filmprojectcasper

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Film Project Essay - Casper Galbraith

Sound Designer:

The Blade and The Butterfly - Graded project

Rubbed The Wrong Way - 2nd Project

40529141 LMD09126 1st May 2024

The Blade and The Butterfly

Crew:

Director - Kushal Dhingra Producer/Writer - Joesph Olanlokun Director of Photography - Davide Alonge Editor - Ethan Lennon Sound Design - Casper Galbraith Production Design - Catherine Paterson

Intentions and Desires:

From the outset, I was intrigued by this project as a sound designer. A chance to do an action film at the student level is always exciting but also very risky. It is very easy to fall into the trap of making a very amateur film where the somewhat mediocre fighting and action can overshadow or take away from any real message and meaning behind the film. That’s why it was paramount to nail down a story and arc before we even discussed the action sequences we had in mind. I believe that Joseph is an excellent ideas man and he showed lots of passion during the writing stage of this production, so it was a very easy yes to join the crew. References for the film were suggested by Kushal the director. We spoke about the tone of the film and how the sound design needed to play a huge part in making the action scenes feel real. Because the stage combat was relatively low level since none of us as filmmakers had any experience, we would do lots of rehearsals and research to make it as safe as possible. With that lack of experience does come a slightly lower level of output and consistency through the fight sequences. Some punches look believable and others... not so much. That’s where it became imperative that I engage in research into how sound designers tackle fight scenes to make them as believable as possible.

Sound Design Workflow:

To start the research process as a sound designer I went about watching clips and scenes from all types of action films, to get a sense of tone and balance within the mix of a scene. Some films allow their diegetic sounds to sit empty in the space to give it a rawer feel, and others prefer the use of a score to add emotion to the action. Films like Fight Club and John Wick were a few of the references I referred to when researching fight scenes. I also watched videos on YouTube of low-budget filmmakers and how they go about recording and designing fight scenes. Foley is a big part of this process as your on-set sound obviously won’t be picking up any real punches. This led me to multiple videos and articles on how to get the best foley for fight scenes and what objects and techniques foley artists use to get those sounds. We did two Foley sessions for this project. The first one was mainly focused on making the layers for the various punches, knees, and kicks we had planned to include in our choreography. I had been to the shop in the morning to pick up some food items that could be used for the sounds. Bacon was used to create a fleshier high-end sound, as well as using celery for the more bone-breaking crunch dynamic. We also rolled up some leather jackets and punched them in front of the microphone to create a deeper impacting sound. All of these sounds recorded were then taken into ProTools where I went about layering them to make weightful punch sounds. The second Foley session we did was after the shoot. Here we focused on more of the foely for other items within the film such as the axe and the swinging arms of the characters when they were going for a punch. For the axe, we dragged a trowel across a stone slab to give it that grinding edge sound when Sonia picks up the axe in the finale. As for the swinging, we took a plastic tube/pipe and swung it next to the microphone, creating a whooshing effect. When I took all these sounds back into ProTools it was about layering and making sure the sound of the impacts was in line with the picture to make it as believable as possible.

Final Product:

This film was always going to be a challenge, and one that we as young filmmakers were excited for, so either way we are very proud of the work we have done on this module. It’s not often that students tend to make such ambitious projects as this so for that we can hold our heads high. I believe this film falls in the story. I think we tried to do a little too much with the aspects of fighting and dance that we ended up being so lost in the style of the film that we allowed the substance to fall behind. Too much context and characters made it difficult for us to show a clear story arc and left too many questions unanswered throughout the film. However, with that being said I do believe we have fallen on the right side of the mark for a low budget action film. I do feel that we have made a film that is edgy, raw, slightly gritty, and most importantly believable. A huge effort from all the cast and crew, especially Kushal who spent hours in rehearsals and researching the combat. I think it’s come off well. As for my contribution to the sound design, I do believe that for the most part, I have done a very solid job. Having never tackled such a foley-heavy film, I was very proud of the outcome of the punches. They don’t sound too goofy or cartoon-like and much more like real punches. I also think that the world-building within this film is for the most part, pretty good. I tried to create as much tension within the confrontational scene using diegetic audio as possible. This was a challenge I set myself as I felt it would have been too cliche to always refer back to the score. The most disappointing part of my contribution would be the mix. It is an area I am least knowledgeable in and it shows. At the critique session with the class, the main sound feedback was that it felt thin and weak in some areas. Before I attempted to mix the film, it was feeling much fuller and if anything possibly too busy in places. However as we started to mix, I became so fixated on the score at the end and the dialogue that it’s possible that the action sounds and ambience got lost and pushed too farback in the mix. On headphones, it’s not too much of an issue, but when played out of the big speakers you can hear an audible difference. Mixing is a skill that I feel can only be taught through experience, it’s about how the design feels rather than any given specific levels certain elements of the design should be hitting. Overall I think the sound design breathes life into the film and it enhances the viewers’ experience, however, there are multiple aspects of the mix that I will return to and fine-tune to make the whole film more consistent, especially since we have aspirations for possible festival runs.

Word Count - 1160

Rubbed The Wrong Way

Crew:

Director/DoP - Luca Walter Producers - Lili Van Niekerk & Joseph Olanlokun Writer - Jack Maclean Editor - Molly McLachlan Sound designer - Casper Galbraith Production Designer - Catherine Paterson

Intensions and Desires:

I was intrigued by the outline Jack Maclean presented to the class in one of the early film project classes. I felt this film had real potential to be a really funny, absurdist, and surreal film. I was approached by Luca the director do sound for the film and after some deliberation, I said yes. I worried that I was putting too much on my plate as a sound designer with both The Blade and The Butterfly and now Rubbed The Wrong Way, but the only way I could see myself getting better as a designer was by challenging myself and gaining as much experience in different genres as possible. We spoke about different approaches within sound design and how important it would be to find a good composer to breathe life into the comedic elements of the film. I also wanted to try some different audio plug-ins to bring the rather absurd side to the characters within the film, whether this be through specific sounds for different characters, or maybe using the score as a theme for the villains of the film, the massuses.

Sound Design Workflow:

An ADR session was the first part of the sound design to take the course. I spoke to Luca about getting Gaby Hafner in before the shoot to record her lines as the Police/Receptionist in the films to save time in the design. Being as efficient as possible was the only way I was going to be able to get both films done before the crit. I was lucky to split the work up between myself and Joseph, who had expressed his interest in dialogue editing. Having never done dialogue editing before, I sat down with him and showed him the basic theory and workflow behind dialogue editing. Not only do I think it was beneficial for him to learn but also for me, as it ‘teaching’ the process cemented my own workflow. Frequent meetings with director Luca made it easy to lock parts of the film down quicker, again being this efficient, gave me more time to try different effects, such as the demonic voice at the end of the receptionist lines. After doubling the line and using a couple of distortion and saturation tricks, with a slight pitch shift, we had a nice sounding piece of sound design that almost sounded like two voices talking at the same time. After a couple of good calls with the composer and a feedback session, we then had all the components of the design.

Final Product:

I am pretty happy with the final film. I think the sound design helps bring out the comedy elements within the film, where before it might have been falling a little flat. I do think there could be some changes to the edit which would have enhanced some of the sound design elements just that little bit more, but that is something we are going to look into. I really enjoyed mixing the little subtle parts within the film, such as the neck crack and the gulp from Buster in the first flat scene. A blink, you’ll miss it type of design, but they do give the film a natural fuller feel, which I think is crucial when it its easy to just allow the dialogue to dominate a comedy. If I had to change anything about the design, I would go back to look back at the consistency of the mix. A little more time would allow me to make sure the levels are as consistent as they can be throughout the film. This just stops any lines of dialogue from getting lost and also enhances the comedic sound elements. This film relies on its impactful sounds to make the jokes work so that’s why the mix is so important.

Word Count - 638

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I am really happy with my output this semester, I have had some invaluable feedback from both my lecturers and my peers and I can’t wait to jump back on the horse and implement the changes to make the films, the best they can be. Every semester is a learning experience and one I don’t take for granted. I look forward to 4th year and grad films, where we will do it all over again.

[filmprojectcasper]

Crit Feedback - TBATB

The feedback for The Blade and The Butterfly was overall pretty positive. A lot of our peers appreciated the ambition within our project. There were some issues raised over the story and arc but we were prepared for these as we had already discussed internal issues within the story. For sound, I wasn't too happy with the feedback. The words 'thin' and 'weak' were thrown about, in all honesty, I do believe I bought it upon myself as just before the screening I told the technician to turn the output down as it was looking like it might have been too loud. In turn, I ended up shooting myself in the foot as the output was now too low. So a lot of the feedback was then pretty pointless as it feels fuller when listened to at a decent level.

I am looking forward to hearing what Zoe thought about the sound of the film so I can take those notes into the re-design.

I was given no notes for Rubbed The Wrong Way. While no notes are normally a positive, in a critical reflection of your work to not be acknowledged isn't great. Again I will be looking forward to hearing what Zoe thinks of the film.

[filmprojectcasper]

Rubbed The Wrong Way - Crit-ready

Overall I was pretty happy with my efforts on this project. I think its come a long way since we finished shooting, and even further after the picture lock. I was slightly worried that the jokes might fall flat and I didn't have much hope but now in retrospect, I do think it's not a bad film by any means.

As a team, we have decided to maybe look into a re-edit just to tighten up some areas of this film. Then I will be able to delve back into the sound design and really experiment with a few things.

[filmprojectcasper]

The final state of the film for the Crit.

As a sound designer, I would really like to return to this project. There are a few areas in the world-building I would like to return to, I want to make those cave scenes feel a little more tense and edgy than they do at the moment. There are also a couple of punches that I feel don't sit right at the moment. Possibly the biggest problem of them all is the score. We have decided as a team to reevaluate the score and possibly reach out to a different composer as the one we have now isn't the most engaging member of the team.

This project has loads of potential and I'm not ready to leave it just yet.

[filmprojectcasper]

Screen Test - Craiglockhart Campus

Screen test is an absolute necessity for any film going into a screening. Me, Kushal (Dir.) Jo (Prod) and Etahn (Editor) all headed down to Craiglockhart Campus the day before to test out the sound, color, and picture on the screen we would be viewing on the next day. Unfortunately the set up wasn't the best for our film. The project wasn't calibrated to fit the screen properly and the speakers were way too bass-heavy and reverberated. Elements of the design were getting lost in the muddied frequencies. There were also some color issues where are picture seemed to be breaking within the blacks. Overall a pretty poor and underwhelming setting to host a screening, all our hard work in the sound design and color grade for it to be shown on such a poor setup. I urge the uni to really invest in a proper screening room that can reflect properly the work we put into our films.

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RTWW - Fundrasier

The Rubbed The Wrong Way fundraiser was a huge success. We were lucky enough to gain access to a screen at the famous Scotsman Picture House cinema on South Bridge. We sold tickets for a screening of Scott Pilgrim, to raise funds to put towards our budget. We sold 48 tickets in total, making just over £200 for our film!

Huge thank you to everyone who came along to support us!

[filmprojectcasper]

The Blade and The Butterfly sound team!

Big thank you to Alistair Sealy who came onto boom op for this project, certainly made my life a lot easier.

We got in contact with Ali through producer Jo, who had previously worked with Ali on a 48-hour film project last year.

Possibly the tallest boom op on earth which certainly helped get in as tight as we could, top down, for those crucial dialogue scenes.

This was taken on day 4 of the Blade Shoot, an early morning start over in Fountainbridge getting the dolly shoot of Sonia leaving the dance studio. The biggest challenge here was recording clean sound next to the dolly tracks which were clicking and creaking as the camera moved along. Despite our best efforts we couldn't completely free the tracks of its noise so I had to mix it out in post.

[filmprojectcasper]

Lots of hard work in the ADR booth to get some early recordings for the off screen characters. 

Big thanks to Gaby Hafner for coming in and recording these lines for us. 

Another good learning experience using the ADR booth and setting up the session correctly so I could record. 

[filmprojectcasper]

TBATB - Foley session, getting those body punches in ready to be layered together for the film.

Another good learning experience using the ADR booth and setting up the session correctly so I am able to record. 

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In The Blade and The Butterfly mix with director Kushal.

Just been introduced to the WLM Meter plug-in as a way to accurately measure the levels of output from the film to ensure that it will export at an audible level. It sounds really nice out of these Genelec speakers.

After the crit I would like to take this project into the dubbing suite and get a proper mix started, it's definitely an area I need to learn more about, and the facilities at the Screen Academy are industry grade so it would be great to get in there with this project.

[filmprojectcasper]

Rubbed The Wrong Way - Post Prod

As we entered the sound design phase of production, the time came for Joseph to learn the way of ProTools.

We sat down and went over the basic controls of the program before moving on to the theory and logic behind dialogue editing. Having Joseph's dialogue edit was a huge help as it meant I could focus on the early stages of the design, which would save me time later on down the line. This synergy works perfectly and is reflective of real professional practice. He got stuck in and worked really hard, I was very impressed with his work at the time of deliverables, there were a few creases that we ironed out together but in all a pretty solid effort.

It took me a while to get going with the design in this film. For me, the tone and feel of the comedy weren't coming through enough from what I was doing. I felt a little lost and lethargic in my work, I couldn't see that same absurd vision that we set out to have at the start of the project. I felt that there were some issues within the edit that could've been avoidable and would've helped the flow of the sound design much better, especially when establishing tone. However, me and Luca sat down and hashed it out, and in the end, we settled on a vision that worked.

One of the creative decisions that I added that wasn't already in the script was the idea of distorting the reception's voice to make it sound more sinister. Using a pitch shifter and a Lofi plug I was able to great this deeper more demonic voice which gave the line a new dynamic. It also impacts the joke of the next line as Buster, nonchalantly doesn't notice and focuses on the fact that he couldn't cancel his massage. It's the little things like this that excite me most as a designer.

Overall, I think it's a shame that the sound design isn't as comedic, surreal, and absurd as I set out to make it, but I think what we set out and then what we actually shot are two very different things. But with that being said I am still proud of what we achieved.

[filmprojectcasper]

The Blade and The Butterfly: On Set

Possibly the best on-set sound recording I have ever done!

After going on the location recces with Kushal and Jo, there would be no surprises in terms of sound. This work done before the shoot meant I knew exactly what I was walking into to when it came to the shoot, and sure enough, there were no surprises, PHEW!

However, like all film sets, obstacles are thrown your way, and what's better than to turn up on the first day of the shoot at the Caves in Cowgate, only to find out there has been a power cut. We battled on through the darkness, holding phone torches up so that the art department could go about setting the scene. The actors ran lines with each other, while the camera and sound teams waited eagerly for the thumbs up from the engineer that the power was back on. After about an hour and 1/2 set back, we were back on at it was all hands on deck to get the lights and camera set up for the shoot. In retrospect, we can look back and laugh at the irony of the worst nightmare for any filmmaker happening on the first morning. But believe me, no one was laughing on that wet and rainy Edinburgh morning.

That was about it for major hiccups on set. Apart from the odd crew changes throughout the week due to conflicting schedules, we managed to pull through and have some really productive and well-tempered days. We did have one slight scare, where are cinematographer fell ill on set and had to rush to the dentist, luckily he was able to return after an hour or so and managed to shoot the rest of the day.

A big thank you to Ali Sealy, the tallest boom op in the world! He made life for a recordist so much easier and even pitched in with his own thoughts on set. Thanks to you, I have some of the cleanest dialogue recorded since I joined Napier.

[filmprojectcasper]

As a sound recordist, there are multiple obstacles that can come up on set. Some things are well within our control, and sadly sometimes, there are things that are completely out of our control. 

Finding locations is always hard for students as the ambitions within the script don't always adhere to the budget and access that we can demand. Therefore sometimes to get the best locations some things have to be sacrificed. Unfortunately for me, that was sound. 

Day 1, call time at 8 am in the center of Edinburgh, we arrive at a quiet street filled with optimism for the shoot ahead, 10 minutes later and we are kicked off the street by the security of one of the surrounding buildings. With no permission documents to present to the security guards, we are escorted off the land and now without a location for our exterior shoot. This leads to much deliberation over where to go next to get the coverage we need. This leads to a poor decision in my eyes, despite my complaints the crew settles on shooting at the end of a road next to 3 major red flags for any sound recordist: 

A construction sight 

A school 

A hospital 

The construction sight is the most obvious red flag for recording sound, as the sound of heavy machinery and workers shouting disrupted much of the takes. The school posed more of a threat towards the end of the shoot as the pupils were let out for lunch they got in the way of some of our atmos takes through obnoxious comments. Finally, the hospital. Probably the least annoying but present, as the whirl of sirenes would ebb and flow across the morning. 

My complaints were met with little recognition, with my worries met with, “I’m sure we can just fix it in post”, every soundie’s worst nightmare. 

As for the rest of the shoot, the interior locations provided a better basis for sound recording and overall I was okay with the outcome, however, my only complaint would be that the control and composure on set could have been better. After calling cut there wasn’t much in the way of acknowledgement for sound notes which became increasingly frustrating. 

My note to all directors and AD’s, please listen to what your sound recordist is saying, then you won’t be surprised when it comes to the sound design, and the on-set sound is a mess.

[filmprojectcasper]

Had a really good time coming up with some choreography for a potential fight sequence for our short film. 

It was a good chance to test out the safety equipment such as the mats. As well as get a sense of how tiring it is to perform these combos. We concluded that plenty of breaks will be needed for the actors to catch their breathes on the real set. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have too much time to sound design this small scene as the we needed it for the pitch which was fast approaching. However, I feel i did a good job, I layered up different punch and body hit sounds that me a joe had compiled on a foley session we did at the start of the term. The layered punching was then accompanied by some arm and leg swooshes to give more character to the actions. A random piece of tense score was choosen from FMA (Free Music Archive)... et viola... you have a fight scene.

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Rubbed The Wrong Way

Film 2 

Director - Luca Walter 

Writer - Jack Maclean 

Cinematographer - Luca Walter 

Co-Producer - Joseph Olanlokun 

Co-Producer - Lili Van Neikerk

Production Design - Catherine Paterson 

Sound - Casper Galbraith 

Editor - Molly McLachlan

Another, really exciting production that i am apart of. An absurd comedy about a man who wants to cancel a massage at the local spa, where he is then chased down by the pyscho massage workers in order to receive his massage.

The film should be rather straight forward in terms of the sound design. I am hoping to collaborate with another sound savy guy called Jack Lumsden who will boom op and help with some foley in post. 

[filmprojectcasper]

The Blade and The Butterfly

Film 1 

Director - Kushal Dhingra 

Writer - Jospeh Olanlokun 

Cinematography - Davide Alonge 

Producer - Joseph Olanlokun

Editor - Ethan Lennon 

Sound Designer - Casper Galbraith 

Production Designer - Catherine Paterson 

Composer - Dan Higgins 

Really excited to get going with this project. A really ambitious concept that people don't tend to attempt while at university. 

The fight scene will be a huge challenge not only for the camera team but also for my role as a sound designer. Because the fight is all staged and no one is really getting hurt, it's paramount that the sound design is used to make the action feel more believable. Lot's of Foley and SFX work will be needed to be done in order to achieve this. 

I can't wait to get started!