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picklecakelake · 3rd September 2010

Hi everyone,

I just want to let you guys know that I ve returned safely from my journey to Afghanistan. I ve spent 5 weeks there, embedded with the American/Afghan forces in the nordeast of Afghanistan; near the Pakistan border.

The director and I shot a docu about the coorperation between the US/ANA forces wich will be part of a larger feature film about Afghanistan.
We've spent most of our time on a very small outpost in the mountains, with 1 platoon American soldiers and 1 platoon ANA.
We saw contact almost every day, the Taliban shot at us from de surrounding hills mostly with small arms but occasionally they shot mortars too.
It was a pretty heavy experience but I don't regret doing it.

Recording the sound was far from easy: you always have to be ready to start recording even in the most difficult conditions meaning mostly when you get shot at. You have to pay attention to your meters and faders but you also have to know what's going on around you ( a headphone that completly isolates you from the outside world is not the best way to hear where the bullets are coming from). It's always a compromise between your safety and the quality of the recordings.
Ad to this the heat, dust and a 20 pound body armour/kevlar and you know its going to be heavy.

I had a lot of gear with me, way too much actually cause I had to carry all the gear myself and I had to load it in & out helicopters, but i wanted to have backups for pretty much everything. (Of course only the things I haven't provided backups for broke down)

My main recorder was a Sound devices 744T wich I'm very pleased with,
it endured the heat and dust without big problems.
I had also a SD 422 mixer with me witch was pretty heavy but very rugged.
My main boommic was a sennheiser 418 MS mic, wich was very handy cause that way i could always record stereo without having the hassle of changing mics all the time. Also had a Schoeps CCM8 + CCM41 with me for recording wild sounds.
For lavs I had a couple of Sanken COS 11 & DPA 4071 with me.

Filming in combat is 90% boredom and 10% excitement, so I had a lot of time to kill, wich I used to record wild sounds. I've recorded a lot of weapons like the M4, M16. M240, 50 cal, Mark 19 even a 155 (howitzer), recorded helicopters (Blackhawk, Chinook) airplanes (F16, F18), and airstrikes.
By now I have a pretty big library of war related sounds.
Does anyone know people/companies who might be intrested in these sounds?
I'm definitely not going to use all this sounds myself.

Finally I want to thank all the people who gave me advice in this thread it was much appreciated and I've learnt a lot from it.

greets,

Bram Celis

Belgium

3rd September 2010	#33
picklecakelake Gear interested Joined: Apr 2010 Posts: 9 Thread Starter	Thread Update Hi everyone, I just want to let you guys know that I ve returned safely from my journey to Afghanistan. I ve spent 5 weeks there, embedded with the American/Afghan forces in the nordeast of Afghanistan; near the Pakistan border. The director and I shot a docu about the coorperation between the US/ANA forces wich will be part of a larger feature film about Afghanistan. We've spent most of our time on a very small outpost in the mountains, with 1 platoon American soldiers and 1 platoon ANA. We saw contact almost every day, the Taliban shot at us from de surrounding hills mostly with small arms but occasionally they shot mortars too. It was a pretty heavy experience but I don't regret doing it. Recording the sound was far from easy: you always have to be ready to start recording even in the most difficult conditions meaning mostly when you get shot at. You have to pay attention to your meters and faders but you also have to know what's going on around you ( a headphone that completly isolates you from the outside world is not the best way to hear where the bullets are coming from). It's always a compromise between your safety and the quality of the recordings. Ad to this the heat, dust and a 20 pound body armour/kevlar and you know its going to be heavy. I had a lot of gear with me, way too much actually cause I had to carry all the gear myself and I had to load it in & out helicopters, but i wanted to have backups for pretty much everything. (Of course only the things I haven't provided backups for broke down) My main recorder was a Sound devices 744T wich I'm very pleased with, it endured the heat and dust without big problems. I had also a SD 422 mixer with me witch was pretty heavy but very rugged. My main boommic was a sennheiser 418 MS mic, wich was very handy cause that way i could always record stereo without having the hassle of changing mics all the time. Also had a Schoeps CCM8 + CCM41 with me for recording wild sounds. For lavs I had a couple of Sanken COS 11 & DPA 4071 with me. Filming in combat is 90% boredom and 10% excitement, so I had a lot of time to kill, wich I used to record wild sounds. I've recorded a lot of weapons like the M4, M16. M240, 50 cal, Mark 19 even a 155 (howitzer), recorded helicopters (Blackhawk, Chinook) airplanes (F16, F18), and airstrikes. By now I have a pretty big library of war related sounds. Does anyone know people/companies who might be intrested in these sounds? I'm definitely not going to use all this sounds myself. Finally I want to thank all the people who gave me advice in this thread it was much appreciated and I've learnt a lot from it. greets, Bram Celis Belgium Attached Thumbnails