Commission Unit- Sound Workshop

Yesterday I attended a sound workshop at the Maidstone Studios with my project partner Andy. I thought this would be a very good idea, and an excellent addition to my skills-set, as one thing I learnt from my previous project "Directions" was that a lot of the time, the sounds that were used in my videos was often poor quality or lacking in some way.
The workshop was taught by our tech-guy Fergus, who has an excellent understanding of the equipment we are provided with. I felt that I learnt a lot about where to position certain kinds of microphone, such as clip and boom mics, and also how to alter the sound settings on the larger Sony Cameras so that the sound I recorded was the best quality it could possibly be.
Some of the equipment we were shown how to use is shown here in this photograph:

We tested the new skills we learnt from this workshop the same day, by creating a basic one minute piece in which two "characters", Andy and Chris were talking about what they enjoyed and disliked about our course.
My job during this small filming phase was to wear a pair of headphones that were attached to the recording camera, and I would alter the sound levels on the camera so that the voices of both Chris and Andy both sounded as though they were the same quality and volume.
The test we wanted to do was to find out how we would set up the clip and Boom Mics appropriately so that the sound we recorded was of a great quality. I am very excited to take the skills I have learnt from this workshop and put them to use in our documentary film piece.