before anyone moves a light or a bag, ask the actors to run the lines again — close to the mic, at the same pace and energy as the take. Take three versions of anything a siren, a lorry or a crowd stepped on. It costs two minutes and can save a whole scene.

Wind, Crowds and the British Weather

Wind is the single biggest enemy of location sound, and the UK provides it generously. Use a blimp or a full fur cover rather than a simple foam windshield — foam is close to useless outdoors. Use walls, parked vans and doorways as baffles, keep the mic out of funnelling alleys, and ask yourself honestly whether an exposed bridge on a gusty day is worth it.

Rain brings its own percussion: tarpaulins, umbrellas, hoods and dripping gutters. Tape your covers down, keep the boom clear of overhangs, and remember that wet actors are louder and rustlier than dry ones. With crowds, a friendly, confident approach works wonders — a hi-vis vest and a "we're filming, sorry, just two minutes" will usually buy you the silence you need. And when you can't beat the city, record it on purpose: two minutes of clean street atmosphere, kept separate, is a gift to your sound designer.

Discipline in the Headphones

Good location sound is mostly attention. Wear closed-back headphones on every take, at a sensible level, and listen for what meters won't tell you: a rustle, a hum, a distant reversing alarm. Aim peaks around -12 to -6 dBFS, record at 24-bit, and keep each microphone on its own track so the mix is never a compromise made in a hurry. Check cards and batteries before every set-up, label everything clearly, and keep a sound report — even handwritten — listing takes, wild tracks and room tones with their filenames. Your editor won't thank you; they'll simply be able to do their job.