Category: Individual Reflection

ROLE DIARY – Reflection on Picture Lock and Delivery

13421070 / / Audio Production, Individual Reflection, Learning Outcomes

Picture lock for George was originally scheduled for 4th of December and to be completed 12 days later ready for hand-in on December 16th. We have received the final cut of the picture on the 12th of January, leaving us 8 days to complete as much of the audio as possible in time for the film groups hand-in on the 20th, and with another 7 days in hand to polish up for our own hand-in on the 27th. Whilst this is, on the face of it, a reasonably similar timeframe for completion, it is complicated by the disruption to our workflow caused by the extension and the Christmas break, the fact that our advance facilities bookings assumed the earlier completion date which means it became more difficult to access the facility we have committed to technically, and the incoming pressure of organising our impending Semester B studies. This provision of multiple versions of the picture for different deadlines at different times was then further complicated by the unexpected request for a copy of the film with most of the key audio devices included and as much of the music completed as possible on the 16th, to enable the media production group to critique the film for their paperwork.

Taking the audio for a 16 minute film from 50% complete to around 85% complete in 4 days with limited access to facilities is obviously nigh-on impossible to achieve to any reasonable standard, especially given that the length of titles and credits (requiring hefty alterations to music compositions) were not made available until the day of delivery of picture lock. Due to the client-employee relationship of this particular project there was no disincentive for the director to begin requesting mixdowns earlier and earlier as soon as the edits were complete, all of which further interrupted our workflow and took the priorities on the project out of our hands. We managed to provide what was requested largely on time, and I was prompted to consider this situation as it would pan out in the real-world and the possibility of some kind of contractual stipulation on clients for recompense or renegotiation in the case of overrun’s of this type, as the complications here have impacted our planning for Semester B work and a similarly protracted project would likely cause problems for a schedule of work. I ran the question of whether such a thing is ever formalised past Grant Bridgeman by email for the benefit of his experience…He pointed out that this situation comes to pass on ‘almost every job’, and that he deals with it on a case by case basis judged on existing relationships with the client. For me, that’s about as succinct a description of the way creative freelancing works in practice as any I’ve seen.

For Grant, the malleability of deadlines as in the case of George is inevitable and it’s all about how you deal with it, and the relationship with the client. Practically, realistic projections of the amount of work that can be accomplished in the timeframe should be furnished to the client, which brings the whole point here back to communication. I was confident in our ability to deliver the bulk of the work even for the close deadline when communicating with our client, but should perhaps have been more cautious in my appraisal of specifically what we were able to deliver by certain dates.

As per my role within the production, I’ve tried very hard throughout to keep communication with the client about their audio requirements to a maximum, and I see this as a useful and successful aspect of the project from my own perspective, given the fact that the film has effectively had two directors (from our perspective that is, the film was co-directed by all four people in the group, but I requested a single point of contact with the team from the outset to minimise potential for confusion). The second director altered a number of the first director’s artistic decisions as far as the sound and music of the film is concerned, which meant essentially rerunning the process of the earlier spotting sessions with the second director to see if requirements were to change. I could have foreseen this likelihood earlier and discussed her requirements immediately when she agreed to be point of contact for us upon the departure of the first director as it’s critical to remind the creative lead for the picture they are also the creative lead for the audio team, to my mind.

More specifically on communication, I realised it is vital when (even basic) audio tracklaying work has begun in parallel with picture editing (an imperfect situation at best, but unavoidable given the circumstances of this production), to hammer home the critical nature of good edit logging with an editor who is working on the piece – The third cut of the film we received had no accompanying information on alterations to the footage we’d begun work on, which roughly doubled the time it took us to resync our audio. We did mention to the editor previously that we needed this information but didn’t receive it, so this must be communicated with more force in the future. Again, this situation is apparently fairly standard in film work and it tallies with the view of John Purcell,

‘It’s much more common to run into postlock changes than to work on a movie whose structure is set in stone,’ (Purcell, 2008, 239)

The use of temp music tracks is also worthy of note as the receipt of them by our director represents a classic example of something we were warned about in Lol Hammond’s guest lecture. The 2nd director had had little time to think about the music for the piece, was clearly surprised at the impact even basic composition can have on the picture, and rapidly became accustomed to the temp tracks we provided despite our admonishments not to do so as these were for suggestion only. This was fortuitous in a sense as she asked for the songs to be kept simple (like the skeletal temp tracks), which saved us a certain amount of production time, but unfortunate in that we had to back away from our plans for more complex original compositions for the piece. This is something to be very wary of in the future, as it could just as easily have worked in the opposite direction and caused us further complications.

– 1000 Words

 Key Points –

Reflection on post production interaction with director, and delivery requests – Process Management, Individual reflection on learning and team role.

  • To manage the delivery of the soundtrack at various stages of the production along with relevant paperwork, to the director and producer.
    Application of skills and conduct in production

Reflection on post production interaction with editor – Process Management, Individual reflection on learning and team role.

  • To successfully manage the audio team’s interaction with film’s director, editor and producer on a practical and creative level, and ensure the audio team’s work is delivered on time and to a good standard.
    Application of skills and conduct in production

Reflection on use of temporary music cues – Process Management, Individual reflection on learning.

  • To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.

RESEARCH: Supervising Sound Editor

13421070 / / Audio Production, Individual Reflection, Role - Supervising Sound Editor

“Good sound design enhances the listening experience, but doesn’t get in the way of the story.”  – Eloise Whitmore

My role for the production of George is that of a Supervising Sound Editor. This is a hands-on role with involvement in the cutting and editing of dialogue, ADR, foley and special effects, as well as the oversight of the ‘deliverables’ for the film such as the various mixes required by the director, and making sure the mix meets any stipulated technical specifications. Responsibilities also extend to the sound budget, the work-flow and priorities of the sound team on the mix, and appointing and managing those responsible for each aspect of the post production editing.

 “On the average A-picture the first post production sound person brought onto the film is the supervising sound editor, who not only directs and coordinates the creative contributions of the post-production sound staff but also must handle all the related administrative duties like scheduling mixes. The tendency is to bring the supervising editor on earlier and earlier. The main reason is the changing demands for sound in early screenings. This practice has engendered the greatest changes in the logistics of post-production sound in the last two decades,” – (FilmSound.org)

Liasing with the artistic leads on the film (usually the director) is critical to the role, and supervising sound editors often double as sound-designers, directing the overall artistic audio tone of the picture to a greater or lesser extent. Again, this aspect of the role is relevant to ‘George’, as I am partially responsible alongside my colleagues in translating the wishes of the director into a functional sound-script and ultimately into a working soundtrack.

This makes the role very variable based on the scale of the film in question, and in the case of ‘George’ – a zero budget student-film – I felt the creative liason, sound design and the hands-on editing would likely be the most relevant aspects. ADR, for example, was unlikely to be required for a script which has ended up containing very little dialogue yet had engaged the services of a full location audio team, and the audio team personnel and roles were largely dictated by our modules requirements.It also became clear during preproduction (based on the original institutional deadlines for the work, at least) that the audio work on this film would need to be directed carefully and, as the evident lack of concept and storyboarding came to light, the liason with the director particularly would need to begin as any possible headstart on the more complicated aspects of the sound design would be necessary in order to be able to condense relatively large requirements for a piece into a short period of time.

This is somewhat at odds with some conceptions of the role in the wider industry as it tends to begin at picture lock and the beginning of post production for films with little budget, but this is usually due to the constraints of said budget. Larger budgets enable longer contracts and more responsibilities and involvement for a supervising sound editor, and whilst ‘George’ has no budget it was possible to begin work on it early due to the institutional context.

Forward planning and preparation is absolutely critical in audio work of all stripes and especially in the relatively complex world of moving image with it’s many interlocking roles working in a production line sense towards the end product. In the context of my post production role, this is important when considering the necessity for ample source material to work with in the edit phase, and I wanted to participate in the location recording of this project partially to make sure we collected plenty of useful wild-track audio for later use in our atmospheres. This documentary on the film Australia opens with the Supervising Sound Editor / Designer Wayne Pashley discussing his work on the film, the set of which he was able to visit in order to capture the location sounds because ‘…there’s nothing like it’, referring to the unique nature of the sounds of the landscape in Australia. Whilst the locations for ‘George’ are not in anyway similar to that production, I think it would be useful to collect ambience for later use in a similar way.

I’ve examined some of the work of a couple of well known supervising sound editors, one that is relevant to George and another who concentrates mainly on sci-fi and the fantastic, which is my preferred own specialism, in the form of Richard King. The work he directed on Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a personal favourite, and I would love to try to weave some of the nuance of his work on that film into this one in some small way, specifically the discussion of ‘transitioning’ the audience into a dream sequence from this interview –

‘…we also altered the pitch of all the real-world sounds when we transition from level to level (much like the watch ticks change speed in the first sequence). So all the sounds slow and change and become a different sound in the next sequence – interior jet roar becomes traffic when we transition to the first dream level, for instance.’ – http://designingsound.org/

This interview also supports the notion above of recording as much as possible on set, though not at the cost to the impact of the audio, as King points out:

‘…It’s so important to get the sounds which you feel and imagine could be there. There’s always a lot of manipulation afterward of course, but recording new raw material is so important. I’d love to record everything every time, but the most important thing is to find the sound which provides that feeling you’re looking for regardless of where it comes from.’ – http://designingsound.org/

Richard King is soon to receive an MPSE career award for his contribution to cinema audio.

Mark Mangini’s work is discussed in this post covering the influence of Green Mile on the sound design of ‘George’.

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 – 1000 words

KEY POINTS –

Overview of supervising sound editor role – Research, Individual reflection on learning and team role.

  • Assess the technical requirements of a production to inform the selection of appropriate tools, techniques and processes.
  • Examine and implement professional practices in their production work in relation to professional contexts, clearances, ownership, copyright and commissioning.

Guest Lecture – Grant Bridgeman – 11/11/15

13421070 / / Audio Production, Guest Lecture, Individual Reflection, Learning Outcomes

Grant Bridgeman is a BAFTA nominated location sound recordist and sound designer.

This extra teaching session with him was largely based around the students in attendance asking questions as many of us (including our group) had been recording on location several times over the previous couple of weeks.

In our case this was particularly useful – Grant was able to answer a question which had been raised during our shoot about working with boomed microphones in wet or damp conditions, amongst others, specifically how long this equipment tends to be able to manage in wet weather before performance is effected. Not very long is the answer, and Grant provided several practical options for mitigating issues caused by adverse weather. He also discussed some methods of managing less than professional crews, some tips for handling moving shots, and the critical importance of preparation, reconnaissance and early communication of potential issues when working on location with film crews.

He also covered some of the intricacies of the various microphones often used for location work, and gave several tips for getting better results out of tricky situations.

It was extremely useful to be able to run our recent experiences in the field past a professional with 20+ years experience, and the information we took away from this session has already proven valuable in our planning of the location audio for the remainder of ‘George’.

– 185 words

KEY POINTS –

Professional feedback on technical process for location recording and on process for managing tricky working relationships –
Contribution + Role, Individual reflection on learning and team role, Application of skills and conduct in production.
Learning Outcomes –
To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.
To successfully manage the audio team’s interaction with film’s director, editor and producer on a practical and creative level, and ensure the audio team’s work is delivered on time and to a good standard