Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound - great book for practical tips on sound for film

Pratical Art of Motion Picture Sound (3rd Edition) David Lewis Yewdall

David Lewis Yewdall knows his stuff. His sound design and editing credits include The Thing, Evil Dead 2, The Fifth Element and Jackie Brown.

In his book he goes in to great detail, based on his own experiences, of a career involved in working as a "sound man" within the film industry.

His book is compiled so that the chapters follow the process of sound for film, from before pre-production begins to post production.

Of particular interest for me, before I was due to work on location for the Grad. film Sidney was the chapter "The Challenging Battlefield of Production", not knowing how the shooting of Sidney would unfold, it was eye opening to read this chapter as it explained the difficulties that can arise when recording sound on location, reading this chapter, I felt better prepared and with some prior warning as to how the film shoot might go. Thankfully, shooting for Sidney went smoothly, however, I did glean information from this chapter that certainly helped me with ensuring that I documented the sound reports in as much detail as was necessary to convey to the post production sound editor (ha ha, Me) anything to look out for with the different sound takes, whether to be aware of any "off mic" interferences, like aeroplanes overhead, etc. or to note of good sound takes.

Of the 22 chapters in this book, chapters 14 and onwards start to deal with the post production side of sound for film. These, I have started to read as they will prove invaluable when editing the sound for Sidney, especially "Dialogue Editors: Hollywood's Unsung Heroes", as Sidney has a great a fair amount of dialogue that will require editing.