Sense of Space- Final thoughts

Throughout this production I have aquired a lot of useful skills for creating a stronger audio piece in the future. I think the influences and inspirtions for this piece have helped significantly in my criticl understanding and progression of the overall idea. Pieces such as Virtual barbershop have helped my with the technical aspect of the piece and 'Beneath the Forest Floor' have helped me progress my original idea of the nightmare scene and find ways to make the audience feel uncomfortable. The planning stages were successful as we considered all the stages that were required and debated them amongst ourselves.

For the shooting side I think we were relatively successful for the first time recording with audio. There were a few problems with levels but we were still able to get all the tracks needed and more in case we needed them. The equipment was checked before we went out on location and we took spare essential accessories such as batteries that could have ruined the tracks without them.

The editing process was done to the best of our ability and we spent a considerable time piecing the tracks together and fine tuning them to sound to the best of our ability. I think our choice to manipulate most of the tracks in editing was a successful decision as it made the fine cut sound much closer to what we initially aimed for.

Altogether this project went well and I have enjoyed experience audio as an element of film and media production.

Sense of Space- Fine Cut

On Friday we completed the fine cut of our Sense of Space project 'Hypnosis'. This blog has been posted 4 days after the fine cut completion and this is due to advice given to me when reading 'In the Blink of an Eye' by Walter Murch. In this book Murch says that the best thing to do with an edit is to complete it to the best of your ability and then leave it for a few days a keep your mind off of it. This helps to have a better critical state when relistening to the piece after a few days. For this reason I am going in tomorrow to have a final, detailed touch of the mistakes or existing problems that I may have missed if I had not left it. On top of this Jennie has allowed audience feedback for our piece by sharing it with her house mates. They have given pretty positive feedback which is a good start to the final stages before Thursday.

I have to comment on the book 'In the Blink of an Eye' as this has been very inspiring for certain techniques during the post production period of my sense of space assignment. Walter Murch is a very experienced industry professional and I respected his advice on the editing stages. I have adopted numerous techniques that he described that have positively contributed to the overall quality of our piece. This book has been an inspiration and influence in the overall technical side of editing in my Sense of Space project.

Sense of Space- Editing

The above images show the different things we did when editing our piece. The top image shows us using an EQ to manipulate certain audio clips to make it sound like we are listening to this sound from inside the characters head. We strived to create a piece that revolves around the character therefore we decided to make the audience listen to the piece from the characters point of view. The images below also show how we manipulated the piece using different frequencies and using reverb to make the piece more dream like and immerse the audience into a different reality. The edit was pretty successful and we have spent a lot of time on this piece. I put a lot more effort into the production and post production of this assignment after 'The Edale project' as this previous project had a lot more negative impact due to less effort being put into the final project. In fact to learn from my mistake I have decided to make a fine cut today (Friday) and re-evaluate the piece on the wednesday after leaving it a while to get out of my mind (This is a trick learnt from the book 'In the Blink of an Eye' by Walter Murch as he says to find something to take your mind off of the project for a few days before going back to critically analyse).

Altogether the post production has been realatively successful due to the careful thinking of pre-production and the over recording of audio effects in production.

Sense of Space- Tutorial

Yesterday was our tutorial. Esther seemed pretty pleased with the rough cut although there were prts that needed desperately to be tweaked and finished properly. She made some useful comments like the clicks and pops made during some of the audio clips that when editing I was unaware of as I was not looking for these problems. She also gave us useful information about what she expected from the ending as this was not finished yet. Things such as a resolution after the nightmare which we had planned to transist out of the dream after however this was good to hear as we were following the expectations of a audience member.

Altogether the tutorial gave us useful information for when we complete our final edit. This will hopefully make sense to the viewers and give a clear storyline as we try to guide them throughout the piece.

Sense of Space- Inspired

2 weeks ago I watched Inception. This film is based around the levels of dreaming a similar concept we have adopted in our piece. The inspiration came to me at the very start of the film. Before the first shot has even begun. The sound of the waves crashing onto the beach. If I close my eyes I can imagine it in my head, which must be purposely done if the whole film is based on the inner state of dreaming. This clip, just that part at the beginning made sense to me the dreamy feel that waves can give in sound. This is why we have used the seaside as the first transition in the dream that we captured for our sense of space.

Sense of Space- Suspense Inspiration

As this is now a hypnotic sequence that involves the character having a nightmare I had to consider how to do this using total audio devices. I looked at the iconography and ideology of the piece and wrote down what I though would be good to inform the audience of the situation. After discussing this scene with Jennie we decided it would be a good idea to add a metronome in. This is when a sudden inspiration struch me. I remebered first watching the INSIDIOUS trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1YbOMDI59k ) that infamously caught the eye of millions of horror buffs due to its creepy sound and horrific images. I realised this trailer was horrific even when just listening to the sound. As well as this the sound of a metronome is heard at numerous times around this trailer and I would even go as far to say the trailer is based around this Metronome sound. Therefore we decided that we will make our sense of space piece very much based around the sound of the metronome.

Sense of Space- Second day of Recording (Jarman's Garden)

Our second day of recording got us through two scenes, the car scene and the beach scene. The car scene was successful and quite easy to get except for the skidding and the crash. However the beach scene was very interesting due to the constant wind coming from the sea front. The rifle mic had to be positioned just right, but when it was the waves sounded great. It had a real feel of the seaside on a december morning. The cold and windy atmosphere and the crunching footprints of the washed up shells and seaweed. This took me back to Jarman's Garden audio sequence by Sherre Delys were the waves approach the recording and this was something that I really want to capture in the editing process. Just like the movement from Jarman's Garden to the sea nearby, in our scene, a nice transition from inside this characters head to a fading in of the sea waves and atmosphere as the narration tells you that a cool wind is hitting her face. This scene will be effective.

The car scene on the other hand is going to pose certain problems such as finding a skidding sound and finding a crash sound. For this I'm going to record a bin disposal truck in action and cleverly cut it into the edit a few seconds after the sound of the skid.

Altogether the recordings from the first and second day have gone relatively well and we are pretty much ready to begin our rough cut. We took more recording sounds than we needed and at an estimate we have around 40 different sounds that we will consider using in the final cut.

Sense of Space- Progression within pre-production

I thought I would use this picture and post to discuss the progression in ideas throughout the pre production phase of our project. The initial idea as explained previously was a dream sequence where at first we would have the character falling to sleep. However after discussing this in the tutorial and how the dream sequence would work Myself and Jennie looked at three potential idea: The dream sequence, being hyptnotised into memories, or having a near death experience. After looking at each one carefully and planning what we would do with them(shown above) we decided that the most effective idea would be hypnotism. This is because it is more audience friendly, for example the hypnotiser can introduce the situation at the beginning and bring the main character out at the end. We also decided on using a sound of a metronome to transist with the heartbeat as she enters the dream sequence as well as helping to immerse the audience into the sequence more effectively. This was a more audience friendly idea than the other two therefore we decided this was the correct one.

Sense of Space- First day of recording

The first day of recording was yesterday. We recorded the first out of three parts that we wrote down in the schedule. Myself and Jennie planned out the recordings carefully however there were a few problems that arose on the day. Firstly was the availability of locations. We needed to find a Location that had plenty of natural reverb in it however this was hard as all the halls in the university were unavailable and staircases were too busy for recording a clear track. Finally we used the performance studios at the bottom of Harmer. We also found that large rooms picked up the echo of distant sounds so during recordings we could hear little bits of background noise. Finally the setting up of the Marantz posed an issue as we were not sure on the proper technique of setting the preset manually. These problems were due to bad organisation in certain areas however we were still well equiped with our recording schedule and managed to get the recordings we wanted. This was our first day of recording therefore it was better to overcome these little mistakes now rather than come to them after recording and have unuseable audio recordings.

Sense of Space- Schedule List

This is the schedule list we have created to help us organise when and where we need to be. This is also helping us to visualise all the individual layers we need when editing and therefore shows us the amount of clips we need to aim to complete in a scheduled day. Hopefully if all goes well we shall have successfully recorded the piece In three scheduled days however this has yet to be proven as we need certain permissions for locations and sounds that are difficult to get hold of such as wedding bells and car crashes. Altogether I think that this task in the production aspect is our most challenging yet.

Sense of Space- Pre production documents

These documents have been created to help with the overall organisation of the production. After the problems I was faced with in The Edale Project previously myself and Jennie decided to dedicate a lot more time in the planning stages of production. We have now changed from a dream sequence to a hypnosis sequence however the same general layout still applies as we are using all the same dream scenes and just changing the location at the beginning and end of the sequence. We decided this would
Be a good idea to change to as hypnosis would allow the audience to understand exactly what is going on and when writing a narration for the sequence it will be easier to talk to the audience.

Sense of Space- Learning Production Skills

When I first started this product I knew only a slight amount on the recording and editing of sound. On Week 17 and Week 18 (this week) I have learned a lot of new production skills with Darryl. We focused on editing skills such as changing the EQ of our sound clips which made the sounds seem far away or really close. This will help a lot when it comes to editing as Myself and Jennie's idea is based largely on different perspectives of sound being near and far or low frequency and high frequency. This is excellent in teaching me to be ready for the dream sequence recording as it inspired indefinite sounds for editing. The practise and teaching of these skills have been very helpful in creating a picture in my head.

Sense of Space- Inspirations and influences

When coming up with the initial idea I had numerous inspirations and influences that helped to allow me to decide on the dream sequence and how I was going to do it:

Beneath the Forest Floor- Hildergard Westerkamp- This helped me to decide on the nightmare scene in the dream sequence. The use of the creaking of the trees was a really tense and uncomforting sound that I really want to capture when recording our scene. I think this dark twist at the end will provide a good final audience attention grabber as well as a good out point for the dream sequence back into the real world.

Virtual Barber Shop- QSound Labs- It sounds irrelevent put the use of stereo sound to create what feels like you are actually getting a hair cut by having sound go around your head is a similar sound we are trying to create when in the dream sequence. This is because we are trying to immerse the audience by putting them into the characters head, quite literally and having the sounds created around them.

Sense of Space- Tutorial and after thoughts

After the tutorial with Esther today there were some good points raised. We looked at the idea that me and Jennie had decided on and as we went through it Esther gave us some strong advice. Such as the use of a heart monitor at the beginning going to flatline to give the idea of death and the dream being a flash of life before the characters eyes. This would be a good idea as it would provide an emotional aspect toward the audience and therefore they would become more immersed into the dream sequence. This is an idea that we are seriously considering if we can find a beep that would match a heart monitoring machine. We were also told numerous problems that we would have to avoid when recording tracks specific to our idea, such as wind when trying to record waves at the sea in this time of the year, also the scream would pose difficult as it would be a convincing scared scream and we would have to avoid a cheesy scream. Overall this tutorial gave us a realistic perspective from another person that had previous experience and went well considering our idea is still standing tall!

Cheers Esther.

Sense of Space Assignment

The sense of Space assessment is based on creating a 3 minute soundtrack. My first response when discovering that this was our task was a negative one. I thought straight away it would be difficult to capture someones full attention for 3 minutes. However after listening to professional tracksin our session, like the one I have commented on previously, I became more confident. The track by Hildergard Westerkamp inspired me and I was able to come up with quite a strong initial idea. After Jennie and I discussed this plan we made a few changes to look at it from a more realistic perspective. The idea we have decided on is quite complex however we should be able to create most of these sounds. This is what we came up with:

INITIAL IDEA- DREAM SEQUENCE

Begins in room-character walking dragging feet, yawning, takes off dressing gown, gets into bed, yawns again, and sighs.
A few seconds of just breathing and atmosphere sound.
Then sound becomes muffled (we enter her head), sound of heartbeat(muffled)
Narrator speaks explaining situation.
Sound then returns to the sound of waves in the sea(calming), sea gulls, laughter from character and other.
Transists to car racing scene by sound of car approaching starting really quiet and gradually getting louder.
Sound of car racing from inside the car, Narrator talking, skids round corner, car crashes?
Cuts to silence, here someone laughing quietly, Church bells ring softly and get louder, a crowd clapping happily and more laughter.
Girl screams, previous scene cuts suddenly to silence, light uncomforting whispers in the background, slow creaks.
Footsteps running through leaves, character panting.
Trips, falls, silence except girl breathing heavily and whispers, Whispers suddenly turn to a shout.
Character wakes up panting, atmosphere of morning, birds singing, cars driving.
Character Narrates.
END

HILDERGARD WESTERKAMP- Beneath the Forest Floor

This piece is an atmosphere track however is unique as it uses sounds from beneath the surface. This gave the feeling of a claustrophobic atmosphere by using enclosed spaces when recording. I enjoyed the track as it gave a sense of tension that is hidden within nature and that we don't here but is always there. There are few layers used and a lot of almost silence throughout which enhanced the pieces effectiveness by creating a certain amount of tension and discomfort for the audience when listening. There is no voice or narration in the piece, no rhythm or beat that is noticable, just the creaks of trees and the running water and the animals moving past this part of the forest, for me it really showed the realistic side to nature, the silence and the animals moving about, the water trickling underground sounding like it is right in front of you. It really gave a good explanation of the sound of nature.

I enjoyed this and found it very inspirational when coming to write my 'Sense of Space' initial idea. I have decided to use a similar use of creaks in a dream sequence that involves a nightmare. I decided to use this as for me this track felt very tense and uncomforting which is the same atmosphere I wanted to create when taking the audience through the nightmare sequence.

The Edale Project- Fine Cut

Our Fine Cut on the 8th November went on longer than we both expected. However we managed to sort out most of the problems mentioned in the tutorial by Esther and we are both relatively happy with the out come of our video (except fot the unavoidable things that we will mention in the presentation). We used numerous different transitions to spice up the cuts were appropriate, without over doing it, as well as using effects in Final Cut Pro to manipulate the look of certain clips to fit in (as much as possible) with the rest of the film. This will be further commented on in the presentations as it poses both strengths and weaknesses in the final product (mostly weaknesses). The final difficulty we found was the look of the exported video, I don't know whether it is the quality of the camera or the way we exported it but the video seems very pixalated something which we tried to change but could not. Therefore I hope this is similar in the final product of the rest of our group.

The Edale Project- Tutorial

In our tutorial Esther raised some good points. She told us that the editing was a bit predictable therefore we needed to use a different range of editing techniques to make the shots and narrative more exciting instead of just cut...cut...cut. She made a point that the low level lighting at the beginning where Mark looks at the map is a problem within the continuity of the edit and to change the shots for better professionalism of the look of the film. Finally the problem that myself and Mark spotted was the hair that was caught in the lens on the last shot of the film short. These things all needed to by corrected in the fine cut that myself and Mark have arranged to do on the 8th November.

The Edale Project- Shot List

I have created a shot list that should end up being about 3 minutes. I like this as it provides an image to the film before it has been created giving me both an idea for the filming and the edit when it comes to post production. Mark has also created a Parashoot risk assessment that deals with some of the things mentioned in this shot list therefore we can deal with these scenes in a more safer way.

The Edale Project- Schedule List

It's very low quality but you can make out what it says and what it means. There is not much information due to the little knowledge me and Mark had on the Edale area as mentioned before. This showed me that the use of a director of photography or at least scouting the location yourself is a valuable asset to the overall look of your films as getting a feel for the area can help with the setting up of good shots when planning and storyboarding a scene. If I had had time before the 27th October to go to Edale and explore the area I would have planned a storyboard and logged specific locations instead of just using a shot list.

Equipment List

This equipment was picked up by Mark at the Harmer building and was returned by myself.

DATE TAKEN OUT: 25/10/2011

DATE RETURNED: 28/10/2011

EQUIPMENT:

SONY PD170- 2 battery packs included as well as detacheble mic(not required)

TRIPOD- carry case included.

Carry case included for both items.

Edale on Location

http://www.peakdistrictinformation.com/towns/townalbum.php?picno=5&albumname=Edale&PHPSESSID=om8vbvdti9qrvvq0dhc0pb5ti3

http://www.peakdistrictinformation.com/towns/townalbum.php?picno=20&albumname=Edale&PHPSESSID=om8vbvdti9qrvvq0dhc0pb5ti3

When looking at images for Edale these caught my eye as they gave an idea to the ending of Marks journey in the film. From these images both myself and Mark were able to decide on the ending of marks journey that would be him overlooking the views of the Peak District to capture the same emphasis on nature that these two pictures have successfully displayed. The top one was a more realistic view of the day due to the weather yet they are both very compelling. This also helped give us an idea of what the Peak District around Edale was like therefore we could predict certain locations when planning our shotlist for the day.

The Edale Project- Summary continued...

The final point about filming on the 27th October. The production skills workshop on camera helped in the setting up of each shot. I refered, at numerous points, to the shotlist that Dom taught us as this helped me to identify any problems that I had missed when setting up each shot. As well as that I managed change the manual setting to benefit what the image looked like on screen. I did this on such shots as the Close up on Mark looking up at the trees in the woods by adjusting the iris and making the depth of field smaller to emphasise Marks expression when we stares upwards in amazement. This meant that the production skills sessions were beneficial in creating the overall look of these clips.

The Edale Project- Editing Rough Cut

Tuesday 1st November we began editing the rough cut for our Tutorial.

This edit proved a difficult job when trying to both string together a narrative and use nice shots especially as the weather had been so bad on the day of filming. However by following the ideas that myself and Mark had already discussed and referencing to the shot list we had created before hand we were able to get a range of different rushes that we could make sense with.

After putting the rushes onto Final Cut Pro we analysed each one and gave it an appropriate title that we could reference to whenever we needed a specific clip. This was a skill learnt within our production skills workshop on editing and came to a big advantage when creating an assembly of ordered clips later on in the day. We decided not to mess around with lighting on this rough cut as we may have needed to take away or add things after our tutorial. Altogether the editing was successful however if I had a chance to redo this project I would have made a more detailed shotlist and created a storyboard before the shooting day to have a constant reference to when trying to find good shots to use.

The Edale Project- Planning on Location and Summary of the Shoot

As we were filming on the 27th October for the one day we had to carefully plan the amount of time we had to film our shots. Therefore Mark and I both decided it would be best to film the ending at the beginning as this was the furthest distance and then film the beginning after everything else. We also took into account the weather forecast which was proggressive showers and cloudy all day.

We made numerous changes to our shotlists on the day however took a range of different shots to compensate for any on location mess ups such as something getting in the shot or continuity problems in editing. Lighting raised a big deal on the Location due to Edales forecast for the day, there was not much we could do about this except use plastic bags to protect the camera and turn down the F-stop and after filming we decided that a reflector board would have been very handy to bring as toward the end of filming the lighting was low level and difficult to work with.

Despite the problems that arose on the day the camera and tape did their job and we filmed a range of different footage that could go well when putting together in editing.

The Edale Project- Primary Ideas 20/10/2011

Mark and I decided to meet up and look into ideas for the project.

Before this session I thought of an idea which involved following an object, such as a map blowing in the wind and capturing it like a journey sequence similar to the opening sequence of Forest Gump. I researched the Forest Gump opening sequence finding that they had used a crane as well as a stedicam and used a CGI created feather in making this sequences power, and considering the timeframe of a day for this filming I ruled this as unrealistic!

In the meeting we discussed the idea of using an actor to be at one with nature and have the audience follow them around the landscape showing its beauty. We kept this idea and decided that Mark would act and I would film.

We then used google maps to scout out the location and some of the beauty it had to offer. However due to google earth being birds eye view and only being 2D we were limited in what we could scout out in the location. This was a problem that we had to work around and did this by creating a shot list in which we predicted some of the basic natural beauty such as rivers, waterfalls, trees and hills (which we knew about as this was the Peak District) therefore we were able, to a certain extent, plan around the lack of location knowledge and still predict a storyline.

The Edale Project- Breifing

The Edale project consists of a days external filming at Edale in the peak district. The filming date is the 27th October. This blog will be on the research and planing that went into the Portrait of a Place Project.

Our first breifing session helped me to form a basic idea of what we are expected to do on the day. This followed by feedback of ideas from our group helped me to grasp the expectations that our tutors have in mind.

Myself and Mark Costello paired up and have logged ideas on the project. At first we were going to just make a documentary style short which looked specifically at the landscape and the nature of Edale without any story or narrative. However after listening to some of the ideas that our group displayed and that we were not at all familiar with the location we decided to create a narrative that revolved around the nature that Edale had to show.

Analysis of Skin Deep(Yusaf Ali Khan) and Salaryman 6(Jake Knight)

Skin Deep

1. Identify the themes of the film. What was the directors primary aim?

2. Describe what you consider to be the films main focus.

The director outlines the psychological affects of racial bullying within Britain. We can see throughout the film the main characters denial of his race which causes him to avoid his sister in public and almost break down emotionally at the end. This ending shot juxtaposed with the shots of him being bullyed by white racists outlines a clear attitude of the affects of racism in britain. The focus on the emotion at the end makes it clear how bad racism is within Britain and, I think, it shows the British corruption against the segregation of races as the film is made to look like the time were major immagration had been shortly introduced.

3. Did you like/dislike the film and why?

I enjoyed this film as it gave a clear storyline throughout. We could understand the emotion that the main character was feeling and, because the film allowed us to see his internal character, we could sympathise with the character which was a essential in the immersion of the spectator into Skin Deep.

4. Was the film successful/unsuccessful in dealing with its subject matter and why?

The film was successful in dealing with its subject matter. The narrative is clear and presents explanations to why our main character is in that situation. We see racism as clearly affecting this character negatively which leads to what he does at the end. From here the audience interpretation is layed out for them.

Salaryman 6

1. Was there an element in the film that stood out to you?

The clever use of the circular narrative stood out to me in this film. It made me understand the subject matter more clearly. It is also worth mentioning the title of the film- 'Salaryman 6' as he is given a number and no name emphasisng the subject matter more clearly for the audience once they have viewed it.

2. How does the films form (structure and style) relate to its content (theme and subject matter)?

The films use of a circular narrative as well as the use of a one tone narration helped to emphasise the repetitive nature of society. Also the use of the camera as a catalyst to show the audience and the main character the same events that happen to him everyday. The shots that the director have used make the audience realise that everything is the same such as the shot of the main characters apartment amongst all the other identical apartments.

3. Discuss 2 techniques used in the film which you found interesting- Why do you think this approach was used?

The circular narrative was interesting as we are made to realise how the character got to that situation as well as being a set up to the subject the filmmaker deals with.

The use of the location. It is set in Asia, the most densly populated industry based business continent in the world. This is very useful in emphasising the title as he is just a number in a much bigger world therefore makes the individual look like a nobody.

4. Is the way sound is used appropriate/successful for the film and why?

The sound used is successful for the film. Salaryman 6 is based around the business aspect of life. Therefore there is a lack of music and instead the diegetic sound of printers and photocopiers working as well as the occasional flash of the characters camera. This made the film seem more real as it further emphasised the boredom that the character we follow must feel.

Blog Work

SET WORK

Steel Homes

1. Was there an element in the film that stood out to you?

The element of sound stood out to me in this short film. This is because the quiet diegetic sound created an atmosphere of seclusion from the world which helped me to become immersed into the film. However this immersed me into being a passive spectator therefore I found it difficult to be educated by this short film.

2. How does the films Form (structure and style) relate to its Content (theme and subject matter)?

The silence used for a majority of the documentary creates a calming effect. This combined with the narration of people talking helps to emphasise the real affect this place has on its customers.

3. Discuss 2 techniques used in the film which you found interesting- Why do you think this approach was used?

I found that the use of the people being interviewed in the foreground was interesting and that we never see a clip of them being interview, just the sound. I think this approach was used to display to the audience the technique of storytelling and highlighted that there are many stories to be told in this place, therefore the interviewees didn't matter as there are constant new stories in this place.

4. Is the way sound is used appropriate/successful for the film and why?

Sound throughout this short film is successfull. Sound was minimally used and for a majority of the film it was just the narration in the foreground with very little diegetic sound in the background. This helped me as an audience member to understand the isolation as well as the peace in this place which created a successful immersive effect to the audience that the filmmaker has used to create a specific atmosphere