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Year 3 Semester 1 blog link

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Title: Circe Invidiosa

Artist: John William Waterhouse

Date: 1892

Style: Romanticism

Genre: Mythological Painting

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The Horseman, the Woman and the Moth (1968), Stan Brakhage

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Music video editing is something I love and this video was so cool to watch recommend! Love the breakdown of the techniques used and it was also great inspo!! I adore this style sooooo much!!

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Notes from research on showreels

I was looking up tips for creating a showreel - specifically one for sound - so compiled some of the stuff I found. The first source had a lot of SD tips as well, so I included them.

Here's all my notes and sources on what I read!

6 Tips For Creating Your First Sound Design Showreel: | A Sound Effect

[mostly for game design but still useful cause doing design for games would be a shout]

Start with a Stereo bed for all generic "base" things (room tone, wind, general ambience) than add SFX in mono for stuff that makes noise - and automate that to camera position

Unique soundscape and ambience for each different camera position

(more for games) Little things matter when doing foley, beef it up - when cloth moves it should move, zippers, bodyfalls and impacts can always be bigger than you think. Each chara has different outfit, therefore have fun with deciding how that outfit sounds when it moves

Make stereo SFX mono : When things in distance sound too 'wide' due to source mats, and therefore doesn't sound like its positioned correctly, make things mono.

Related to above - if source sounds too stereo but needs to sound wide, convert source SFX to mono and add stereo reverb + widening plugins (Valhalla Supermassive and iZotope Ozone Imager are free recommendations)

For redesigns, replace what music is doing in the scene with cinematic SFX (i.e: for a horror scene, add "metal hits, drones, and risers to emphasise all of the key story beats")

Short and snappy showreels for the win - around a minute is his rec, with 15 sec clips and 5 sec filler if needed

don't start it with 5 second of silence - add a little sound effect to start/end titles!

Build the perfect showreel: 10 top tips | Creative Bloq

[tips for first showreel build - mostly for animation but still has relevant tips]

Cut Ruthlessly - only your best work

Keep it short - 1 to 1.5 minutes in length - studios look at a lot of reels

Start and End well - begin and end the reel with your best work, specifically ending with your second best piece and starting with the first. But keep in mind that the rest should still be decent work

Think of showreel as an ad; which aren't usually more than 30 seconds long. You are selling something.

(More for animation) match your reel to the studio! for instance, don't put in Orc models if a studio does architecture visualization.

(more for animation) Indicate what you created - in student films often its group work, so be clear in what you contributed

(Animation but could be relevant to film portfolio) Show inner workings: Shot breakdowns, software used

Better to go for simple and well done than complex and mid

related- Technique beats individuality (might be more for animation, but could apply to film)

Be a Sound Designer - Episode #1 - Building a killer showreel - sounDesign

[Tips and examples of reels - relevant to first reels]

Should flow well - avoid choppy fade ins and outs

using existing footage of a film trailer, animation, etc and doing a redesign is alright for an entry level position if you have no other work - Make sure to credit properly

2 minutes is borderline too much. keep it around 1 minute with a snappy edit

Put your reel in your linkedin profile

MY THOUGHTS/IDEAS

once I get a rough idea of what to put into it, going into AE and/or Blender and mocking up some transitions and short filler to design to in order to transition from clip to clip could be a good idea

movies - Whats the best way of presenting a sound design showreel ? - Sound Design Stack Exchange

[people answer the above question]

reel should depend on who views it: Musuem curator, Film producer, ad agency...

Redesign again - make it interesting and pleasantly surprising.

particles and colors - theatres and museums, maybe, but def not for film and tv. Viewers want to see something they relate to

How to make a Sound Design Demo Reel (designingsound.org)

[pretty simple and goes over a lot of the above]

Label your responsibilities - make everything you did clear.

Add details to your credits - if your doing sound design, your doing audio editing as well most of the time. Foley Artist, Recording Engineer, VO record, ADR, mixing engineer, music editor, and music supervisor are all valid credits that you probably have done.

showreel - What to put in show reel - Sound Design Stack Exchange

[another Q mostly about content]

Include what you want to work in - i.e Game audio creation, commercial based prod/post prod audio, long term linear media like film, quick contract work like logos and short SD projects.

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Production Documents - Documentary (Selkies)

Same thing I did with adaption, but with doc-- again, won't be too many!

My notes for the main body of our shoot - I didn't cut in order to catch everything I could in the limited shoot time we had, so this meant going back, having a listen, and transcribing the action(s) that were happening. I'm glad we had discussed not cutting and that I kept speeding, because this was actually easier to work with in post than if I had tried to break up the day with 'themed' sound files, when trying to catch certain things. All I had to do was change the position of the Boom and I could catch what I wanted immediately.

The links are to the transcribed interviews where there is speaking. I used Descript, which is pretty alright for a free software. I had to go through to edit for accuracy, which took so much time, and since I was kind of skimming i'd say it was maybe 90% accurate in the end. It might be worth investing in a (cheap but decent) transcribing software if I want to keep doing documentary.

Some (messy) pre-shoot breakdown notes

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Misc Production Documents - Adaption (POTP)

I've been doing end of year organizing and since our producers have to compile the dossier, I figured I'd try to find stuff relevant to my department to post. There won't be too much (and I lost my sound notes!!! Arg!!)

I remembered I did a little sound breakdown- I wish It was more in depth and organized, but that's alright, it did the job! Just for me to remember things I def needed or wanted to get during shoots

Wahh the screenshots are blurry but you get the gist (postscript: actually they were fine once I posted hehe)

Kit List - Pretty simple. I kinda forgot that the Mixpre3 only have 3 inputs (unlike the 10? I believe it’s called? That we don’t have available yet) so couldn’t use two lavs- but it was nice having them in case of tech difficulties.

And thats it cause I very much cannot find my sound notes OR my location recce checklist :,(

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FILM ADAPTATION

MARKED UP SCRIPT

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Final Reflection: Documentary, Selkies

{youtube link xoxo}

Alright, lets get straight into it!!

For a quick Location recording review: I had been a bit concerned about the waves drowning everything out, but the 416 pleased me greatly and with some booming choices I managed to get some good chatter and some chatter in the ocean too. I wish I had done Wild Track of footsteps but the shoots were so quick, and with it being documentary subjects that we didn't want to ask to stage/do certain things, I didn't get it. I didn't end up needing it in post but just for some flexibility (And if I really had wanted it could have foley’d, but I was crunched for time due to picture lock and managing sound for adaption at the same time).

The interview was shockingly clean as well (or maybe expectedly clean, i did heave and haw over where to shoot it and did my best in an uncontrolled environment), and I think the location we picked ended up being the best in regards to the location for that. Even the birds weren't too much of an issue in the mix. The only thing is that I wish I had one other person there with me on sound. If they could have had a shotgun/boom as well, and maybe a second mixpre for being able to move around freely, it would have been interesting to have more variety.

Now onto post!

I did this film in three to four 10 hour days. Which. Jesus christ.

I built the sound from the ground up. The only thing I had was the voiceover and some sync sound, so It was an empty playground. Considering the amount of tracks I ended up using and what a full session it was, I am astounded at how relatively organized I managed to keep the session. So many folders.

I pulled in some stuff from my sound library and soundbanks, as well as atmos and got to work. Anne Marie gave me good advice, in that she recommended throwing everything you think you'll need if not more into the session and then go through it and mute/hide/lower volume/raise volume as needed. This was a massive tip and really helped create a fuller world.

It passed in a blur to be honest. The only thing I would do different is maybe try panning stuff, like the waves and voices, to match visually where they are in respect to the camera (ocean on the left, people on both sides/slightly more to the right). To be fair this might be difficult due to just how all encompassing and intermingled everything is, but with some creative cutting and jush-ing we could see what can be done.

All in all, again, good practice learning what works and doesn't in the workflow. It's a lovely doc and The Salty Sisters are really lovely ladies, and for the most part i'm happy with it

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Adaption: Final Reflection, POTP

{youtube link xoxo}

And that's post wrapped!

It's been a long semester, and I'm stoked to have learned as much as I have and to have developed the skills and knowledge I now have for the future. I don't have too many photos of post because I was really hunkering down but I'll try to find some to put in!

I'm proud of the work I managed to do in the time we had after picture lock and before the crit. I think an extra day or two to sit on sound and let it marinate would've be nice, but considering, I think I managed my time and schedule well and am glad of that.

(pretty long post so pls open the readmore ive put in!)

I'll start with a quick location sound review - I had no issues, beside the usual nuisances that come with filming outdoors and in businesses. I did what I could to minimize this (the angle/direction of the shotgun really does matter) and it worked, for the most part. I'm going to utilize wingman more in the future, because the sound notes put into the app can be seen in AVID next to the video files- I hadn't realized the info is "burned" into the files like that but this makes communication between sound and camera notes really nice. Of course ill do physical sound notes still, but in addition to wingman too.

Now onto post!

I was stressed about this, I admit. I hadn't done such a dialogue heavy film before, and was only vaguely familiar with the proper workflow. Common sense when organizing is huge though, and the project wasn't messy at all. Initial checkerboarding went smoothly. One thing I was irritated to notice was the quality of the park atmos changed very much depending on what angle we were shooting at relative to the road, which of course I knew would happen when we chose the location, but was still very blah this sucks about. I managed with minimal tension headaches and I think it is very minimally noticeable, if not noticeable at all, in the final product so yay for that.

Leveling and doing a temp mix for their lines, though.... I abused automation and I was holding myself back (to be fair I didn't overuse it but I definitely used it a lot). In one line the actors would start off quiet and then their voices would spike and go loud, which is a combination of delivery and boom oping I think. (It never peaked, and worked for some instances of topic and character and etc but I wanted it not to go up and down always) I gave my boom ops very very very Very basic rundowns on 'How To' and I wish I had sat them down for a more in depth lesson, and I WISH I had headphones for them - but we couldn't get a splitter, or didn't. Going to push for this if I keep outsourcing Ops and don't record and op myself.

ANYWAYS. Finished with that and then went to my favorite bit: DESIGN!!!!! I was very slumped and depressive at this point, so it really picked me up. I wish I had more time to look into certain music choices for scenes, but I am happy with the piano we got scored for the end sequence.

One thing I will say: I had a lot of trouble and internal fighting with How Much I should put in. Originally we had wanted something very stylized and Edgar Wright-esque, but that didn't really end up happening with the coverage we got, and in turn with the edit (which is definitely fine!). But this left me trying to balance not overdoing it, since sound is supposed to mesh well with the edit and visuals, but I felt like I HAD to make it stylized in order to try and get closer to what we wanted OG. I think I did an okay job - in the crit Olivia said the sound did all the heavylifting, which I still cannot decide is a compliment or a detriment. While I'm half glad it got noticed in a- positive?- light, im also kind of eh about it since technically it should enhance the world and match it, not 'heavylift' it.

Through the process Anne Marie helped me a lot with suggestions and notes: here are some I found below from my phone, they probably make no sense heh, I also had markers on pro tools I was referring too as well

Phew, that's long. I'll end on a happy note before I go into things I will incorporate into the workflow for next time. I'm glad I didn't have any technical issues, and all my qualms were creative. Even though I will be pushing for earlier picture lock on future films, because I feel I haven’t been able to breath when sound is left for minute (mainly because I’m trying to balance getting it all done and doing work I’m proud of) I'm content with what I managed to get done in the time I was given. I started Sound 7 days before the crit when picture was locked, and I managed to do what I think is an alright job! So, success, and a good test of my time management skills, because I had to learn to stop nitpicking cause more often than not it's fine and no one else can hear it but you.

THINGS TO INCORPORATE/MAIN TAKEAWAYS~

Wingman notes for the editor

set the edit window and sound window DURING PRE PROD, not during production. See if people can give you a week and a half at least for sound so it can breath a little bit and you don't waste away in SAS. Also so you can do a proper Mix and not a temp one

TEMP SOUND IN AVID - have a meeting with the editor to see what you can give them, and to say they can put in temp sound if they think something similar should go in certain places. Mainly for music and timing instances.

Decide on a color coding system so I use the same colors for everything always moving forward and It doesn't vary depending on the project (look up industry standard)

VOICEOVER IS A SCRIPT/STORY/PRODUCTION ASPECT not a sound department aspect

Drink more water to avoid tension headaches

xoxo I really hope everyone a good summer and to lots of learning and growing in their field!

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Update: Post Production

As we draw nearer to the crit I become a little pile of mush that drags itself to sas on some of the nicest sunniest days we’ve had in edi as of late. It’s alright though cause I only start to mind if I’m in by myself and there’s a plethora of people to bother when I’d like a break!

Documentary is doing good for sound. Anne Marie gave me some good advice and I’ll implement it today, wanna get as close to done as I can by nine, screw the eye strain headache. I feel a bit like a wizard throwing bits into a pot and stirring precisely 3.7 times to the right and 8.2 to the left. Which is specific but how I feel.

Slightly late, but earlier I had went through my files and created little time codes / transcoded the interview for easy finding of good sound bites and moments

I’m gunna throw more stuff in (tactfully) to make the soundscape more full and use automation for the mix to help make it not overwhelming.

I need to crack on with work but short update!

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Adaption Shoot // Pictures

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Documentary // Shoot pictures

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Projects Outside my Year

This semester has just been a whirlwind both in terms of busy-ness and just like personal stuff so I haven't done too many outside shoots but wanted to put the two I did do here! I met a lot of great people and learned a lot, especially from Doomboy - it was cool seeing how VFX is prepped for on set for post!

About That One Time (working title) - in post

Location sound recordist & Boom Op for Day 3

Doomboy - in production

Boom Op

I really wanna do more script supervising / first ad-ing on outside projects/other shoots even in our year group. I feel like I think about logistics and schedule and continuity anyways (and definitely annoyed Finlay by discussing specifics in terms of logistics and schedule heh) so I would love to embrace that more.

Even though I've loved learning and becoming fairly competent at sound (location and design), I really want to branch out more. But this is something not for the blog heh, i've been rolling this around in my head for a while now.

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Update: 05/04/2023

All the shoots are done - yay! Now we move into post.

They all went smoothly, in terms of scheduling and during. For documentary, after going over the rushes, we would like some more close ups and a few other supplementary things. Luckily our subjects go out wild swimming every morning and are super accommodating so its really up to when the group can go. I have everything I need for location sound, to be honest, and i'm going to be away when they would like to head back out anyways, so I'll probably focus on getting some wild track/foley.

For adaption, it's been like standing in a mirage screen academy sucked the energy out of me for four days straight. But!! I'm feeling good about it. I linked, transcoded and synced everything for Ethan, and bless his heart he's starting on the edit right after picture locking his other film. We have in mind a couple things that will be issues later on in terms of the style we want to input but we've been working really closely in order to discuss what the sound and edit can do together, and how they can integrate to create something close to the film we want! Execution is a different story, but we've been communicating a lot on this so I think it'll be alright. I had fun as a lil editing assistant heh.

I'm very nervous in terms of the timeline - both my films are picture locking on the 15th, so. Um. Yeah, there's that. I'm going to be breaking my back pulling 8 hour days at sas but I know I can finish on time! I just hope I can do everything I want to with both films, especially adaption, since it's supposed to be heavily stylized in some parts, and with alllll the dialouge to get through and mix I'm hoping I have enough time for the fun bits. I've not worked on such a dialouge heavy film so my workflow will be different than the more non-narrative, non-fiction stuff, but hopefully i won't detest fiction sound after the tight timeline i'm on.

Ideally we might've shot earlier for both films so post isn't such a stress basket, and both Ethan and I have time to experiment, but c'est la vie.

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Documentary Tutorial with Zoe

The other day we had tutorials in order to discuss sound and edit with Zoe. I found it very useful and will implement some of her notes!

We talked about the soundscape and I’m going to continue what I wanna do for the three different bits, I think it’ll work well. The interview being on the beach I wanna scrap and do somewhere clean but this will depend on the director and producer I believe, so we’ll see if that can happen.

I won’t be laving up the people on the beach after the swim, because of logistics and also it breaks the flow, having to stop to mic up a documentary subject- but I will Lav up Shelley for her interview because we want crisp clean audio for that. She mentioned ideally we have two 416’s on the beach but I don’t think Ill have enough people to do that, or kit, so it’ll just be one of them. A lot of the in the water sound will be foley/post, cause. They’re in the water. But I’ll hoping to get some good stuff from the beach for the drone bits, like distant talking and stuff.

I’m concerned about post cause I’ll be doing it at the same time as another project but I will survive, might come out of it a bit dazed and loopy but it’ll just be a hustle and I’ll have to be good at managing that time.

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FILM ADAPTATION

Our group have decided to adapt O. Henry's, 'Proof of the Pudding.'

OUR STORY

Westbrooke is an established editor who one day is confronted in a park by writer Dawe who demands to know why his old friend won't print any of his stories. The two boil the argument to their opposing views on how humans react to tragedy - Westbooke believes that Dawe's characters' monotone reactions are unrealistic as he believes the shock of tragedy would call wailing and screaming not speechless disbelief. Dawe devices a plan to test the theory which Westbooke agrees to - they head to Dawe's flat to leave a note for Dawe's wife stating that he has left her so they can watch her reaction from a hiding spot. However, when the two men arrive, Mrs Dawe who had been training for the Opera had already left a note to say that she had run off with Mrs Westbrooke. Mr Dawe's reaction disproves his point as he plunges into a tragic shakespearean monologue to express his grief. Mr Westbrooke on the other hand disproves his own theory by reacting almost nonchalantly from shock.

OUR APPROACH

We will be following the original story as follows, based in 1970s Edinburgh. When the two men are arguing about how people react to tragedy, we had the idea of doing cutaways of people re-enacting said tragedies as described edited in the style of Edgar Wright.

Once we reach the point where the two men start scheming to leave the note, we will begin following the wives too. Dawe's wife's reason to leave him is his incapability to provide for her and it pushes her to fully pursue her opera career. Westbrooke's wife leaves him due to his work obsessed nature. We in no way want to spoil the ending (the wives running off) before the two men find out about it, we will only be showing them two preparing to run off through their interactions. These shots of the wives scheming to leave will be intercut with the ones of the husbands scheming to leave the note, reminiscent of Thelma and Louise (1991).

Once the men find the notes their wives left them, we will cut to a stage with a single spotlight on Dawe as he wails and exclaims his Shakespearean monologue. We will then match cut back to the kitchen where Dawe will be in the same position on the kitchen and Westbrooke will have his nonchalant reaction.

Finally we could do a post credit scene potentially of the two women holding hands, revealing their relationship.

LOCATIONS

There are 3 locations needed. We are first following our character walk through the busy streets of New York which we will change to a busy street in Edinburgh, most likely Princes Street, on which we will decide when we scout for locations.

We will film in a park like Harrison Park, alluding to it being Princes Street Gardens.

For the scenes in Dawe's flat, we will be shooting in my flat and we are planning on getting in touch with the drama society to secure a theatre stage.

THE CHARACTERS

We will be looking for two men and two women in their 30s. To fit into the time period we will be sourcing, trench coats, smart shoes, briefcases and hats for the men, similar to Zodiac (2007). We would also love to source some typewriters if possible and some magazines from the 70s.

The women will be in their 30s too, initially dressed as typical 70s housewives and will get changed into denim and tank tops, again, reminiscent on Thelma and Louise.

MY ROLE

As DOP my job is to make these high concept ideas and shots a reality and I cannot wait to do so. As Westbrooke walks through Princes Street, I imagine I will use a shoulder rig or even a gimble and a wide lens for a smooth tracking shot as he reaches the park. I hope to capture the two men's awkwardness toward each other, especially that of Westbrooke by keeping the wide lens and getting tighter with a smaller depth of field as the two become more comfortable and passionate in their conversation, similar to the intercut sequence of the wives. The cutaways during their discussion will be shot through close ups mostly. We will be shooting in daylight, hopefully in relatively clear conditions. The only scene in low light will be the theatre which will be a lot of fun to play around with, with the high contrast lighting.

Current colour palette:

NEXT STEPS

Francis, our writer, has finalised a story outline and will now begin writing the script after which I will storyboard to create a shotlist. Our group has been meeting every week to discuss our next steps.