Wednesday, 14 December 2011

Finished!

Finally finished, and i'm really pleased with what we've done. Think we've done well and it sounds good. Some of the recordings could have been better, but otherwise its good, think it flows well and most of the sounds are ok. Actually looking forward to getting some feedback on it.

Editing

These are some of the stages in our editing.


This is us trying to change the EQ on a clip to get rid of some distortion.


We went through each of the tracks and labelled them and coloured them to make it easier to find each one during the editing process.


This track was too quiet so we're using gain to increase the volume.




This is our final edit ^_^

Release Form

Back In York

So went back to finish our recordings today, very last minute I know, but couldn't be helped. I'm really pleased with how it went, managed to get practically everything on our list, even after managing to forget it. Had a bit of a fail with the tie clip mics though. Couldn't get Chrissie to stay still while trying to sort it out and was too scared I was going to break them, so I just kept to the rifle mic and ran beside her (not easy either mind, she's fast!).

Anyway, really pleased with how it went and think we got some really good recordings. Sooooo, just the editing to do now.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Equipment List

Marantz 661
Rode NT 4 Mic
Tie Clip
Hydrophone
Rifle Mic
Soundtrack Pro

Monday, 12 December 2011

Plan for next recording

Not exactly a 'detailed' plan, really just a list of the recordings we need to do.

  • Atmosphere of garage - empty
  • Mum putting lead on Chrissie (Dog)
  • Chrissie when she's calm; heartbeat, breathing.
  • Chrissie's reaction to being on lead, i.e. excited to be going for a walk.
  • Walking towards woods.
  • Atmosphere of woods - hopefully with some birds.
  • The whoosh of the ball being thrown.
  • Mum calling Chrissie.
  • Chrissie playing with other dogs.
  • Chrissie's heartbeat, now she's been running.
  • Mum giving Chrissie a treat.
  • Chrissie as she's running after the ball.
  • Chrissie carrying the ball around.
  • Mum saying something like 'Time to go home'.
  • Chrissie wondering around on her own, hear mum walk away and Chrissie follows.
  • Opening gate back home and closing garage door for ending.
Gonna try a different range of mics to try and get the best sounds.

Sunday, 11 December 2011

Our Final Idea

So, this is our idea now.

It's gonna start at home, where Mum is gonna put the lead on Chrissie, and take her for a walk. They go in the woods and basically just gonna record all the different things that happen on a dog walk, like throwing the ball, getting in the puddles, playing with other dogs, etc. Just going to be a recount of this but in Chrissie's POV. Then gonna finish with them going back home and closing the door.

Pretty simple, but hopefully it'll still be good.

Inspiration

The inspiration for this project has actually come from my own experiences in life. Because we've always had a dog in the family, I've been taking them on walks since, well, before I could walk basically, and so I'm pretty much an expert on the things that can happen on a dog walk. Also, my family used to always go on different wood walks, so i had a fair few ideas to take from them as well. For example, how although most dogs hate baths, they actually love playing in water, not sure how that works really but its true. So the sounds that can come from that alone are endless. I think it would have been great if I could have chosen one of those as our location, but there wouldn't be enough time to get there unfortunately. There could have been so many more interesting sounds to record, like dogs crossing a bridge, or going through a farm, fields, interacting with the sheep.
I actually might try and do something as an independent project one day, because I think it would be really interesting recording all the different sounds, not just from the dogs or nature either, but from the walkers too.

Friday, 9 December 2011

Rough Edit

Managed to get the rough edit done in time for Debbie, although alot of the recordings weren't great, and we definately did not have enough to use.

Again, Debbie gave some good advice about making our sounds into more of a story, so we're gonna try again. Unfortunately its gonna be another last minute job, due to schedules, but we're gonna get a detailed plan done, so we know exactly what we're gonna record.

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Recording In York

Went for our recordings, but the weather was rubbish so didn't get nearly as much as we wanted. It wasn't a complete loss, we got some good tracks and at least got more practice with the different mics.

Since this was the only time we could get to York, we only have tomorrow to make a rough edit for Debbie :/ So hopefully the recordings we did will come out alright.

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Microphones and Sound Patterns

We were taught about all the different mics we can use for our projects and the different polar patterns each have, which is the shape of sound the mic picks up.

The smaller fluffy mic is called a Rifle Mic and has a cardioid pattern. Which is basically a heart shaped sound range. We use these mics for one specific sound source i.e dialogue or sound effects, normally keeping a 2-3 ft distance away from the source.

The hand held mics have an omni pattern, which is a circle shaped, picking up all sounds around you, so should be used for atmosphere recordings.

The tiny mics are called Tie Clips, which are normally used in places like newsrooms, or for interviews where you can get away with them showing on camera.

However, we were also told about if you use two of the Tie Clip mics, you can make an effect called Binonaural, which is used to re-enact moments as if you were there, by putting them to you ears.

Hydrophones are used for recordings with water, as they're waterproof.

Contact Mics give a really detailed recording of surfaces and what's underneath.

I think all of these will be useful in our project and it'll be fun to experiment with different techniques.   

Lack of Film Analysis

I realised that I haven't really analysed the films well, but that's because I don't have access to watch the full films and it's been awhile since i've seen them, or in Lassie's case, never seen. But really what i'm taking from them for my project is attention to detail. To make sure to capture all the aspects of the dog, like breathing/panting, the sounds of them walking, especially on different surfaces. Even their drool and when they eat, all make interesting sounds that I could use. Especially my dogs, they make the weirdest sounds ever, they're definitely not normal. And also pay attention to the environment your in, try to catch all the little sounds there, and just try and spot things that could make some interesting sounds.  

Monday, 5 December 2011

Homeward Bound (1993) - Duwayne Dunham

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h4hkn_9Be8

This is another dog film, plus a cat, that I loved as a kid. And it's actually really interesting in terms of sound, due to the mix of human voices for the animals, and their own natural sounds too. It's a real feel-good film into how animals think and their commitment to their owners. It's a perfect example to contradict whoever said animals don't have souls, or personalities.

It's got a good mix of dog sounds that gave me some good ideas to try for my own project.

I also noticed that for this and Beethoven, the sound department has like 10 or more people, where as Lassie only had one. Again not really surprising considering the time differences, but still quite interesting to think about.

Beethoven (1992) - Brian Levant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6CMAH2R2iU

This is film about a dog that I watched as a child. There are a few of them actually. I used to really like it, and now that I think back I never really appreciated how much time and effort that must have been put in to get all the dogs to do each scene right, and stay still for sound recording, etc. Not sure how they would have done it professionally, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna be hard work getting my dog to stay still long enough to get a decent recording, but we can hope.

From what I remember about this film, they did alot of emphasis on saliva and drool scenes, and I remember the sounds being pretty realistic. Thankfully, I won't be doing that. I haven't seen it since i've had to pay mre attention to sounds in film, but I always thought everything about the dog was realistic and just the sounds it made, so they must have done their job.

I think my dog's quite like Beethoven in personality and I think it would be great if I could put some comedy in my project.

Lassie Come Home (1943) - Fred. M. Wilcox

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgexZ2I7Ink

This is a clip from the first Lassie film, a character created by Eric Wright. I think this must have been one of the first films about a dog, or at least it's the oldest one i've heard about, so thought I should have a look. I've never actually seen the film myself, but from this clip it looks like it'll be quite a touching film, for me anyway since I have a soft spot for dogs ^_^.

I was trying to pay attention to the sound, and it's pretty obvious where they've added the sounds in, but since quite an old film, it's to be expected. Still the sounds of Lassie panting are real and well done. Something I hope to accomplish in our piece. I wish I could watch the film before I did my project, but unfortunately I don't have the money right now :/

Sunday, 4 December 2011

Janet Cardiff and George Miller

To be perfectly honest, I don't really get alot of their work. However, I quite liked this one:

http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/inst/ship_o_fools_video.html

Mostly due to its complete randomness. The contraptions were clever and its interesting to think how they made them. The sounds that came from them were random, but put together well to make it quite pleasant to listen to.

Saturday, 3 December 2011

Sonic Postcards

Just going through some of the sites Debbie recommended from the listening material. I think Sonic Postcards is quite a cool idea, it's about letting primary school children more aware about sounds the world makes that we tend to miss by creating these audio postcards and sharing them with other schools over the internet. They're all simple recordings, but interesting when you think that we could hear some of these everyday but never really acknowledge them or take them in.

Can't figure out how to upload them on here, but it's worth a look. It had some tracks on animals, sheep and birds, that were interesting, the different tones, and types of noises they could make. Also did some places in nature, like trees and a cave, that I thought were quite good too. Interesting to hear the clear recording of trees; how they creak in the wind.


Research

I was searching through Google about dogs and sound, like how they interpret sounds differently to us, etc. and found out that they pretty much hear the same as us, as fair as modern scientists can tell, as it's too cruel to do more enhanced experiments on them to find out more. The thing we do know is that they can hear higher frequencies than us. Probably pretty obvious to most people, but not something I really paid attention to before so it was quite interesting to find out.

My original idea was to do our whole piece from the POV of a dog, hearing wise of course, because I thought they might hear us muffled or something, but I think i'll change it to just being at the dogs level, height wise, etc.

Friday, 2 December 2011

Our Star Actress

Just because she's so amazing :P This is Chrissie.


I was planning to make this slightly relevant by showing her height and how we'd be recording from her level, but i have surprisingly very few photos of her, shocking I know.

But anyway, she's very excitable so it's going to be interesting trying to attach a mic to her.

Tutorial with debbie

This was the final idea we came up with to show Debbie.


I was actually quite proud of this idea, however Debbie was right when she said realistically it'd be really hard to try and portray a woodland animal.

She actually mentioned using a dog, which is what i'd originally thought of, and gave us some really good advice about what research we could look at, etc.

So now we've got a new plan and a new location. Because i have a dog, although she's in York, we decided it would be easier to record there, rather than try bringing her here. And it just so happens that i have a nice little woody area right near my house ^-^

Thursday, 1 December 2011

First meeting with Owen

Met with Owen and we managed to come out with some main themes. We're thinking Elemental theme, in a wood using a point of view of either a camper or maybe some animal. I think it'd be interesting to do it from an animals perspective. Decided to do it in ecclesall woods, since it's an easy location. Just means that we can't really justify using a dogs POV, which would probably be easiest, but we can try a woodland animal instead.

Mind Map

Here's some initial thoughts I came up with, hopefully between me and my partner Owen Feltham, we can come up with a plan.

New Project - Sense Of Space

So, we've been given a new project, which is all about sound this time. Have to be honest, kinda apprehensive about this one. Really don't know anything about sound, but suppose i'll have to learn. Typically i was ill when this was set, so i missed the introduction and the sample tracks debbie showed. Not really sure where to start with this one. Looks like i'll have to check out the listening material.