Dealing with Background Noise

Filming in a popular shopping plaza wasn't as easy as we thought. While we had planned to use the setting for its vibrant vibe, we quickly learned that the high traffic, loud cars, and blasting music from people would be a big obstacle during our filming. Specifically, when we filmed the stalker walking up to Eva, the background noise became a constant issue that almost ruined the entire shot. 

A picture of how busy the plaza was, even on a weekday night

At first, we tried to solve this problem head-on by attaching a Rode microphone to the phone we were using for the film, hoping it would help reduce the background noise. Our hope was that it would capture more of the interaction between Eva and the stalker and less of the disruptive sounds around us. Unfortunately, this method didn't work as we'd hoped. The microphone still picked up too much of the surrounding noise—cars honking, loud music, and people talking. This made it almost impossible to get clean audio for the scene.

We were stuck for a bit, unsure of how we should move forward. The noise was too much to ignore, and no matter what we tried with the equipment, we couldn't isolate the interaction between the actors. That's when we decided to take a different approach: instead of trying to clean up from the diegetic noise, we ended it by muting the audio entirely for that shot. Instead of the original sounds of the plaza, we decided that during the editing process our editor can layer in non-diegetic suspenseful sounds, building tension through the music rather than relying on natural sound. By using a suspenseful audio tract, we not only hid the distracting background noise but also enhanced the mood of the stalker approaching Eva.