Blowing Nose.
Now that the season to be merry has passed – ‘tis the season to be sick. Most everywhere I went this week I heard sniffling, coughing and vomiting in true stereo surround sound (5.1). At this point the plentiful sound of people blowing their nose is akin to birds chirping their beautiful melodies – without any of the beauty or much of the melody.
More often than not someone in a movie with an illness that causes them to blow their nose is played more for comedic value than anything else. There’s the typical stuffed up vice, accompanied by a red nose and larger than life sneeze. This sneeze takes a long time to come to fruition – something like “ahhh” … “Ahhhhhhh” … “AHH” .. “AHCHOO!” The sequence just isn’t complete without the character then needing to blow their nose in a very loud, very moist volume. The blowing of a nose is like the period at the end of a hilarious and clichéd sentence. Though I will quickly mention that a character doesn’t have to necessarily be sick – they could be comically allergic to something or have been crying over a breakup, loss of a loved one or something less trivial. The blowing of a nose can be/is used as the button to all of those dramedic situations.
If the subject isn’t sick while recording the blowing of a nose go peel an onion or get them to eat something incredibly spicy to get that nose a flowin’. I suppose if you’re really stuck you could get water up their nose – although the discomfort might not be worth the result. More importantly, whist recording you don’t want to blow directly into the mic. This is for 2 main reasons: 1) you don’t want to get your germs all over it 2) the “wind” from your blowing will create a popping on the mic and ruin the recording. If you have what is called a pop screen, which protects the microphone from being blown on then you can give that a try – although its not going stop those pesky germs. Finally you’re going to want to get as juicy as you can.
Feel better soon, more next week.