Cesar-Nominated Film Sound Engineer Buys ST350

Belgian Film Sound Engineer Philippe Vandendriessche has invested in a SoundField ST350 portable microphone for use on location, to complement his existing SoundField ST250. A well-known figure in the Francophone film industry for over 25 years, with a library of self-recorded effects and sounds extending to over 75,000 recordings, Vandendriessche was nominated in 2008 for a Cesar film award (the French equivalent of the Oscars) for Best Sound in French film Seraphine, on which he acted as Chief Sound Engineer. The SoundField ST250 was used to record ambient sound for the film.

Recording in a snowstorm in Bastogne, Belgium with the ST350

Since the early 1990s, Vandendriessche has been an owner and fan of SoundField's microphone systems, the use of which he also teaches on his microphone technique course at the IAD film school (Institut des Arts de Diffusion) in Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium, and in his role as leader of the sound recording course at the Royal Conservatory in Mons. "I've used the ST250 to make many recordings," he explains. "In recent times, I used it on Turi Finocchiaro and Nathalie Rossetti's musical documentary Yiddish Soul, for example, and also for all of the ambient recordings in Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's feature film Odette Toutlemonde. SoundField B-Format recording holds no secrets for me, and I've taught many young engineers all about how to use these mics. The ST350 allows me to capture soundscapes, quiet atmospheres, the sound of cities. When recorded in B-Format, these archives have a lot of extra value, because you can choose the format afterwards - mono, stereo or any type of surround. I also use my SoundField mics to capture electroacoustic concerts, where the placement of the music in the audio soundscape is an important part of the piece."

SoundField's multi-capsule microphones capture sound in their proprietary B-Format, a four-channel format which may be decoded to mono, phase-coherent stereo, quadraphonic or surround sound in a variety of multi-channel formats using SoundField's software or hardware decoders - and the choice of output format may be made years after the original recordings if required. The ST250 was SoundField's portable location recording microphone until 2006, when it was replaced by the upgraded ST350. Half the weight of its predecessor, 12V battery-operable, and capable of being used on long cable runs from its associated hardware processor, the ST350 was the obvious choice for Vandendriessche, who took delivery of his after finishing work on Seraphine in 2008. "The ST350 is more compact, and its capsule heating system allows me to work in more difficult climates," he comments.

Since buying the ST350, Vandendriessche has used it on various projects to record additional ambience, as well as on the set of Le Facteur Chance, a TV drama directed by Julien Seri, and Gloria@Jesus, a fictional documentary which will be released in 2010. Vandendriessche's next film, the short Nawewe, on which he acted as Chief Sound Engineer in Burundi during summer 2009, will be released in early 2010.