Pro Tool Kit [Group B] Sound Design

SOUND DESIGN

Recently my job role has changed from grip construction to sound designer. As the project we are working on gravitates around the area of creativity and restrictions it would only be right to explore and experiment with sounds that could really express the outlook of the scene. The main scenes are the the character getting thrown into the prison for being too creative, so I would like to capture sounds that could demonstrate this. These could consist of dripping water or empty atmosphere.

Here are a list of sound that could be used for the jail scene:

Environment sounds

• Prison Guard Whistling whilst patrolling cell blocks
• Prison doors slamming shut 
• Other inmates Groaning 
• Silent Humming sounds from T.V's on the other side ( once character discovers a way out)
• Rats scurrying around  

Character sounds

• Sniffling from fear 
• Dialog of his thoughts
• Heavy breathing  

Creative world

• Upbeat music 
• Possible commentary
•  Rays of light 

Maps & Journey (Extended Idea)

Visuals/Sound 


Recently I have come across the idea to use visual for my project as an alternative solution in developing my idea even further if necessary. I will still continue with my initial idea which is to produce a sound installation around laughter. The reason behind the additional visual imagery is so the that people experiencing this art form have more than one element to engage with creating an alternative outlook on the piece.

The idea is to capture as many different forms of laughter visually whilst collecting the sounds from the subject. Experimenting with the speed of the footage and using that to help convey to the audience the different types of facial expressions that exist through laughter.

Sound Installation

Once all the necessary sounds are collected the next process will be importing them into Pro tools, where I will then use effects that can alter the flow of sound. one area that I am having a problem deciding is weather to tell a story with the sound or possibly bring all the sounds together so they play off each other with a 30/40 second loop attached.

Certain Laughs that I want to stand out will be held in a separate room to get the best result i.e. Baby laughing or elderly person. Other sounds that I am going to collect will be used to create a back ground atmosphere which is going to be recorded in large groups.

Equipment Needed:  

• Zoom Recorder with boom mic 
• My personal DLSR or canon film camera 
• Tripod
• LED Light  

     

 

Pro Tool Kit [Group B] Job roles

Job roles and Requirements 

We have all assigned ourselves roles in which can benefit the group creatively. Although we all have individual job titles focus on any new ideas that can push the projects further will be accounted for. The currents job roles that are assigned individually to the group are; 

• Director - Laura 
• 1st assistant Director - Chloe 
• Cinematography - Charlie
• Lighting - Sahir/Tori
• Sound - Hannah
• Continuity - Leanna
• Production assistant - Katherine
• Camera - Josh 
• Grip - Myself/ Nick 

My role as operational gripper Consists of Number of roles that involve managing and building equipment from tripods, dollies, tracks, Jibs, cranes, and static rigs. This role is crucial in terms of maneuvering the camera to ensure the positioning of the shot is correct alongside the camera man. Maintaining a smooth image for the camera involves working not only closely alongside the  camera man but also with director and the cinematographer.  

Grip machinery with josh operating camera

        Responsibilities on the the day of the shoot will consist of;

• Arriving early to the set and gather gathering equipment 
• assembling any items that need to be put together 
• communicate with both director and d.o.p 
• Ensure equipment is tidy and not obstructing any other crew members on set     

Pro Tool Kit [Group B] Synopsis

Production Treatment 


Laura's Synopsis

Synopsis- We open in a prison cell type room resembling that of a mental asylum. There is a distinct lack of colour in the room everything being grey or the colour is toned down. The décor of the room hints at this being an unforgiving no creative place heavy. There is no sense of personality or flare around the furniture is basic with textbooks and a few old VHS tapes placed around the room. 
You hear a door being opened and the character being thrown into the cell and the door shuts behind them. The character is wearing a straightjacket. 
You hear a voice stating “you can't come out come out until you learn to be less creative”

Not liking the cell in the few seconds they have been in there the character brakes out of the straight jacket and begins to peel away at the wallpaper. As they do this they see a glimpse of light coming through the torn paper. 
They promotes them to break through the wall where they fall into room full of boxes which are displaying work from digital film and screen arts. The camera pans up and you see the whole thing is just a set to advertise the course

Target Audience - College students/Parents ages 16-19

Suggested elements:

* Camera movement- Zoom out, close ups.
* Editing- Split screen, transitions.
* Location- Cell block, futuristic room
* Props- Table, bed, books, tape, boxes
* Costume- straight jacket, white trousers

Rational- This is an interesting and unique way to show case the best of digital film and screen arts work and promote the course to potential students without creating a traditional show reel.

Personnel requirements-
* Cast- Male/female student
* Crew- Director, 1 ad, camera operator, boom holder, hair/make up, line/grip

Feasibility- Props brake- Have spare props
Faulty equipment- Check equipment before the start of filming.

Technical resources- camera, memory card, microphone, computer, final cut.

Lauras written Treatment 

Pro Tool Kit [Group B]

Professional Tool Kit Idea 

On this unit we were divided into two separate groups A/B mine is group B consisting of  10 people

• Charlie 
• Chloe 
• Laura
• Katherine
• Josh
• Leanna
• Hannah 
• Sahir 
• Tori 
• Diallo 

The task set was to create either a campaign or an advert. There was a long discussion about which approach to take and in the end we all thought it would be beneficial to merge to the two ideas together and develop a campaign\ promotional video but at the same time still showcasing the DFSA course itself.   

The only problem was that we needed to consider areas of the course that we wanted to represent within our own work without taking away the aim of the piece, which is to produce a piece of work that can be identified as a form of creativity instead of a straightforward campaign. So we considered a few points that we would like to include:

• Be informative about the types of areas we cover during our time on course such as Photography, Film, activity workshops, group projects among many other things.

• The Freedom you have when set projects i.e. experimental projects managing your own time schedule.

• Allowing ourselves to being as creative as possible and listening and critiquing each others work for positive feedback. 

•  Developing the video so it is not like your average university showreel.

Eventually we came up with an idea to create a studio set that represented a prison cell where a DFSA students creativity was being constricted by the surrounding dull environment when they eventually decided that they are sick and tired of feel trapped and not understood. Which results in them breaking through the prison cell wall and into the amazing creative course called DFSA. We had an idea to use green screen when the student breaks out of the cell into the creative world but after discussing it as a group we were e all unsure about how to overcomes this problem as we all are not too confident in lighting and using the green screen, but still an area to consider if needed.

We also thought about the types of props we may need to use for the set;

• Mattress 
• Bedframe 
• Orange prison Jumpsuit
• Small desk
• Poles to create prison bars 

   

Map & Journeys #4

Maps & Journeys 

This idea first sparked after the group I was in made the decision to go our separate ways and develop our own ideas due to, not being able to produce a finalised workable idea. Whilst brainstorming for idea in the group the area of sound caught my interest when going on to develop my own idea. One of the workshops I attend this semester consisted of sound whilst learning different ways in which you could manipulate it. Which is how i came up with the idea to create a sound installation with the concept of laughter and emotion through different ages.

Laughter is universal meaning everyone can relate to it some how. It  is a regular part of life and has means in which it can collectively bring people together to share one and others experiences and memories. Laughter is not the sole purposes of the is idea overall I like to display areas of emotion that many different people experience bring bring together a collection of sounds that can heard. In other words almost imagine you can hear a range of the different voices and emotions all stored in your head being play at once.

Other idea that I had in mind were

• Spoken word using visual imagery and sound 
• Monolog explaining the power of laughter Using recorded sounds 
• Visual sound piece no dialog 

In terms of the collections of laughter that I intend to gather the aim is to try and collect laugher from all ages ( 0-2 year , 2-5 years, 6-12 years 13-18 years and upwards). 

Professional Toolkit Sound Workshop #1

Professional Toolkit is one, out of the three Workshops I will be attending this semester. We have been set a task to create different forms of sounds playing along side your choice of recorded audio text. Over the past few weeks we have explored various different areas of sound on top of gathering an understanding of the program Pro Tools.

The first lesson Consisted of giving us a brief understanding of the task on hand along with familiarising ourselves with Recording equipment we would be using. We where set a small task of going out and in small groups and collecting different sounds, much like what we did last year with the 'Experimental sound' project. Harry played us a radio recording from 1968 called 'War of the Worlds' which was aired to the public causing causing mass panic among the community. This is a clear demonstration of how important sound can be used to create a range of atmospheres.

My chosen dialog is a scene for the Batman The Dark knight where the Joka is explain how he got his scars.

The Joker: You wanna know how I got these scars? My father, was a drinker, and a fiend. And one night, he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me and says, "Why so serious?" Comes at me with the knife. "WHY SO SERIOUS?" He sticks the blade in my mouth... "Let's put a smile on that face." And...

[glancing at thug]

The Joker: WHY SO SERIOUS ?

[kills Gambol]

Different sounds where a gathered with the recorder to help create a scene for the diegetic sound. After talking to harry about the initials sounds that I had chosen to use did not complement the style of dialog i chose. As i explained earlier the dialog scene is about the character explain how he received his scars. Harry suggested that i explore sounds that would indicate an assault or dispute, for instants objects such as knives, pots and pans, chairs scraping, doors slamming, anything really that indicates signs of a dispute.

Map & Journeys (feedback) #3

Maps & Journeys  presentation feedback

Today we had our presentation feedback section with rosie and were given a some interesting criticise both positive and negative. It seemed that the idea was plausible but we kept on coming back to the same conversation about requiring the right tools and equipment and if we had the skills to build the structural installation itself. "Whats the reason behind the doors" is an area that was brought up, and after discussing feedback we understood why people questioned it. They were not to sure whether people from an outside perspective would understand the concept fully.

We brainstormed a few ideas after the presentation to see if we could develop the idea even further and mold it into a sold understandable concept. We was not able produce a solid confident idea but managed to come across a solution for replacing the doors with objects instead and collecting specific sound the are within its normal environment. We would use an object with some form of mean and the journey it has previously undertaken i.e. a pair of old running shoes worn by an olympic athlete.

Map & Journeys #1

Maps & journeys approach towards the passage of money 


This idea was presented to me by Dowan and captured my interest due to its slight similarity to an idea i had for the project which was going to be about, exploring the journey of change from previous persetions to new ones. I felt that the idea introduced to me had an interesting outlook on the main source that is passed around the most. The idea was explained to with a narrative/visual structure which would be walking the audience through the eye of the £10 note witnessing areas that money effects in both negative and positive ways.



The message of the film was to express to display a number of ways in which money can be interpreted alongside financial background difference. It was important for us to show just how far money travels and its ability to change people who have come in contact with its perception on what you are actually living for.

The Documentary in terms of the our visual outlook needs to consist of carefully thought out engaged visual to help the audience feel some form of emotion towards the note. Voice over would therefore give the note its own characteristics making it believable to understand what life style it live on a regular basis.

In all the we want you as an audience by the time the piece is over to be able to relate to the note as a real person who has gone through a life changing experience.        

Reflection Film Post-Producti

Editing in Post-Production 

Editing the footage was an area of interest for this particular film as we were developing ideas because I wanted to see how I could translate the story through different cuts and sequence the of footage. When importing the clips into Premiere pro I immediately organised the scenes into various folders to keep a constant work flow that would not confuse me.

I liked the fact i was able to experiment with different styles of how to present the film and found myself increasingly going back over areas that i thought would be used for the final screening. Which was good in terms of teaching myself to always look at different ways to put in together, it was almost like building blocks always coming up with new ways to re-invent. 

When it came the opening scene after speaking with leah and her review on it she suggested that the first few minutes of it weren't really necessary and in fact just use selected short parts from it. Which then when discussing it over with the group came the a decision of cut the begining into the sleeping scene to create some sort of dream scene.

 
Originally when i started the editing the dream scene all i had done was cut up the clips that i wanted into flashback shorts  and positioned them sleeping footage. To create the effect i tried to find so tutorials on youtube but wasnt very successful in that area due to that lack of, so i just looked at different premiere videos and and types of effects on hand and went on to experimenting with what looks good and asking myself if it fits the scenario well. I also found out away to apply my effects to a large quantity of footage without applying it to each one separately, this was called an 'Adjustment Layer' which is where i placed the effects.

The brown clips are the cut flashbacks

Effects

 

Reflection Film Evaluation 'The Recovery'

Film Screening Evaluation

This afternoon the group screened our Reflection film 'The Recovery' which didn't go according plan in terms of the the of the structure of the film and the final edit which had slight audio problems. The feedback which was given and needed I understood why certain areas of the film where questioned on and think the original idea and thought processes we discussed as a group had the potential to become something unique, but was just unable to deliver certain sections. 

As a group I believe we worked good alongside each other and many ideas were constantly being discussed and explored into. We all brought different ideas to the film and managed to merge them into areas of selected scenes. The area we really should have thought about was not so much the narrative area of the film but instead, visual to help showcase the characters emotion and scenes of confusion. As being a very visual person myself am a bit disappointed with myself that i did not show more example of how we could visually deliver certain images and shots to make the film seem more appealing and understandable from the audience point of view. The reason behind the working on the film is its sole purpose was to be visually creative which i felt I managed to create well in the last group project i worked on with the flower store. 

One group in particular which used a large amount of different shots and locations was Tori's Group which explored the area of emotion through an object, maybe we should have used and explored our most effective shots that were necessary in telling the story better. 

Besides not achieving our initial projection to the visual standard we wanted the learning experience will definitely be taken into consideration next time the when developing this type of film. Especially spending more time on more than just one type of scenario and explore a few other to see which one would suit best for the final product.            

Time Art Final Product

Illusion of Time 

Final Draft  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Q1gpzeIx0
Unable to video link it from youtube to my blog

Experimental Sound Final Product

 Final Sound 
Fallen Angel 

Originally When i first saw this image it made me feel uneased about how i would approach it because I had an impression of what i think i should sound like. I was planning to use types of sounds that made you feel uncomfortable whilst listening to it, but after exploring the artist himself Jean Michel Basquiat and looking into his type of personality he seems from my point of view to be a relaxed calm individual  and so decided to create the piece around his stature and from the point of view as if he was creating the piece. After listening back to it there are a few things that i would of liked to incorporate further just to fill out certain parts to make it stronger as a whole. One area that I think could have been improved was the use of the brush strokes, I could have represented them in a better way to showcase how the wild brush strokes relate to the image itself.

Other areas of the image look like it has been spray painted and in one area of my work I incorporated a small part of it. Now i am wish i did and mix of the two different sounds from the paint brush and the spray can and chop different sections up.
           

Experimental Sound [3]

Foley and Roland Recordings 

The studio was a good way to retrieve and experiment with sound and the different objects to help represent that. Some of the tools I used was a paint brush, paper, pot with water inside and tea cloth. 

The idea behind my peace originally was to create the types of sounds an angel would make or its environment surroundings, but later had the idea of creating the atmosphere of the artist creating the picture himself. I didn't know if using the paintbrush and water pot would create the effect i was looking for, but after listening to it back I was really pleased with the outcome. 

Some of the tools i tried out

The Rowland Recorder was useful throughout the making of my composition due to the fact that during mixing my sounds i kept on coming up with new ideas that I  wanted to include. The majority of my sounds sound that you can hear are from the rowland recorder.    

Paint Pot mixing

Time Art [2]

Illusion of Time 

When it came to getting down and developing my own idea within AE I did come across a lot of problems it was mainly to do with switching between screens and keeping track of the last point to start off from in the next screen. I think it was the constant switching between compositions that was confusing me whilst working on it, so i decided to put them into folders switch was still quite confusing and took me a while to adjust. Eventually i managed to work my way around and position my video sequences in the right order.

Without the three screen composition I probably would of struggled finding a way to view my footage next to each other, along with finding the right timing for the next footage to enter the screen. If come across some similar type of project like this again i will definitely use it to work alongside. 

Exporting the video was once more another area that became a setback due to forgetting that i had to export the three screen separately, instead once I foolishly believed I had completed the task I instead exported the three screen composition, after looking over the assignment sheet again to check everything was in order. 

 Because of this i then had to go over and the reversed segment of my video and adjust the layers separately and delete the pre composed layer in the three screen that i cut and reversed.

Reversed layer

Adjusted reverse layers that i had to apply to each separate three screens

 

My experience in using Ae has encouraged me more to explore different areas of after effects and what particular aspect would interest me, at the moment i would really like to continue looking into motion tracking and developing my skills within that area. There are areas that i would like to change about my video, one being adding a camera track to the spotlight effect i had over the footage, just to see if it could of had a better outlook to the piece. 

Time Art [1]

Time Art work in After Effects

My first experience using after effects was eye opening, previous i attempted to use after effects in one of my projects in collage and found certain areas difficult and unclear so i did not really continue using it from that point on. But yet again the after effect tutorials helped me out a lot when it came to working my way around its interface and explaining what certain functions did. I explored two different tutorials that I thought would help me out, which was 'After Effects CS6 Essential Training with Ian Robinson'
and 'Mograph Techniques: Retiming and Tracking Footage with Ian Robinson'. 

Theses were some of the tutorials I looked into the ones that were really useful was tracking the footage I learnt that you can't really get a perfect track without making some adjustments of your own, am hoping to continue off from where i last left off some of the exercise develop in difficulty as you carry on through. One area that caught my interest as well was using the internal software Mocha AE to track which was an interesting experience in terms of switching between both. 

 The after effect Essential Training was a good way to work my way into what i was using to help transition into my own project. 

Mocha

Reflection Photography [6] (Experimental Pictures)

Experimental Pictures 

Map

CD Case 

This was one of the objects that decided not to go with due to one of the issue involving the reflection of the CD case and all so the placement within the image i was unsure about.

Playing Cards

Newspaper

E-Mail

Reflection Photography [5]

The Process 

My ideas originally came from the idea of exploring old and new and how they have developed through time which is where i found a lot of photos that used old photos and then returned to the location and captured an image with a past and present, for example the picture below. Although I thought this was a good idea and at the time was considering it, i knew it could become a difficult area to approach so kept it in mind to have a reasonable outlook on other areas. 

The actual process in developing my photos was not too difficult to approach once I understood how i wanted it laid out in an image. The main area of the image i wanted to emphasis was the difference between old and new hence why i used the black and white contrast between the two. I performed this by masking out the inside screen of the phone and inverse selecting it and applying the black and white effect whilst positioning the separate image that would go on top of the screen. 

If you look carefully you can see the selection lines

This was the image i print screened off my phone and positioned on top of the original image, this process just involved adjusting the corners around the edge, feathering the sides and moving around the contrast and brightness.


The one image out of three which was edited differently compared to the others was the map photo, this particular image required a lot of resizing to help it stay in line with the actual map around it due to the moving of the camera whilst take each individual shot

As you can see from this image i had to adjust the layer underneath to match the front layer which was a problem because i didn't use a tripod which i soon realised would have made the image a lot more precis and easier to work with.    

Reflection Roise feedback

Feedback

A few days ago we had a feedback session with roise to see how our photos were coming along, i showed her my map app image displayed through two different platforms i.e smart phone and actual map booklet.

She really like the concept and said it had nicely developed from the last time we spoke about my idea of displaying and image through a screen then capturing as a photo did not complement the message I was trying to get across. So i slightly altered it which then made it a lot understandable through the message.

In Terms of the ideas i had down in the following series of pictures she suggested the i keep the objects in the picture flat based, which i now find displays the images in an appealing way and builds upon the continuity of the photo.

we had both agreed on the idea of using a board game somewhere in one of the pictures, which was a good idea, but due to not find the right one for the image i decided to use a pack of playing card instead which i now think looks better for the photo and almost everyone can relate to it.


      

Reflection Photography Five Photos [4]

Final Photographs 

Old vs New

How we constantly using Satellite maps on our phones   

E-Mail have made our lives much easier and faster to send important messages through long distances 

These days we can access almost any type of game we want to play 

Newspaper apps Have saved us buying giant pages of fin cheap paper

This last recent update is the final photo added to the series, only recently have i decided to reuse this image