Rycote Protects Surround Mic On Luhrmann’s ‘Australia’

Modular Windshield Plays Crucial Role In Surround Recording Rig For Cinematic Epic

Client: Sound Supervisor/Editor Wayne Pashley

Project: Australia (2009), directed by Baz Luhrmann, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman

Rycote's Modular Windshield system played an important role during the location sound recording for Baz Luhrmann's recent epic film 'Australia', starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. As can be seen from his previous films 'Romeo And Juliet' and 'Moulin Rouge', Luhrmann takes film sound seriously. 'Australia' was no different; the formerly studio-bound Supervising Sound Editor Wayne Pashley was sent out into the wastes of Western Australia to record 5.1 surround ambiences for the production in the desert, on rocky clifftops, and in dried-up creek beds.

Given the inhospitable terrain and the unpredictable weather, a Rycote Modular Windshield kit was an essential part of the mobile recording rig specified for him by Sound Devices, whose Australian office also supplied the digital recorder (a Sound Devices 744T) used to capture the sounds of the outback. "I recorded Gigabytes of material in 5.1, really trying to capture something of the essence of this country," comments Pashley. "Insects, wild horses, period vehicles, the indigenous cast chanting... and the rain and wind. I laughed at how fluffy the Rycote looked when I first unpacked it, but I was glad of it later, when a gale was howling up a valley or across the salt flats. As you can imagine, I was often in a lot of high-wind areas, but you wouldn't know it from the recorded results. The windshield did a fantastic job. You could say that the land is one of the main characters in this film, and thanks to the Rycote, all those delicate ambiences made it into the film unhampered by wind noise."

A free video diary detailing the production process behind 'Australia' can be downloaded as a podcast from Apple's iTunes Store, and one ten-minute episode is devoted to the sound design; it features extensive footage of Pashley and his Rycote in various inhospitable locations. The podcast can be downloaded as an MP4-format video file by clicking on this link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=278396471.