LOCATION SOUND

 

Tranquil (seeming) locations around Vancouver

 

I've been a documentary sound guy in Vancouver for over 20 years. It's a beautiful place to shoot with diversity in locations, friendly professional film crews and the favourable Canadian dollar.

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Recording location sound in any city is tough—there can be noise coming at you from literally every direction. In and around Vancouver, we have beautiful, forested and tranquil (seeming) locations. Tranquil that is, until you hear the first A-Star, Heli-Jet, Twin Otter, or the all-time classic—the 50's era Beaver—a vintage seaplane with no muffler. It will rattle your fillings from 2000 feet, and because it's so slow, you'll be hearing it for the next half hour. Knowing where NOT to shoot is essential. There are a few common places that visiting producers (and some local ones!) think would be a great location for an interview—but then they spend a frustrating amount of time piecing together both the interview to camera, and also the resulting fragmented footage. 

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Stanley Park is just on the edge of the city and boasts beautiful beaches, old growth forests and a couple picturesque lakes. One of the more difficult aspects of recording sound in this location is that looks can be deceiving. It seems like you're in a rain forest in the middle of nowhere. In reality there's traffic on three sides, and float-planes and helicopters continually interrupting your soundscape. If someone suggests filming here, know that you're potentially going to be waiting a long time for the silence you need. But if you're there to get beauty shots only, you're in luck.

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Pacific Spirit Park is eight convenient kilometres from the centre of the city and is used from time to time to film in. There's room for parking and winding (often bumpy) trails leading into the forest. The forest is old with the sound of ravens, owls and wind in the trees. I've recorded sound here twice in the past 20 years and what I learned from these shoots, is that you will need patience and time. The first issue—there are 3 roads through the park and they are fairly busy. If you park on one of these roads, it will be a fair walk into the woods [on footpaths] to get away from the sound of traffic. If you're determined to film here, one trick is to park on Camosun St. or Imperial Drive—these roads have far less traffic and you won't have to walk very far. The other issue with Pacific Spirit is that it is close to the international airport, and is in the seaplane flyover zone for all the air traffic between Vancouver and Victoria. This can result in a painful number of stops for air traffic, especially in the heavy traffic hours from 8:00 to 10:00 in the morning and 3:30 to 6:00 in the evening.

 

If you're shooting city scenes and you want to disguise the fact that you're in Vancouver, then some times to avoid are 12 noon, 7PM and 9PM. If you've ever been to Vancouver before you're probably aware of the horns that blast 115 decibels every day at noon and 7PM—you can listen to them here. At 9PM you're treated to a different sound altogether, a cannon blast which you can find out more about here.

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In short, a local Vancouver documentary soundperson or a local location scout can help you find locations where the soundscape more closely matches the visuals.

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