Jez Riley French is known for his experimental recordings through the use of non-conventional microphones and homemade/ modified contact microphones. He shows a huge fascination for sound and explained how he can listen for hours to the sounds he records. Jez introduced his lecture before jumping straight into showing us examples of his field records. He introduced his field recordings by showing us an image of the environment he recorded, explaining the microphone he used and his approach followed by the recordings itself.

Some of the examples included metal staircases recorded by contact microphones, picking up a very interesting wind ambience sound. Another example was a recording of the Bethlem wires in Iceland. The wire vibrations created a deep resonance sound, in which he later explained that’s what they used to record the Star Wars Blaster sounds. He also experiments with water sounds and showed us examples of a recording from a glacier in Iceland and the sound of water beetles in the water. All these recording sounded very interesting and I’ve even considered purchasing a contact microphone to experiment as they can pick up some amazing atmospheric sounds that could be used for visual or even music.

Jez also showed us some of his equipment, some of which included: Ultrasonic detectors, coil pickups (good for recording light bulb buzzes), VLF (Very low frequency detector), contact microphones, hydrophones and recorders. He talked about the importance of using a good quality recording mixers/recorders, as handheld recorders create horrible preamp noises which can mean that certain and interesting frequencies might not be picked up, in which I need to think about when record field sound effects.

Jez also went on to talk about how he is approached to create sounds or if he has sounds to fit films, TV programs and games. He talked about how building an archive and specialising in a certain type of record or in specialising in recording certain objects, you are more likely to be approached for sounds of your archive.

This lecture overall was very interesting and inspiring. And techniques and information from this lecture cold help when creating sound effects, potentially even for developing LO2, when in the post production stage of my project. This has also inspired me into wanting to create an archive of recordings and record unique things. His use of contact mics creates very interesting ambience sounds that would be very interesting in atmospheres in films and games etc. which I definitely want to experiment with.