Evaluation

Overall, I think that Me and Emma have worked really well together in this project. We have taken each other's ideas into consideration throughout planning, production and editing. I have learnt more about Soundtrack Pro by doing this piece and I think this was due to it's constant use and practice. I enjoyed the planning and production of this piece a lot more than the editing stage as I found it quiet strenuous ensuring that every element comes together correctly. 

  I am still not 100% happy with the end result but I think that Me and Emma have tried our best to make it successful. Obvious problems such as sections that are too long could have been improved through recording more sounds to fill it however there was not enough time. We are presenting it tomorrow so I am curious as to what the feedback will be.

Editing

We used a number of different layers to ensure that an effect was not applied to a track that didn't need it.  

We duplicated the sounds of ticking and wind and rain before cutting it to match perfectly with the previous section. This provided us with a base track for the remaining audio to be placed.
We renamed each of the tracks within the right pane of Soundtrack Pro to save time when editing.

We colour co-ordinated the layers:

• Pink = Ticking of the Clock
• Yellow = Narration
• Orange = Wind and Rain Against Window
• Green = Sound Effects

The main effect that we used for this project was 'Channel EQ' to lower the frequencies for both tracks with noise and those that we wanted to create the action of sound being heard through a wall. We also edited some of the dynamics using the 'Compression' effect. This allowed us to lift the volume of some sections of the piece.

 We changed the volume on some of the vocal sounds waveform to make sure that the metre was around the same for each.

Within a section of the piece, the sound of the character typing her assignment gradually fades as the sound effect of a television gets louder. We did this to represent that she was getting bored and gradually beginning to watch the television herself. We created this simple effect by again, changing the volume of each clip in opposite directions so that one would get louder as the other's volume would diminish.

At the end of the audio the continuous ticking sound fades in and out several times. Me and Emma chose to do this to represent the sound of the character falling asleep. I think that this has demonstrated an effective result and ended the audio atmospherically.
We created this effect by individually altering the volume by lifting it for around a second and then bringing it back down. This is done for around 5 seconds in all.

Edit Planning

Here is an example of the planning for the editing element of the piece. We colour co-ordinated the sections on this plan to that on Soundtrack Pro in order to organise our sounds into various categories. These groups included speech, sound effects, the ticking of the clock and the wind and rain against the window.

Call Sheet

Sound Log - Extended

Sound Log

Here is the Sound Log at it's current state, we didn't manage to do all of the recordings today so this will be added to as of tomorrow:

Inspiration

Mark Beaumont Orange TV Advert

  The audio of this video is something that has inspired us with our piece. This being through the way that Beaumont speaks of an action/subject, as we hear it in the background. For example, as he says "i'm my sisters", we hear the sound of children laughing in the background. This is the kind of atmosphere and sense of space that we would like to create for our audio project.

127 Hours

Another example that has inspired us, is the scene within 127 Hours, in which Aron (Played by James Franco) drinks his own urine. The sounds we hear as it looks as though the camera is entering the tubes he drinks from, is something that we would like to acknowledge when recording some sections. For instance, we plan to use a Hydrophone to record the sounds of hands going into a basin of water as someone washes their face.


When discussing the concept of journal entries for our piece, Emma thought of Glee and Sue Sylvester's diary that is read throughout extracts of each episode. Here is a section of the script to portray an example of what we read to gain ideas:

(http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6296224/1/The_Personal_Journal_of_Sue_Sylvester)

We liked the aspect of humour within this script as well as the punctual sentences. We plan to write the entries in past tense and narrate it in a natural and fluent style.

Audio Project - Sense of Space:

Final Idea:

  Today we plan to do most if the recording for the sounds in this project. Our final idea is as follows:

  Like a journal, we here 'snippets' of a woman speaking about the things she goes through in a day. Once spoken, we hear a sound that replicates what she is describing. As this happens, the sound of constant ticking is heard in the background - this is where the concept of time comes into place. The ticking gets gradually faster as the woman is in a rush during the day, and slower as things seem to take 'forever'. The element of space is established through the variety of sounds that demonstrate her day - for example, the silence as she sleeps. However, this silence will still feature some sounds, for example, the wind blowing outside, as well as the ticking of the clock. 

Audio - Some Examples

  During a recent workshop, we listened to some audio's in order to gain inspiration of the Audio Project that has been set. Here are my thoughts on some of the examples:

The Curious Ear: Meat Factory Ear Worms by Richie Beirne

Click to Listen

The track portrays a man's spoken narrative as he talks of his dead end job in a meat factory. He speaks of the tedious repetition of the slaughtering. Ear worms, are what he describes as songs that stick in your mind, and this is what he uses to get through the day. "This is a story of endurance"[1]

I think that this documentary style audio, presented what I feel was an personal and distinctive story. It provided examples of atmosphere, speech, music, silence. The silence in particular added a sense of ambience to the character of the track. This dynamic range of sounds has helped me understand a way of linking them together in an authentic way, and given me ideas for my own project.

Escapism is a large aspect of the piece, demonstrated through the way he expresses the way that 'ear worms' keep him going. 

Child of Ardoyne by Alan Hall

This track demonstrates a number of adults telling their story of "The Troubles" during their childhood in the 1980's. They discuss the new generation of children that live in Ardoyne today and the distinct difference in what was and what is now in relation to the constant war and the IRA. 

From what I understand of this audio, it does not portray a personal story from just one persons point of view, but rather one place.

A sense of space is indicated through the slight atmosphere and sound effects of children playing on the street and cars passing by. 

It is not an abstract piece, but relies primarily on it's delivery in order to gain a response from it's target audience.

Blue Veils and Golden Sands by Delia Derbyshire

Click to Listen 

This piece by Delia Derbyshire is creative and allows the audience's imagination to create a sense of space. The high frequency sounds are reminiscent to sci-fi films, and so when I heard this piece, I immediately thought of the atmosphere surrounding us and that beyond our planet. I think that this track would fit easily into a film's soundtrack however listening to it alone, I feel it becomes repetitive.

The audio was recorded within the 60's and Delia stated about the track that it incorporated her "castrated oboe" [2]

[1] http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/the-curious-ear-doconone-meat-factory-ear-worms.html

[2] http://www.delia-derbyshire.org/recordings.php

Tutorial

During this, we spoke of our idea's for the audio project and how we came to them. It was suggested that we think about how we came to the conclusion of having a concept of time, and why it was decided to have it slowing down as opposed to speeding up. So here goes..

Why time?
Because it's something that no-one quite understands. It is a complex subject and I feel that it would give us a wide variety of aspects to think of covering - however, we need to ensure that it doesn't become too 'random' - as we would like it to have some form of 'storyline'.

Why getting slower?
Because the feeling of time taking forever - I think is something that a lot of people can relate to. I think that if during editing we gradually slow down the ticking of the clock it will add a greater aspect of interest in the audio and allow it to become more engaging.

How to expand on this idea?
Since the tutorial, Me and Emma have come up with some possible ideas for the project:

• To have a circular narrative. We'd like to keep the beginning simple and create a build up throughout the middle section. We would also like to repeat the beginning sequence at the end.
• To possibly have a voice-over of someone speaking through their journal - e.g. 29.11.11, 8am, I woke up to hear... - This will in turn create more of a narrative to the piece. We could during this have the ticking sound of a clock playing constantly throughout the audio as background noise. The sound of the person doing their daily activities could be heard - writing for example - the sound of pen on paper. A hydrophone mic could be used to create the sound of hands going into a bowl of water as the person begins to wash their face - this however could prove too complicated as we wanted to keep a relatively simple idea.
• To use the concept of time as part of this piece - The person could have, for example an assignment due in and so the ticking of the clock gets faster as they run out of the time and returns to regular speed once handed in. The circular narrative could link into this through the aspect of doing the work, the build up is the rushing to get it finished in time (where we hear scribbling on paper, ripping up pages and screwing them up, tapping of the keys on a laptop...etc

We have booked out equipment for Wednesday and are hoping to be able to book a contact mic to get intricate sounds of ticking clocks for the piece. 

Audio Project - Ideas

Some initial ideas that I have had for this project, involve a concept of time.

The audio could begin with a quiet, constant ticking of an analogue clock that gradually gets slower (or faster). 

If slower - this would represent that feeling of a day taking forever which we have all felt

If faster - the ticking could turn into a heart beating - just an idea!

The ticking of a clock could evolve into sounds of other activities, a pencil writing on paper for example.  Or we could make it a more abstract piece by adding various sounds from other types of clocks - e.g. alarm, grandfather...etc.

Evaluation

  Overall, I feel that me and Jordan worked well as a team throughout planning, production and editing. We both took each others ideas on board to ensure that we had a finished result that we were both happy with.

  I think that a couple of elements could have been improved as listed in previous posts. I also think that a couple of shots that would have made our film better are:

• A Wide shot of the character walking towards the camera in the woods with the trees either side of him.
• A series of Close-ups of the character's face as he walks.
• An Extreme Close-up of his eyes as he looks at the gravestone.
• A Wide shot showing him walk into the graveyard from the entrance.

 I am happy with the final result and now we just need to present it during tomorrow's seminar...

Fine Cut

  After the tutorial with Dom, we thought of how we could improve our film straight away and came up with the resolutions found in the feedback post below. 

  We used the 'camera shooting log' to understand what footage had been used in order to know if enough was left to fill in the following deleted gaps:

• The cuts between walking sections that were shot from an angle on the opposite side to the previous
• The diminished areas of footage taken from the 'stills' after placing all of the front view shots of the character at the beginning - making them faster by cutting the timing in half

  This however proved that there was little footage remaining. We resolved this problem by repeating a section of the graveyard sequence at the end of the film. This worked in our favour as Dom also mentioned that it would be helpful for the audience to have an idea at the beginning, where the character is making his journey to. We also made the shots of the character looking at the grave at the end, slightly longer, to create a more intense atmosphere to the film.

When creating the fine cut, we refined the film and ensured that the pacing and colour effects were right and the storyline was put across well enough to understand, as well as adding the final chosen title of 'A Lonely Man'. We decided upon this title as we felt it described the essence of the film and the reasoning for his journey well. 

  We finally exported the film as a playable dvd and a quicktime file.

Edit Tutorial Feedback - 04/11/2011

During our tutorial where Dom viewed a rough cut of our film, the main issues that came up and need to be resolved are:

• To put all still's of the character facing the camera with changing backgrounds together and put as a sequence somewhere else within the film - We have decided to put these towards the beginning, to create a greater reasoning as to why the character is making the journey. 
• To alter the edits between the walking sequences, so that the camera doesn't show the view from an opposite angle. In turn giving the impression that he is walking in a different direction and making the audience feel like they are being taken out of their seats - We knew this was an issue already when making the rough cut. We plan to change this aspect by removing the shots and either making the footage longer or, though adding more close-ups to add more interest.
• To make it clearer at the beginning of the film where the character is walking to - We are going to resolve this by repeating a section of the graveyard scene that is shown at the end. This will help the audience to understand where the character is going throughout the film.

Editing

  We used Final Cut Pro to edit our short silent film. We did this using the basic knowledge we had and learnt a lot of our way around the software through trial and error during the first through sessions of editing. After this, we found it much easier to edit our project. For example, we used the blade tool to trim areas of footage as well as simply dragging it to make it smaller. We also included simple transitions such as 'cross dissolve'.

  Throughout the editing process, we took it in turns to physically edit the film using the mouse or keyboard and each put across our ideas to ensure that the result was something that we both wanted.

  We edited various aspects of the film to make that character's journey look continuous. An example of how we did this would be through cross fading cut sections of a long shot of the character walking up a path to highlight the aspect of time in the piece. Another example of cross fading that was used, was between a panning shot of a landscape and a graveyard to create a seamless piece of film.  

Filming

The Day

Call Sheet

 - This was my first attempt at a call sheet - Hopefully it was done right and if not I will at least have had some experience in making one for the future.

Schedule:

  To film this piece, we used a Canon XM2, which we booked out a day prior to the shoot.

Final Shot List

  After the pre-shoot briefing, me and my partner Jordan Barningham promptly made our way to the graveyard in the village - that we knew of through our research prior to the shoot. Here we filmed the sequence that will be edited towards the end of the film as a way of demonstrating the character's main focus of the film. 


  We then made our way up a route named 'Grindsbrook', that was recommended to us by the lecturers. We used a map given to make our way towards what was still a beautiful landscape, despite the miserable weather.

 We decided when we saw this to change some other aspects of our film. The storyline was then changed to a character that is making a journey throughout the film to a graveyard, where the grave of a loved one stands. Interchanging between this footage, the almost 'still' shots of the character with a changing background of around 5 shots is viewed. This demonstrates the places they shared together. The ending shows all of the stills in a constant flow as his back faces the camera. This displays his distress as he faces the views. A series of shots of him at the grave is shown as it fades to black. The overall film still uses the same original concept with a few 'tweaks'.   

  We filmed all of this footage on the route and chose our locations based on lighting, relevance (with the use of paths in walking segments) and scenery to create overall production value.

Camera Shooting Log

Problems

  Our initial idea of having the effect if the background changing as the camera circled the character, didn't go to plan. This was due to the lack of steadiness of the camera. To avoid this problem in future, a steadicam would be needed to stabilise the camera and allow all of the intended shot to be in view.

  In order to resolve this problem, we managed to gain a similar effect by filming the footage in the same planned locations as a 2 second shot of the character facing the camera standing still. To add some variety, we also filmed the same shot but with the subject's back facing the camera, the reason of this will become clear in the final shot list.

  Another issue that we came across was that we had never been to Edale before - Our planned mise-en-scene. This made it hard for us to make a clear plan of each location for our film. However, we resolved this problem beforehand by viewing images on google, although this still didn't give us an explicit representation of the place. This meant that that it was up to us on the day to find positions suitable enough to fulfil our planned expectations for the film, making it a longer process. In the future, I would view the location before filming as this was not possible for this project.

Portrait of a Place - Planning

Parashoot:

Before the day of filming, I filled out a Parashoot form that consists  of details of the shoot, emergency procedures and basic safety information about the day to ensure that all risks are covered. 

Planning:

Pre-Production

Initial Ideas

Notes:

Storyboard:

Lighting:

If there is strong natural light on the day of filming, I'd like to re-create the elements of shadow cast upon the subjects face from this shot I took as part of my A-Level Photography course. Although I used studio lighting to create this image, it may be possible to portray a similar effect with the use of sunlight and a reflector board whilst on location in Edale. 

Obviously a background would be present during thursdays filming. This is fine as it is the mise-en-scene that we would like to be the main aspect of our film.

More Idea's

Here, is another shot taken as part of my A-level photography course. I think that the desolate aspect of the piece could link well with the effect we are trying to create within the first minute of our piece, where a montage of various isolated landscapes are displayed. Black and white could also be an option in post production, during the editing stage of the film.

Here is a music video that I created for my A-Level Media course. I think that the overall concept of a journey relates well to this project and I think that it could be possible to gain ideas from the way some of the shots have been composed. Such as the one at 1:18 where he steps over the camera.

Short Films...

Highrise by Gabrielle Russell

- The element that stood out to me most in this film was it's intensity. It is only around 3 minutes long but I gathered a lot of information within that time, crediting the way it was shot. 

- I think that the main subject is postnatal depression,  which becomes evident within the first 30 seconds of the film, as a panning shot of the living room displays the distance between mother and child.

- I liked the film as it portrayed what I feel was the intended focus well. I also liked the aspects of lighting as the mother left the room into a dark corridor. I think that this could gave possibly been symbolistic of her feelings in that moment. 

127 Hours

Watched 127 Hours again recently. Love Danny Boyle as a director and the way James Franco played his character, Aron. Despite there only being one character the majority of the film, I was never bored, and the locations used created a great landscape.

2 thumbs up! 

Play by Samuel Beckett

- Just a short film that I came across and found interesting. I love the use of monotone colours, the element of depth of field and the close up shots, as I feel that these in particular engross me as an audience member into the piece. Also..who doesn't love Alan Rickman.

Documentary and experimental approaches to documentary:

I watched a number of short films in a recent seminar. Here are my views...

Steel Homes by Eva Weber: (Short Clip)

• I loved the different compositions of shots within this film and the depth of field used.   I think that it enhanced its almost 'eerie' atmosphere. I think that the distant view of the film taken from camera angles such as from around corners, could be symbolistic of the subject's 'distant memories'. 
• I feel that the themes of memories and death are visible in what i think is the directors primary aim. This being to portray a negative view on why people store certain possessions. 
• The main focus is the concept of attachment..and the different ways people deal with it. 
• The use of sound in this film probably stood out to me most. I love the way that it is often silent with diegetic sounds of footsteps or gates closing for example. When music entered, I think that it added to the emotional and serious aspects of the piece. 
• I think that the films form related to it's content as their were no face to face interviews, possibly to display an indirect approach to viewing the obscure people. 

Christmas With Dad by Conor McCormack: (Short Clip)

• I didn't like this short film as much as some others, as I felt the style was too conventional and predictable. I wanted it to step outside the box. I did however like some elements, such as the way McCormack blurred each clip before focusing, during the establishing shots at the start of the film. I also applaud that despite it's simplistic nature, I was still drawn into the lives of the family.
• I think that the main theme is the relationship between father and child and these are reflected in what I think is the directors main aim. This being to display an insight into the lifestyle of an untypical father figure.
• I feel that this short film successfully shows how the subject tries to be a good father and portrays his life as he does this. It also presented me with all of the information that I expected.
• The element that stood out to me most was the mise-en-scene, as it exaggerated the films gritty style. I liked the way the camera displayed images of a door, for example. The fact that it was covered in graffiti, scratches and marks enhances the shameless mood of the piece.  
• McCormack often demonstrated a series of interview shots followed by actuality - relating the films theme to it's form.
• A technique i found interesting would be the repetition of music reminiscent of chimes. I think that this could have been used to represent the repetition within this fathers life. I also liked the style of the camera work. It was like an observation and gave the impression that the interviewer and the audience weren't imposing. 

Paperboys by Mike Mills: (Short Clip)

• This was my favourite of all the short films we viewed in the seminar. I like the way Mills often focused on the paperboy in each section in the same style, using short depth of field, as well as the use of slow and fast motion because i felt it added more interest to the piece.
• I think that the directors primary aim was to portray the innocence of a paperboy and how although their lives may appear simple on the surface, something more significant may be hiding underneath.
• I feel that it was incredibly successful in my eyes as the more up-beat approach as opposed to the other short films watched, engrossed me into the story. I feel that Mills' filmmaking technique, depicted the paperboys in a positive light, with the use of bright colouring. This was demonstrated as the camera often drifted off the subject and onto different elements such as grass. I also loved the way that the director chose to use the camera in an almost 'hand-held' notion. 
• The feature in the film that probably stood out to me most was the way it was filmed from the perspective of the paperboys. The part that I feel demonstrated this best, was the moment gangster rap style, non-diegetic music played after the boy described how that was the music he liked. A montage played to the music and i liked how it added to the 'feel-good' qualities of the film. 

The Life Size Zoetrope by Mark Simon Hewis:

• I liked the abstract and artistic style of this piece. I think that the stop motion effect created, made an overall interesting and engaging piece.
• I think that the director wanted to demonstrate the themes of life and death. I feel that the symbolic circular motion of the ride linked to the general concept of the film, being 'the circle of life'. It illustrated life's first experiences and I liked the narrative voice-over, as I believe it gave the film more depth. 
• I consider the film to be successful as it displays what I believe is the intended focus well, through an entertaining medium.
• The whole aspect of a 'life size zoetrope' stood out to me. I like the inventive style and the way it made me think about the subject once the film had finished. 
• The films form is evidently mirrored within it's content, through the use of symbolism.