JUST DO IT.

So after a lot of fiddling around I decided the Labyrinth idea was a bit too big for this project and I wouldn't have the time to do it to the extent I wanted to. For my fields and frames project I have intended to work with A Streetcar Named Desire because I know the text so well - it's also a film,  so why not use it for this project?

Examples

North by Northwest, made the same decade as A Streetcar Named Desire you get the picture. Simple opening covering the creative team and key cast members, text fills the screen placed over moving images.

Released on VHS in 1989 this version of Singin' In the Rain offers a similar pattern, huge text over moving image but this time with designated areas. Simple but effective and colourful.

I love this film and it's opening is no exception, Scott Pilgrim has an opening that just completely embodies the film. It get's you into the right mindset for watching the rest of the film because the editing, whilst amazing, could take you by surprise. There are a lot of video game references and pop-ups, this opening just helps you accept that this is the universes this film is set in and it's great. 

What I made and why I made it

 

When it came to making the title sequence for Streetcar I know I wanted something rather simple, clean, elegant and something that would fit with the times and the movie. The original opening
is pretty standard for the time, cursive text over flattering images.

Now the upside to knowing this text as well as I do I have very strong opinions of the characters for instance I hate Blanche, she drives me crazy but I know the authors intentions are for the audience to like her so I gave her a flattering image. I sympathise with Stella but the audience are supposed to be not to keen on her, especially at the end so she get's a rather awkward picture including Stanley and Blanche in the background because during the entire movie she's torn between the two of them (whilst always reverting back to Stanley). And Stanley get's a picture over Blanches shoulder, now Marlon Brando was the heartthrob of the time, women fawned over him even though he played an abusive character. I put this image in because story wise Blanche is always wary of Stanley and you mainly see her perception of him, no matter how many times Stella tries to explain that he's a lovely person the audience only remember what he does to Blanche by the end of it.

To do this effect I went back to 3D layers, separating the images in photoshop before taking them into a 3D space in After Effects. From here you add a 3D camera and go to work maneuvering the camera as you would in real life just key framing the movements instead of recording them. I do love working with 3D layers because you get a great effect pretty quickly.

I am concerned about the quality of the image of Stella but when working with a film from the 1950's you work with what you've got.



For the rest of the title sequence I chose to use a light, the light swings back and fourth, every time the text comes into view you see another credit. I chose a swinging light because it has great symbolism in the play, Blanche hates light, she hates being seen in the light because you see the 'real her' and the real her is past her prime. She does everything she can to not be seen, she goes on dates after 6pm so it's dark out, she puts a paper lantern over the main light so the light is dimmed permanently, her love interest explains it best in ;

"I don’t think I ever seen you in the light. That’s a fact! [..] You never want to go out in the afternoon. […] You never want to go out till after six and then it’s always some place that’s not lighted much. […] What it means is I’ve never had a real good look at you." (9.28-36)"

She also uses the light as a metaphor for love, a love Blanche lost when, warning spoiler, her husband killed himself. She is constantly shielding herself from it because the light shows her reality and reality and Blanche don't mix, she spends the entire play in her own little bubble. Her own little bubble literally becomes the death of her.

After doing that I was left with this.

But it didn't seem right.

When I went to work on it the next day I, by chance, ran into Phil who had a look at it and recommended changing the font to something more appropriate of the time. Now I am awful at typography so even the idea of it freaked me out, but I did it, nothing too extravagant but it certainly feels more like something more suited to the film. I also made the composition into 4:3 because that's what the film was broadcast in - it made more sense to have the title he same, it also made it easier to fill the screen with text because now there wasn't as much screen to fill. 

Final Piece

So this is what I came up with, nothing too flashy but I got to have a go at key framing cameras, something I tried and failed to do last year. I may see if I have time to add some music, ground it some more. But for now - here's the final piece.

So, the Labyrinth is a piece of cake, is it?

For the VFX project I've decided to use the film Labyrinth (1986) because it is so quirky, odd and just interesting. The title itself offers an image - a maze, perhaps I could use that to my advantage here?

I'm leaning more towards animation and text animation since it's something I'm really interested in anyway and would love to know more about, plus it fits the storyline. The entire movie is driven by a book and the very specific words within it, so why can't the title sequence.

I'm thinking of almost drawing the maze and as the maze is drawn the names of the actors appears - such as flipping downward in this screenshot. Or the maze could reveal it etc. I'm trying to remember how we did a certain effect in class but I need to remember the specific name of the effect, something to do with shape paths? I'll figure it out eventually. 

I've drew up some storyboards (however they looked pretty similar to my last AE project, Image Factory) so I'm trying to take a different approach but for now I'm sticking to research however the deadline is pretty close which is terrifying. I'll find some time later this week to start my composition. 

Appa!

Last week in VFX we started piecing together different elements of photos, arranging them in a 3D space and creating a virtual camera to move through that space as if it were a film sequence.

I loved this because I felt like I was creating something that I could actually see myself using in the future - maybe not for this project but certainly for a film title in the future, or even a production company title sequence.

After working on this I decided to try it out with the storyboards for our dance film to make something almost like a trailer. This is the first attempt I had that I'm really not pleased with but I haven't really had a chance to fix it yet - but I'll get there.

Go Mickey, go!

My final elective for Professional Toolkit is VFX in which I return to my old friend After Effects - this is still a touchy subject. 

In our first lesson we took to rotoscoping, something I had personally never done before. A lot easier than it looks but rather laborious if you pick tricky footage, something I may have done accidentally. I chose a piece of animation of Mickey mouse riding a bathtub/bike hybrid, why? Because I could. It was then a case of scoping out what I wanted, playing a few frames forwards and then when the tool went of track, backing up and setting it straight. Something that with footage filmed for this purpose wouldn't happen as often as it did for me. 

My first run through, getting a chunk of him out of the way before going into detail.

After going through frame by frame I managed to get something I was proud of that included a bit of the water splash that was appearing behind him. I then went on to try and motion track him so I could add the co-ordinates to the image behind him and make him look like he was riding through the river. However due to the fact that it was an animation this proved difficult because the track point would be there for a few frames and then vanish, so that idea quickly went away.

I then decided to make the best of it and move, by hand, the background and keyframe it to give it some motion - I also added a displacement filter onto it to make it look less 'perfect'.

Add a bit of colour correct (or anything to make the two pieces look like they belong on the same image) and I exported.

It wasn't until I saw the piece on a different monitor that I saw all the problems at the end that were probably a result of me sitting there for hours staring at it and hoping it was fixed, to the point it became true.

But I really like this technique and I can see myself using it in the future, more specifically in my my fields and frames project.

A bit of foreshadowing

A Primary edit

Now I am normally tag/colour code everything I do, however this time I decided against it. Why? Just to see how it would work out. 

When it came time to edit the studio shoot I still didn't have it in me to go through and look at all the footage - I couldn't stomach hearing the script again, too soon.  So when I imported all the footage and saw there was around 130 rushes my first instinct was to go through all of them, name them, and colour code them. But that would have took for forever. Instead I went through the beginning of each clip and the end to see what part of the script it was and put it in corresponding bins under names like 'Close Up' 'Pick Up' 'Opening' 'Smash' 'Ending', something I would understand. I also had a bin full for the original AMA linked files (as per lynda.com because that method seemed to work) and a non-usable shots, however I never permanently deleted anything just incase I missed something. 

Because it was a  quicker way of organising than naming individual files (something I would do on a bigger project, but for a 2/3 minute film that only I was editing it seemed pointless) I got to making a rough edit, based on the master shot we had taken and the original script. What I love about working on Avid is how quick you can get a task done once you have everything laid out in front of you, you barely have to touch your mouse and the work flow is almost relaxing (Note: Almost). 

I created my opening titles, a series of pick-up shots and the actors credits, in a different sequence as I couldn't quite remember how sync locks worked and didn't want to mess up the edit. I started playing around in title tool to get the basic credits made and rendered so it would just be a case of importing them over my footage. I chose my font and spacing and got to work. Regarding the title the group seemed to agree on 'Home Sweet Home' as a form of foreshadowing and as a nod to the sign seen in the left hand corner of the set. I chose the colours of my title to reflect this and I think it fits rather nicely. Then it was just a case of switching on the sync locks (once I remembered how they worked...)  and importing the footage into the beginning of the mast track.

Most of the project is now complete, the opening sequence, credits, bulk edit. The only things left is to figure out how to sync up some audio and fix it (in regards to panning etc), add the foley track for the flashback scene and do a bit of colour correct on some of the lighter shots. But I'm getting there, it's just finding the time to sit down the Avid suite for a few hours, it should be done by the end of the week.

I Blinked And It Was Over

'I just need to write this post, just get it over with and
yeah I just need to write it.' - Me for the past week.

This project went so quickly I don't think I've fully recovered from it yet because as soon as we tore down the set I was straight back into Maps and Journey's. Overall this project may have been the most stressful thing I've ever done for a grade and I once overnighted my coursework by courier to an exam board.

Looking back I honestly can't see a lot of good but I think that's because I was completely immersed in what was happening and I didn't have the opportunity to take a step back and look at it for what it was - a group of students learning and practicing a lot of new skills.  I approached this project as if I was in a professional setting, even if I didn't really know what I was doing, but in approaching it that way along the way I forgot that other people also don't really know what they are doing. It became very obvious to me around the time we changed the script that a lot of people just hadn't grasped that the shoot was happening as quickly as it was, like they just hadn't looked the timetable as a whole semester. I remember being rather firm and almost demanding things from people and people were shocked because we 'have loads of time before we shoot' when in fact we were building the set in 2 weeks. Something I learnt very early on in this project was that if I ask for something on a specific day I will most likely not receive it on that day, when we changed the script I started purposely asking for things 2 days earlier than I needed them because I knew they would be up to 2 days late. A bit sneaky but I meant no harm and for the most part it got the job done!

Final shot of the project!

Before the shoot started I was told that everything was under control and that everything was ready for the Monday, we even had a quick tech rehearsal before we left for the weekend. The build was pretty smooth, it took a few more shopping trips than I had originally planned but it was all working out and the best thing - no arguments. None. It was as if as soon as everyone was on a level playing field and were just mucking in to get the job finished everything fell into place. During the pre-production things were tense because you would think you were getting somewhere but then someone wouldn't be in Uni for a day meaning things had to be decided without them, meaning when they came back they would annoyed at certain things not being included; or people would just want different things and weren't willing to compromise. It was just a hard time within the group. Whilst building however everyone just had fun, it was a new experience for everyone so we were all learning together and just having a bit of a laugh.

I've already blogged about the first day of shooting here so check that out if you haven't already and I'll go straight onto the second day.

This day was the most stressful by far and I would like to make something clear the 2 day shoot was my idea. I had to make a decision and at the time it was around a week (?) before the set build was starting and we were starting to cast actors and they needed times. At this point the script was finalised and I was emailing Rosie regarding pay and expenses, I was told we could have 2 actors for 1 day if they are paid for by the University. Now I knew this wasn't enough time and I mentioned that we were considering trying for expenses only but with that came a set of moral obligations - how long can you expect an actor to work without pay? I made the call of 2 days because it made sense. We had a 4 page script and I had spoken to members of the group who agreed that it was a plausible option, the only thing I didn't have to make the decision off was storyboards because they simply weren't made yet.

Staying late on the Tuesday wasn't planned but I also had to make the call off working 2 hours extra (on top of an admittedly long day) or have the unpaid actor have to drive back to Farnham from Southampton to film another 2 scenes. I'm glad we stayed back to finish like we did however if I had known the complexity of the shots earlier on I probably would have tried to stretch it over the Wednesday as well. When I made the call I was making it on the assumption that we only had 2 more shots to do the final shot of the lights changing and a slider shot, I honestly had no idea we were using the dolly and I think it came as a shock to most people as all day we had said we weren't using it.

I did feel a bit out of loop whist on set because in all honestly I didn't understand the storyboard and shot list, I thought it was due to inexperience but a few of us were a bit confused about it so I spent a lot of the day asking questions and the rest of the day pretending I had answers to other peoples questions. Because that's what a producer does - they act like they are the most organised person in the room so much they eventually become the most organised person in the room.

My colour coded production pack - I needed to organise! 

Overall, now I can look back properly, I do think we worked well as a team on the set but I also think the pressure helped in a way? I know that sounds bad but what I have learnt through this project is if you give DFSA  a relaxed environment they'll work in a relaxed way, the same way when I remained calm during pre-production people remained calm with me which was great but they still didn't quicken their work pace which would have a been useful at the time. So whilst it was stressful I think it made for a better workflow which I know is not a mutual feeling across the group.

Personally this project has been eye opening, I learnt new things about film that I didn't know before, I learnt that being strict with things from the start would have saved us a lot of stress. I also found that when I gave specific jobs to people they did get done, not as quick as I would have liked but they got done. However I wish some teams would have communicated more because I simply didn't have the time to go through each team and individually break things down to make sure they got done - that was a trust exercise for the control freak in me, honestly it was terrifying. I also learnt that being the producer of a project does not make you responsible for everyone else's grades, a lot of the time I felt this huge responsibility not only for making a good film but for making sure everyone passes this unit. If I knew someone wasn't blogging I'd drop hints that they really should be doing that, I read unit descriptions out for people, I told people things that I thought would help boost their grade, all in good spirit and I would help people anyway but 'leading' this project made it feel so much more than just helping people, in part I felt responsible. And I shouldn't have.

I worked very hard on this project from the beginning and whilst I tried to stay out of the creative decisions simply because I felt like there needed to be an apolitical opinion making the harder decisions (like not building the House of Commons or building 2 sets instead of 1 or building a kitchen).  But I can honestly say I couldn't have done any better with the knowledge I had at the time, I've changed my workflow so much since this project started and I think in part it's due to this project turning out the way it did. I believe that it helped me become more aware of my job role in the 'real world' and I learnt how to just deal with things and get it done anyway.

I was genuinely worried that this post would be a bit ranty so before I started I made a pro/con list that I kept with me as I wrote:

Pros
- Worked well as a team
- Learned something new
- Worked with actors in a professional setting
- Created a group dynamic

Cons
- When I give you a deadline stick to it because there's probably a reason behind it.
- Not as organised as I would have liked
- 2 day shoot my decision (Not quite but we left casting late due to the late script change)
- I didn't realise film needed a bigger tech rehearsal than  the one I allotted
- Communication
- When I was calm everyone else was also calm which meant to get stuff done I had to stress out
- People didn't research there roles until last minute meaning quite a few last minute decisions

I may come back and write more once I've reflected on this a bit longer but right now I'm leaving it as it is - a break would be nice about now.

Reverting to Old Habits

One of the things I like about Professional Toolkit is I get a sense of fulfilment out learning a specific skill. Another thing I've gotten out of the whole unit is - I'm fairly certain my 'niche', as Mirella would call it, is in post-production.

Editing in the Avid Suite during my 2nd to last Avid lesson.

Learning the Avid basics was hard and I found myself reverting to my Premier Pro habits (habits I didn't have this time last year so I guess that's progress) but getting myself out of the Adobe mindset was hard. It was then I realised how user friendly Adobe really is and how Avid is the exact opposite.

But once I got there and had that moment where things just 'clicked' I don't think there is any turning back. I went to edit my November Vlog at home and had to Google the Premier shortcuts because I was just at a loss as to how I could edit without the Avid shortcut keys, I simply couldn't remember.

Since then I've been reading a bit about editing, I've never been terrible at editing and I can always find a way out of the bad situations I've put myself in by rendering at the wrong time. I'd just never thought about how much editing has a huge effect on the narrative. Well, it's not even that I'm very aware of how it can effect the narrative I guess I've just never seen it in practice, making the sports drinks advert and seeing everyones interpretations was eye opening for me, even if I was slightly embarrassed about how cheesy mine actually was.

I was in the library the other day (for a completely unrelated reason) and I passed the book In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch. What I've found recently is that when I'm in the library if a book catches my eye when I'm not looking for it it's probably a good call to check it out. Hence why I currently have 10 books on my desk that I will eventually read, honest. Anyway this book is really interesting, it's written in more of a conversational voice you feel like you're learning something rather than just being talked at with loads of jargon. They compare films to chimpanzee DNA, they make sure you know that the more complicated a sound mix doesn't make it good (Sidenote: The Martix had a 6 track orchestra, just how - how did they do that?), it also talks a bit about colour grading.

Colour grading is something that does interest me, especially the idea that there's an almost scientific approach to it but for now that's a bit far out of my league. I don't trust myself enough for that yet so I'll stick to colour correcting, sometimes, occasionally - I'll do my best to avoid it.

So for now I'll stick to my books and training videos, I'm currently making my way through the Avid Essential Training on Lynda.com but I think I might start looking into more specific effects and how I can use them in my studio edit.

Everything.

Photo from Jorn

When researching film roles I've found that most have very specific objectives they have to achieve in order to gain that title, with Producer however there doesn't seem to be a set answer other than - everything. You just oversee everything which in part makes you responsible for everything which is terrifying.  It's just absolutely terrifying when you leave something you've worked so hard on in the hands of other people, no matter how much you trust the other people, you can't help but worry.

That's what I'm experiencing right now just constant worry of things going wrong, seeing people not do their job right and using that as the way of stepping to regain control however I only have that control for the minute I'm talking to the person who isn't doing their job, after that it's right back to feeling, well feeling a bit useless. During the shoot if something seemed to be getting out of hand or going off track I would step in to bring everyone back but mostly everyone was doing their own thing - rather disjointedly for the most part. Yet because everyone was so wrapped up in the their job I took to making notes of things that simply weren't going to work tomorrow because we have a very intense work load. After we wrapped for the day I asked everyone to hang back for a few minutes whilst I gave them a few notes, the majority being around communication.

For a long time whilst producing this piece I didn't think I had to keep talking about the importance of communication because I thought it was common knowledge, however as time has gone on I've realised it really isn't. People and teams I thought were speaking to each other (and for the most time I was being told they were speaking together) just weren't communicating as much as I would have hoped. I thought that all changed 2 weeks ago when I all but demanded that all finalised paperwork/planning be sent to me and everything seemed to match up. But then things started changing, when we got on set we went from high-key to low-key lighting almost immediately meaning that other things then didn't fit so they had to change but because everyone was so hyped up they forgot to talk about it! It was just a bit confusing.

I'm not sure if it was confusing simply because they were using terminology that I still don't fully grasp or everyone was crowded around the camera talking at once but something was off. Not speaking properly to actors, people not fully engaging with their jobs, not listening to their team leader, letting others take over their role etc It's really hard to gauge how severe some of the actions are because this is the first time I've done this. I just hope that explaining my perspective on the shoot at the end of the day was enough to make people realise that tomorrow is going to be hard, doable but hard.

'I'm Gonna Build Me A Wall'

Set build, beginning, middle and end. Photo from Mirella

Is it wrong to be shocked when everything, well mostly everything, goes exactly the way you want it to?

For the majority of this project I feel like I've been pushing an uphill battle where everything and to some extent everyone has been against me. I guess that comes hand in hand with being a producer however sometimes it can't help but feel personal. That's exactly what I avoided for the majority of this project, I didn't want anyone to feel like anything I said to them was a personal attack but in making sure that didn't happen part of me just avoided the confrontation. I can handle things in formal situations such as production meetings but outside of that when someone Facebook messages me asking a question or texts me saying they're going to be late I feel like it's too much of an intimate situation to be blunt with them without sounding like I'm making things personal. Throughout the project, particularly in the beginning I pushed the use of email to avoid this type of thing but after a
while I just had to admit defeat to social media and texting. It came with it's own challenges but it was definitely the better way of communicating to everyone and getting a quick response.

I've done many things wrong during this production and I openly admit that, however I've recently realised that if I say anything with enough credence people will believe me. The same with if I act like nothings wrong people will also believe that nothing is wrong and continue with their work, even if that work is behind schedule.

I guess what I'm trying to say is acting like I knew what I was doing was the best decision I've made so far.

Out of me making decisions of pure instinct we got the script finalised, storyboards finished, set build approved, actors auditioned, set and props ordered, set built and dressed all in time for a tech rehearsal with camera and lights on Friday afternoon. That's the bit that still hasn't quite made sense in my head.

On Tuesday me, Emily and Tom went to buy the main building materials for the set - including a door that fit in Tom's car as long as me and Em were not also in the car so we called Lawrence to pick us up - although my dodgy calculations meant an extra 2 trips to Homebase (again thank you Tom and Lawrence!) we got everything done in 2 days. That's right, built, scraped, papered, 2 coats of paint and flooring down by 5pm Thursday. Come Friday all that was left to do was hang the doors and start dressing.

So yeah I'm still in a state of shock, the call sheets are now drawn up and ready to go all that's left to do is film and then it's over which is kind of insane. I'll have more of an insight into being a producer when everything has finished but now my main thought is this, I thought I was a good producer before I started this project and whilst the vast majority of this project has made me question those skills I'm back to thinking I'm not half bad at this. It's been a learning curve and it's been a hard one but I'm getting there.

Plus right now the budget stands at £99.56 - with only T-shirts left to buy (and possibly a bit of petrol money for the boys) I don't think that's bad going.

I'm OK at this?

Something I'm not proud of is that as a person I am absolutely terrified of failure to the point where it genuinely hinders my learning. One of the downsides to coming into a very technical course without any real technical background was then when it come to practical projects there is always someone better skilled than me at certain things, camera work and lighting included. So I never really tried to do those jobs because there are people who are better at it than me and if my camera work isn't very good then we'll all get marked down because of it.

But the major flaw in that plan is I
never learn how to do those things, this year I am a bit more confident with my work and I'm trying my hand and lighting for instance but in non-Uni based work. I also tried out the Glide-cam. Now this was terrifying to me, thousands of pounds worth of equipment on the end of a stick? Nope, not something I care to think about. It wasn't until I realised that dance training is actually useful in this case that I decided to have go. Dance training has never really came in handy for me since I stopped dancing however having a steady walk and centre of gravity whilst using a steady-cam is actually pretty useful. I wasn't as bad at it as I thought I would be and it was actually really fun.

I'm not saying I'm going to be transferring all my energy into being a cinematographer anytime soon but I'll be willing to give a shot, maybe not on Uni project yet but personal projects? Sure why not.

Filming with the Green Screen in G12

I also used the studio for my Maps and Journeys shoot - shot on a standard tripod, nothing that interesting if I'm being honest but the big studio isn't that scary anymore and I call that progress.

We're Nearly There!

My brainstorming for buy set build materials

So now we have a finalised set design and we start building on Wednesday I started making a list/pricing up everything we need for the set with the intention of going out with Emily tomorrow to buy everything so on Wednesday everything is there ready to go.  I spoke to Chris briefly the other day about sizing and how we came to the conclusion we could use around 8 flats with the set being 12ft by16ft (Actually make that 8ft by 12ft, I didn't realise how big the other was!).

I made the list of the B&Q website and tried to match up measurements to the best of my knowledge, I also looked at other suppliers in farnham but they were all a lot more expensive than B&Q. I also included equipment (everything except nails, I need to speak to Chris again first) but I remembered that a while back some of the class said they had a lot of painting equipment at home so I need to ask them first before I head out and buy everything new, I also need to check to see if the studio has dust sheets available.

The only problem I'm currently facing is transport, a lot of the class are using the self-directed days to work on their maps and journeys projects meaning that we don't have access to a car, something that's pretty important if we're buying a door. (I'm still trying to find a way of building a door frame instead of buying one, but I'll see how far I get with that). Jonny is holding auditions on Tuesday, meaning a decision will be made in time for Mirella to go out and buy costumes in the following days. I may be living in a bit of a dream world but I would like to have the main set built/wallpapered on the Wednesday in time for a coat of paint on the Thursday, have that dry over night then have a second coat done on the Friday morning so we can start dressing the set on Friday night ready to have final touches done on the Monday morning before we shoot.

Lots of organising once again but there seems to be an end in sight - which I am very grateful for!

It's fine.

As Producer I've found that a lot of my job is writing. Writing risk assessments, timetables, notes, minutes from meetings, emails.... just a lot of writing. Anyway at the start of the project we were all quite laid back about it and then we found out that the script that had been written wasn't plausible to make and wasn't as creative as we thought it was. So the synopsis went from this;

A 1-2 minute advert focusing on the hidden nature of domestic abuse, following a character watching TV in his home, oblivious to the abuse happening in the adjacent room. The advert will focus on the hidden nature of domestic abuse, how it can often go unnoticed and its direct impact on the victim. The goal is to raise awareness on how to spot the signs of domestic abuse, promote helplines, and most importantly encourage people not to ignore the issue when they notice the signs. This will be achieved by utilising skills developed in the professional toolkit units.

To this;

A 2 minute long campaign film focusing on the stigma against male domestic abuse victims. Based on the classic sitcom the campaign will open with the male lead entering the set talking to a friend about how how his partner has been hitting him. At this point you will hear a generic laugh track. This will continue often with his friend quipping in remarks about ‘manning up’ and ‘don’t be a wimp’. The laugh track will continue until the character notices it and address the fact that it’s not a funny subject, at this point the actor will look directly into the camera breaking the fourth wall. Tracking backwards the camera will reveal the set (eg lighting, other cameras sound equipment) showing the audience how the media control our perceptions of abuse alongside the actor who will be speaking about the importance of the stigma being dropped. And now to this;

A 2 minute long campaign film focusing on the stigma against male domestic abuse victims. Based on the classic sitcom the campaign will open with the male lead entering the set talking to a friend about his recent family holiday. Whilst talking the friend will leave the set and go to grab a beer from the kitchen, at this point the camera will zoom in on the male lead as he sits on the sofa. Sounds from the kitchen and object around the room will become more prominent and the character will be very much in his own world. Once the camera is in a close up a bottle will be heard smashing in the kitchen causing the male lead to jump, linking back to the story regarding his wife bottling him on holiday . At this point his friend will come back into the living room where he will be trying to remove a stain from his shirt before asking the male lead if everything is ok. The male lead will then say the smash made him jump to which his friend will reply that it was only a bottle smash. At this point the male lead will look at his hands saying 'Yeah, man up'. And if I have any say in the matter it won't be changing again. After some very tense meetings I finally feel comfortable saying that we will get everything done on time as long as everyone works together as, to be quite frank, we don't have any time left. So far we've had around 7 production meetings (some of which the minutes from the meetings can be found here, here and here). I will say I'm quite comfortable leading meetings of this size as it's something I've done a lot of in the past, so I'd like to say I'm pretty good at it although some people may disagree. In the past week since the idea change around I have found myself becoming stricter with people regarding deadlines and changing ideas simply because when you look at the timetable (found here) you can clearly see that time isn't on our side. We also had a move around with the job roles (found here) to make sure everyone had a job to do during the shoot. In the past few days we've had a script drawn up (here is one of the later drafts of the script) and after meeting with Anne we made some changes as a group to make the script easier to work with on a creative level, the final version of the script will be ready by Tuesday. Once the script is finalised that means the Director/Storyboard Artist can work with the D.O.P on the shot types and storyboards of which I hope to have by Thursday to look over and finalised by Friday so that the Ast. Director can figure out our shoot schedule and the Lighting director can get started on plans for the shoot. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we're getting there. I'm working my way down a checklist from last year and it's working in my favour I mean look - the risk assessment is almost done and everything. Just hang in there, everything is going to be fine.

A Bit of a Blur

Editing Friday 9th. All Protools PCs should have dual monitors, it makes life so much easier!

You know that moment when you stare at something for long enough that everything just blurs together and you kind of loose your mind? Yeah that happened. 

On Monday I exported my sound piece with the intention of never listening to it again because if I heard incessant tapping once more I would have gone insane. However James convinced me that having another look over it after a few days away was the way to go, so that's what I did and I changed a few things.

I changed the reverb settings on the backbeat, changed the volume in some places because in the mix it didn't sound as good as I originally thought it would. The main things were the increased reverb on the 'SFX track' (basically anything diegetic) to add to the feeling of increased intoxication over the run of the track, I used automation to increase the amount of effect added over time, something I had already done for some tracks earlier in the piece. I also added some white noise, something I was reluctant to do because 1) I had done this for last years project and didn't want them to be too similar and 2) I actually really wanted to try adding piano but firstly the plug-in didn't work and it would have sounded very similar to the original song which just would have been too easy. In the end I decided to use the white noise but have 3 versions of it throughout the track, the first starting at a lower frequency/ db, then one a bit higher and finally finishing with a rather high pitch noise. Nothing too disconcerting just something that can grab your attention throughout the piece and act as a warning before the ambulance sirens come in right at the end.

Mondays aftermath - when I was 'finished'

How I left the project before exporting

Now to someone who hasn't been staring at this project for as long as I have there isn't much difference (and one is zoomed in further than the other). But I promise there is a pretty big difference in the way they sound as seen here.

Vs

After making most of the changes on Thursday

I actually did the majority of the editing on Thursday (as seen above) when I was listening back to it I knew something just wasn't right, it wasn't clicking the way I wanted it to. I remember James saying 'If it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't right' and the problem I was having was I knew something wasn't right - I just didn't know what. This is where I shot myself in the foot a bit, I honesty didn't realise how complicated and 'packed' my work was until I started looking at other peoples, and the downside to this was there were now that many more potential problems.  So I started soloing tracks and making my way through them smoothing absolutely everything out I could find to the point I was shocked with myself for not seeing some of it earlier. But now I was stuck with the problem of now it just sounded wrong just cleaner.

Reverb added onto the backbeat

Then panning, plug-ins and automation became my friends again, I decided to just play around with it and see what would happen. Nothing too extreme because even though something was off about my mix I did actually like it. I added some more reverb on parts, upped the reverb/pitch in some existing plugins, as well as altering the panning on some of the more prominent tracks. When I spoke of experimenting I also meant going against traditional conventions such as panning, more to the point the panning of my voice over. If you look closely on the image above the second green track from the bottom you see a bit of automated panning, I did this to give the audience a sense of being off-balance something you could associate with being drunk. However once I looked at it again I realised that whilst it did make the audience feel disorientated it did it too much and was too overpowering for the project so before I exported the track I deleted it.


As I mentioned I changed the reverb on the backbeat because I felt in the first mix it was slightly off, it had too much delay and made the heartbeat track sound off. When I went to it change I realised that I hadn't been using a preset, so my first instinct was to try out the preset and after making my way through them all I decided package was the best as it had all the qualities of the original that I liked whilst also getting rid of the bits I didn't.  I then realised that I had been manually adding all of my plugins and adjusting them to the best of my knowledge which I now realise barely graze the surface of Protools. So I went back and analysed each track individually and made changes where appropriate.

Ok, I made a mistake, but at least the fix was creative?
Shown: I added an extra plugin and automated it on the laugh
track to make the samples sound somewhat different to each other.

When James listened to the track for the first time the main thing he pointed out was that it was very obvious that the laughter was just the same track repeated. Now I had made a big mistake when recording the first time (using the marantz in lesson time) I had done multiple versions of the laughter but each take except the one I used was interrupted by something. The first mistake was not being clear on what I wanted the person to do, the second was recording in B127 a very echo-y, very much not a recording-studio room, in fact all but the laugh had to be re-recorded at a later date.  I would have rerecorded the laugh but I honestly didn't realise it was a problem until I decided to put it in more than one place in the track.

Also changed pitch on laugh track to add more range to the vocal

To fix this I split the clip up and rearranged it slightly so the sustain on the clip wasn't the same giving the clip more punch (if that's a way to describe a sound? Or is it attack?). I also added the plugin Lo-Fi as shown above. This plugin made the sample sound grittier and almost retro but when added to the mix I used it to show how the protagonists point of view is warping the more alcohol they consume.  I also used automation to pitch the track down near the end of the piece, something I used across many of the motifs found in the piece.

Used EQ to make the VO clearer

On Monday when I thought I was 'finished' before exporting some of the class had a listen to my piece and the only thing that was mentioned was the voiceover not being clear enough. Now I hadn't intended to use this version of the VO in the final piece. The plan was to get a VO actor into the studio to do a much better version than the one I did. In fact the only reason I recorded myself at all is the layout of this piece is heavily influence by the VO narrative so in order for me to start arranging my sounds I needed a provisional track, Hence why this is exists.

I had every intention of getting the actor until I realised that the actor I needed also needed to be able to read music. The beat of this track is the driving force and it's pretty obvious from the start, meaning that the voice actor would have needed to know the beat of the words as well something I would only have been able to convey through sheet music (If I ever did this again I would bite the bullet and get a music-reading-VO-actor, because it would be better quality and I wouldn't have to listen to my own voice over and over again). Anyway, that was tangent, to fix the audio I added some EQ and played around with the higher frequencies seeing how much of the lower I would need to take out for it be clear and the image above is how I decided to leave it before exporting.

Pitch change for the vibration track, only 4 semi-tones but
enough to make a noticeable difference.

I mentioned earlier the motifs in the piece a lot of which I left not so heavily edited in the first mix, or edited slightly but it was still rather obvious what the sounds were. The more I listened to it the more I realise that by the end of the piece the sounds need be almost incomprehensible, something I was again put of doing because it was something I did in my last sound project but I did it and I'm thankful for it. 

Again automation was my friend and I added delay to some tracks stronger reverb to others nothing to distracting just something to signal that this persons mind is not coping with the alcohol as much as the VO is trying to convince you otherwise.

Used to make the track almost incomprehensible by the end 

 




I also pitched down the phone vibrations towards the end of the piece, for me the phone vibrations are key to the 'back to reality' moment the character and the audience need to have for the piece to make sense. so I wanted the vibrations to still sound like phone vibrations but almost like a horror film version signalling that even though you are drinking your sorrows away your girlfriend is still trying to talk to you and will continue to try even when you are hung over the next morning (phone vibrations always seem like they belong in a horror film when hungover anyway - I mean what).

Either way that was the last major change that I made, there are a few things that I would improve (having had a few days of not looking at it) the major one being the panning on the vibrations near the end, I didn't realise how far left they were until I listened to it today.

Now it does keep with the theme of throwing the audience off balance and making them feel drunk but at the end of the track the deeper vibrations throw it off a bit.  I also wanted to create almost a bubble effect? But I couldn't think of any way of doing it other than messing around with the master track which I was prepared to do. (it was also a last minute thing so I didn't have time to research it properly) During the production I definitely would have used a metronome so that when I created a click track it would have matched up and made my life so much easier, but these are all lessons learned ready for my next project.

Look I got it to -3.6 on my second try - I was rather proud

In a way I think I was lucky because I've spent so much time on Cubase over the years once I mastered the short cuts in Protools I found the whole thing pretty standard in terms of making a sound piece. Don't get me wrong I don't think I've even scratched the surface on Protools yet I felt like I had a bit of an advantage because the programs are so similar meaning that picking up on the basics was a lot easier for me than some. I'm even considering buying it to use with my digital piano at home - a vast improvement on garage band to say the least.


Wow, that was so much text, anyway I'm pretty happy with the output of this project but I do think I could have done better and the Spring Awakening idea is still in my mind so I may take it on a personal project at some point in the future. But I think that my sound project is officially finished, I'm rather proud. Then again I've said many times that I'm finished in the past week so we'll see how it goes.

Sounds Familiar

For research I first began looking through the library for books on how to create the sounds I wanted (or thought I needed for my first idea) however I very quickly got distracted by 2 books, Sound on Film : Interviews with creators of Film Sound and Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures. I really like books that seem very relaxed when reading, I like people giving their own opinions and making the reasoning personal, unlike the majority of academic text.

I read interviews with Tom Paulin, a poet obsessed with the way his poetry sounds and Robert Frosts 'Sentence Sound' ('A sound in itself on which other sounds, called words, may be strung') something that caught my attention because poetry and lyrics are so similar. Owe Suenesson and David Burnand
both of which focus on Tarkovsky (Film maker and Opera Director? Never knew that one). Owe mentions that in the 80s he had the opportunity to work with Tarkovsky on The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky then promptly requested 253 sound effects for his film. He goes on to talk about how he halved the amount of sounds and made no two alike because when watching Tarkovskys' previous film Nostalgia he noticed how overused certain sounds were. David Burnand compares The Sacrifice to a Bach aria 'The sonic architecture of ritual. Symmetry as a means of expressing the endless cycles of nature through a sequential narrative lasting 149 minutes, but effectively timeless'. Randy Thom slates a few directors for not knowing enough about sound (David Lynch, Coppola, Scorsese - found it a bit harsh myself) yet stresses the importance of whilst the sound wasn't the forefront of their movies they all made movies with wonderful sound tracks. Because the 'sound and the image were on thing', he also mentions that if he hears an audience come out of a cinema saying 'I didn't like the film very much, but nice score' the film hasn't been a success.

I started trying to remember the films that I've walked out of liked the sound design more than the actual film and the one that sticks out for me is The Theory of Everything. The soundtrack for that film is amazing, the orchestrations phenomenal and I just love that soundtrack - probably because I'm a fan of orchestra music especially when it's modified with electrical instruments. (As long as they're real, no synth please!). Although now I think about it, I remember the music more than I remember the film. Maybe that's not a good thing?

Anyway, during the break for one of our theory lectures, a few of us started talking about our sound project and Liz being the walking encyclopedia that she is mentioned a few sound artists that she likes, Chris Watson and David Strong. However I could only find work belonging to Chris Watson a nature sound recordist best known for his work with the BBC Radio in works such as 'The Ice Mountain', 'The Reed Bed' and 'Jules Verne's Volcano'. He also won a BAFTA for his work as a field recordist in David Attenboroughs 'Frozen Planet'.

Chris Watson on location for 'Frozen Planet' - just casually recording some penguins.

I think what most of the people I've just written about have in common is that I've never really thought about it from that perspective before. I mean I remember watching Frozen Planet and never once did I imagine a guy sat on some ice with a shotgun mic aimed at some penguins, it just never occurred to me that that's how it had to be done. The same with foley artists I didn't even know they existed (which is actually kind of embarrassing now that I think about it) I came home and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Mirella was pointing out the very obvious foley recordings that for years I've never even noticed.

What I'm trying to get at is what I like about this project is it makes me uncover these things that for a very long time I've not paid attention too. During A Levels I would have said that Cubase/Protools is only for musicians, never would have crossed my mind that films need soundscapes too, so whilst working without instruments is weird for me it's also simultaneously really interesting.

Too Much Detail

Sound is so close to being finished I can see the light! However I've just realised that I've never actually explained what I'm doing with the song? Or what my narrative intentions are.

The song 'Last Weeks Alcohol' is the story of a young man (or woman in my case) who is at a party but can't stop thinking about their girlfriend. At the beginning of the piece the guy is trying to forget his girlfriend who he being slightly passive aggressive towards in his inner monologue (rather pleasant to in actuality), his girlfriend is at home wanting to see him but he wants to drink, he wants to be at this party. Or so it seems. From the text you understand that the character drinks a lot and that his girlfriend isn't too pleased about it, something that becomes more apparent as the song goes on and the more alcohol is drank. The song picks up from the line 'Vodka flows into any mixer you can find' and you feel the urgency the man has to get more drinks, this continues onto the point where he starts noticing more women but every time notices something specific eg. 'Mini skirts shift' he remembers his girlfriend or the girls resembles his girlfriend. As soon as one of the girls make a move on him his anger comes out and he says 'Screw the phone, screw you and all your stupid rules' relaying his anger in a way that he almost blames her for what he's doing. He the addresses her directly (well directly in his head) hoping she is having a worser time than he is. ' Are you alone? Are you dancing by yourself!' Cuz I'm out here, alive here. We're dancing here' he then has almost a loss of energy when he realises that he's only become angry when he was drinking 'Chugging from the bottom shelf'.

At the chorus he describes what he believes to be love after the experience he's just had 'This is how it feels to fall in love. This is how it feels to fall. The weakness, the sadness. The sirens, the madness. The pounding in your chest, like you're racing the streets in an ambulance.' The descriptions are heightened because he's still very much drunk but you get more of a grounding from the real emotions rather than the alcohol fuelled ones.

The aim of my piece is to have the listener almost be inside of his mind, you have the beat driving the song 1 acting as a heart beat, 1 acting as the beat of the song (added reverb). You have the music as a very faint backing (simply so there is never any lasting silence and also so you know you're at a party). Then once you get past the initial texting to the girlfriend everything becomes heightened much like his emotions you hear the tapping of cans, the opening of cans, specific laughter (always a woman's voice) gasping, the rustling of clothes and of people being close to each other until everything becomes over powering at the line 'chugging from the bottom shelf' then everything mellows out slightly until you get to the end where the ambulance (I know very literal) siren takes you to the end of the piece. I've also used panning to my advantage since I can make the audience very disorientated something one could associate with being drunk.

I also had a tutorial with James where he looked over my piece and made the suggestion of instead of having the beat constant have it speed up over time and make the beat leave the song by the time the siren comes in and have the voice reverb be more gradual. And other than that to clean it up a bit, but it's nearly there and that's what makes me happy.

Also it's 30sec over brief but I can't cut it anymore....I just can't please don't make me.

An over view of how I left the mis Friday afternoon, hopefully the layout wont be changing that much.

What's that Buzzing Noise?

 So my samples weren't as exciting as some peoples, after finding out the deadline and what the project expected of me my idea to do Spring Awakening was quickly pushed aside in favour of a more practical option. It just so happened that my practical option was set in a nightclub were most noises (aside from music) are caused by people doing pretty standard things meaning I could record all my sounds from my bedroom as I live in a pretty quiet neighbourhood.

I had already made a list of sounds during lesson, the first day we used the Maratnz, and I had recorded a fair few samples that day however not only did I record in B127, me and the Maratnz just didn't get on. I'm not sure if its because I'm used to the Zoom and I know how to use it (or thought I knew how to use it anyway until I recorded in stereo thinking it was in mono) but add a faulty cable that took me 30 mins to figure out - it just wasn't a good day.

So the following Friday I booked a Zoom out of stores and just got to work. I sat at my desk and set up the zoom and just made my way through the list; can opening, clothes rubbing against each other (totally isn't just me rumpling a hoody), heavy breathing, gasping, phone vibrating, text notifications, guzzling drinks, drinks fizzing, general ambience, cans tapping and the initial beat me tapping on my desk. I chose to do that because it reminded me of a bar, when I'm getting served at a bar if they're taking a long time or IDing 3 times just to 'make sure', I end up tapping along to the beat of whatever is playing in the background. So that's where all that came from, I told you it's not that interesting what was interesting was layering the sounds and making them seem a lot more 'epic' than they actually are. Something I'll cover in a later blog post.