Task 7

Task 7 - Adding Non-diegetic music.                                    Amara Senior 

Using a short film clip I had to create music i feel supported the narrative and enhanced the mood and meaning for the audience. For this task i had chosen to do the American history X - Danny dies scene as its quite an emotional scene and uses a variety of different music. 

Firstly, i downloaded the clips from youtube and put it into Garage band. From this i created different types of music which complimented the original movie. The music i created was to create a moment of suspense when Danny was in the bathroom before he got shot as it would relate to the audience more. Apart from this i added loops from Garage band which helped to add suspense, i  mainly used the intense strings section as the original music consisted of dark violin music and i wanted it to sound similar in a way. I also downloaded sound effects of YouTube such as gunshots, footsteps, children playing in the background and a driving car. These sounds helped to identify what was happening in the scene and grabbed the audience's attention. I also used sounds i had recorded for a previous task which included more footsteps and a closing door, i had used these as they match the mood and meaning of my sequence. I had the original soundtrack also to help me try copy the sounds and music being used as closely as possible.

In conclusion, i feel that this task came out good as it has a variety of sound effects and music which was successful in adding mood and meaning to the sequence. Also, with this task i had done a lot more in terms of the length as i rounded it up to 1 minute instead of 30 seconds to get the best possible results. 

Task 6

Task 6 - Recording diegetic sound effects and presence.                    Amara Senior

Moving image sound effects are generally used diegetically, and there are a number of ways of recording or locating them. For this assignment i had to practise and experiment with a number of these in preparation for my final soundtrack creation project. During the time spent on this task, i had to record my own version of background presence and crowd sound into a downloaded movie/YouTube clip. I had to use as many diegetic sound effects as possible which i created myself alongside a number of library sounds. 

Firstly, I had converted the Love in London vox-pop doc from YouTube using www.clipconverter.cc. 

I had the. Made another folder in my user area to store all of my clips i had used for this assignment. Following this i had inserted my original movie clip into Garage band and muted it so i could then work on editing in my diegetic sound. Recording the diegetic sound was pretty straightforward as i went outside to the courtyard outside the college where there was a lot of people talking and recorded my script so there was original crowd sound in the background. Once this was done i had inserted the clips into reaper to maximise the volume of the clips, although, i did not have to edit anything else on the clips. Afterwards, i inserted these clips in the correct place in Garageband which meant they sync to the actions shown on screen and added a music bed to tie everything together which was the final stage of production. 

After viewing other students work i had to assess the sound effects in terms of the ones i had thought were more difficult to create, although i only had done both the crowd sound and background atmosphere in one location, meaning it was very easy to re-create. 

Overall, i feel that my final clip was very good as the voiceovers synced directly to the actions shown on screen, and also the music complimented the actions and background sounds. Although, i feel i could have added more diegetic sounds and if i were to do this task again in the future i would pick a clip that i could add a lot more sound effects to. 

task 5

ByTask 5 – Recording live dialogue on location          Amara Senior

Task 5 was based around spoken word for moving image soundtrack. Spoken word for moving image soundtrack is recorded live on location in many contexts, such as news broadcasts, live television debates, interviews and dialogue for television drama and film.  In this task we had to create a 30 second movie clip from the recording we had done on location. This included vox pops, a TV interview and a film clip, this was also done in pairs.

The first one I had completed was the film dialogue. For this task I had used the ‘Where’s my door, Mum?’ scene from Freaky Friday. Firstly, I had to research and download the following clip from YouTube using www.clipconverter.cc, which allowed us to insert the clip into Garage band.  Once the clip was in Garage band, I had saved the file in the soundtrack production folder in my user area, which allows me to access my work from any computer.  

Following this I had then started to record the dialogue for the movie clip using the most suitable microphones and locations that match the original recording as closely as possible, with my two partners Christal and charlotte.  Each step mentioned above was then applied to the other two tasks, which was the vox pop and the TV interview. The recording of the dialogue for freaky Friday was not as straightforward as we intended it to be as Christal was struggling to record the main dialogue, which meant we had to switch to charlotte recording. As a result of this, we had to start the recording process

Again, which took a lot of time as the voiceover recordings did not sync with the movie clip. In terms of the location we used to record, we had done this in an empty office, which insured that the recording of the voiceover was done to the best quality and issues such as reverberation and sound surfaces were eliminated. When recording we made sure the voice recorder was approximately 13 inches away from us to ensure the sound quality was the best it could be.

The recording for the TV interview was a lot less complicated than the film clip, as we only had to do this two times before we got it to sync exactly in time with the clip. Issues such as reverberation and sound surfaces were avoided as we recorded in a closed environment, which meant that there was no background noise. The recordings came out very clear which meant minimal editing was done in reaper. Also, to ensure that the recordings came out to the best possible sound quality we left the recorder approximately 13 inches away from us whilst recording.

The recording for the Vox-pop was also very easy to do, as we had the clip in front of us and copied the voiceovers as we went along. This ensured that we made no mistakes the first time round. We also recorded into Garage band, just to have a backup copy of the recordings. This is an advantage as it means we would not have to upload the clips to Garage band and place them in the correct order, as this was already done. The sound quality of the voiceovers was good as we recorded in the courtyard, which meant we got the background atmosphere and crowd noises we needed to make the vox pop seem more realistic. Due to the fact that we had recorded in this location purposely, we did not have to edit the clips.

 

                                                                         

After this stage I had uploaded the different voiceover clips to the mac and edited them in reaper. This included normalising, equalising and compressing the clips to minimise the amount of background noise and to increase the volume of the original clips before inserting them into Garage band. The freaky Friday clips had to most editing to do as we needed to make the original clips louder and clearer. Also whilst doing the editing in reaper, I had to be careful not to distort the sound when increasing the volume.  Editing the TV interview clips in reaper was quite minimal as the sound quality was already quite good, although we still increased the volume to ensure it was a lot easier to hear. Editing the vox-pop was also very minimal as it had background atmosphere and crowd noises, which meant we did not need to edit these out and only had to increase the volume of the entire clip.

Once the voiceovers and movie clips was in Garage band for each task, I added additional sound effects such as, footsteps, screaming, and crowd noises. This added an extra effect the movie clip as it made it seem more realistic.  I had to ensure that everything was in sync with the original movie clip. I also added music in garage band, which was similar to the original music to make it sound as good as possible.

Overall, I feel the freaky Friday task went quite well minus the complications, and sounded quite well at the end. Although, if I were to do this task again I would make sure that we recorded the voiceovers correctly the first time around so that I did not have to re-record it so many times. Also, I would have made sure that I used a different music bed to ensure that it sounded more professional.  In terms of the vox-pop, i feel that it turnt out really well as the voiceover sync directly to the actions shown on screen, also the music and crowd noises really tie the whole vox-pop together. What could have went better is my time management as it took a while to get things started and also i could make it abit longer in the future. Finally, the TV interview turnt out well as the sound quality was good and everything was in sync. What could have went better is using a different scene that had more audience noises. In conclusion, i feel this assignment as a whole turnt out alot better than i had thought it would have and i enjoyed making each one of these moving soundtracks productions.