AV News 180 - May 2010
Then the judge went on at great length about all the things that were wrong
with it. We just couldn't understand what he was going on about - the picture
still looked great to us and we felt the judge was being unduly harsh on the
photographer. We simply couldn't see the features to which the judge was
attaching such importance. We went home puzzled and maybe a bit
disillusioned.
Over the years we attended lectures, read books and magazines, went on
organised photographic outings, tentatively entered our own pictures into
competitions, listened to the comments, talked to fellow photographers and
generally moved in photographic circles. Without realising it, we absorbed
huge amounts of information. We developed a 'feel' for photography. We
developed a photographic mindset. We became photographers ourselves.
We learned how to look at a picture and the world, through a photographer's
eyes. I suppose you could say that we had then served our photographic
apprentiship. We may well now have become that judge.
Then along came AV which requires a whole set of additional skills. The
first requirement is to recognise that additional skills are needed. The second
is to make a conscious effort to acquire those skills. A different mindset is
needed too. A 'relationship' type mindset, rather than an 'individual' mindset.
We need to go through a whole new apprentiship, not least in learning how
to listen to a soundtrack, or the world, through a recordist's ears. A complete
parallel to our photographic apprentiship.
I have read entire articles on the subject of AV which never once mention
sound.
Can you imagine the outcry if someone who had never held a camera was
to judge a major photographic competition? Yet people who have never held
a microphone seem to be deemed qualified to judge AV competitions. I don't
think anyone who has not mixed a reasonably complex (ie. more than speech
and music) soundtrack ought to be judging major AV competitions. I've
heard some real cringe-making elementary audio howlers given awards over
the years. The corresponding pictorial howlers would have been pilloried.
If I'm judging, I'm not too keen on someone telling me that so many marks
are available for this, so many for that....