contribution and role – Film Audio Project – SEM A

05/11/15 – Project Management – ROLE DIARY: Shoot Days 1 + 2

13421070 / January 27, 2016January 27, 2016 / Audio Production, Individual Reflection, Learning Outcomes, Process Management, Role - Supervising Sound Editor

03, 04, 05/11/15 – ‘George’ Set Dressing and Shoot Days 1 and 2 –

Production

The team has successfully completed the first two days of location audio recording for ‘George’ at an indoor location in uphill Lincoln. This has comprised roughly 16 hours of work time, with Rory Hunter taking the lead role as location supervisor and with Alice Asbury undertaking most of the boom op work. I have seconded Alice on the boom when required, and spent my time collecting secondary perspectives for action and dialogue, and wild tracks.

This has mostly been achieved with a combination of a PZM boundary microphone and a Rode NT4 stereo condenser, with the former recording into the main Sound Devices mixer and the latter managed by myself and recording into a Zoom handheld unit, as this enabled me to mix, manage and monitor my own audio without interfering with the main team. With these, I have consistently attempted to deliver a room / distance tone coloured by the set environment to specific action and dialogue for the picture, to enable us to have multiple audio perspective options for key scenes in post without having to build each one from scratch using FX or new foley work. An A/B example of our dialogue recording can be heard below, featuring the same scene from our “up close” boom mic and a second gleaned from a combination of secondary sources.

In terms of mic placement, I’ve found myself inverting a good deal of the technique used in studio work to avoid or cut out reverb or room-tone because that’s precisely what I’m after, and thus sticking a Rode NT4 into corners, out of windows, in corridors, stairwells and under beds…Having never handled a stereo mic or worked location audio before, this entire process was a trial and error learning experience for me. I spent much of the setup day prior to shooting listening to the rooms and testing mic positions relative to them as the production team organised the set, as well as capturing ‘base’ atmospheres and specific foley or SFX from the local environment.

Obligatory photos of the shoot –

The NT4 is a stereo mic (two capsules at 90 degrees over and under one another) and seems exceptional for ‘immersive’ captures and was often placed a considerable distance from the action, often in another room altogether. Whilst this did away with a couple of moments where I might have captured a ‘live’ stereo aspect to the action, it tended to create unusual and slightly unbalanced stereo atmospheres as the reflections travelled from room to room and struck the pair of mics relatively unevenly. I judged this would be more useful to the team later, as what little action takes place in ‘George’ can easily recreated if necessary, but that these various perspectives would be harder to obtain.

We used the boundary mic to take advantage of the exclusively stone and wood floors of the set-house – we located it under furniture for concealment, under the floorboards themselves at one stage, or either directly on the floor or taped to the underside of a table or bed. This really enabled a pre-synced and consistent ‘chunkiness’ to footsteps, furniture motion and prop motion, which I expect will come in handy later. The mic-heavy ‘live’ approach above was arrived at through a group decision as a method of getting us ahead of the game with some of our requirements for foley and atmospheres for the picture.

Logging the collected audio properly when using a second recorder was naturally critical as it lacked the convenience of being recorded in sync with the 663 audio, though this was somewhat complicated by the haphazard nature of the picture teams workflow. This necessitated annotating each days shooting scripts carefully with filenames etc, and rapidly editing and renaming these after each day’s recording was wrapped.

Team and communication management

Whilst our team’s audio outcomes were positive, it has been reasonably difficult to manage our interactions with the film crew.

Prior to shooting we had pushed for a ‘dry run’ style test phase in order to be able to establish some idea of the workflow on set, but this was not possible. The knock-on effect of missing the opportunity to meet, brief and dry-run together as one team was a rather optimistic shooting schedule which in turn meant that some important shots were dropped or moved to later days as they were beyond the time that was realistically available, and this despite a surprising number of ‘got-it-one’ takes. The time issue was exacerbated by a habit of shooting in ruthlessly sequential order, necessitating the technical setup for audio and video for shots in the same scene to be unnecessarily rigged and de-rigged. The audio team variously offered the director advice on these matters but were ultimately required to defer to our employer’s method of working.

The location audio team are making communication on set a key issue going forward. As well as the issues outlined above the production team appeared reticent to inform us (or indeed their actor) of schedule changes or even when they had returned to work after lunch, and maintained noticeable distance from us. This made for several rushed set-ups on our part and we’re keen to build a more cohesive team approach for the rest of the shoot.

All told, these first couple of days have gone reasonably well from the perspective of results. The dialogue and action collected is clear, and the multifaceted perspectives collected at source should help minimise the amount of foley work necessary in post production. However, I realise that I will have to revisit the set at night for further collection of atmosphere audio as traffic noise was a key issue with this location, a fact we had established during recce. The general audio atmosphere’s for the piece during these scenes are intended to be quite important and as such it’s necessary to collect some ‘noisier silence’, which simply cannot be done during daylight hours or indeed with a working crew present.

1000 words

KEY POINTS –

Technical process for ‘secondary sound’ on-location recording – Contribution + Role, Individual reflection on learning and team role, Application of skills and conduct in production.
Learning Outcome – To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.

‘Artistic’ and overview decisions for secondary sound on-location recording – Process Management,
Learning Outcome – To have a good degree of creative involvement in the conception and direction of the soundtrack for the piece.

Team management and interaction issues – Process Management, Professional Practise.
Learning Outcome – To successfully manage a three person team in delivery of the entire soundtrack to a new piece of visual media efficiently + 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.

AUDIO CONSTRUCTION – The ‘Bread + Butter’ Song

13421070 / January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 / Audio Production, Individual Reflection, Learning Outcomes, Research

The story of the song on the radio in George’s ‘Bread and Butter’ scene is worthy of mention as it’s an audio device demonstrating use of diagetic to non-diagetic audio, an example of which exists in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, and which was developed over the course of post-production in a way which better served the story than the original plan for the scene.

This was one of the few music cues that was supplied by George’s original director, requesting the use of Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger’s ‘Cheek to Cheek’ as the trigger for one of the characters fits of weeping, which was initially included as a nod to the movie Green Mile. The song is potentially out of copyright because it was written over 70 years ago in 1935, but as it was written for the film Top Hat there was some question as to whether copyrights could still be active, though research rapidly uncovered that Irving Berlin retained the copyrights for the songs in the film rather than the commissioning employer assuming them, in something of a landmark case. We were in the process of trying to clear this matter up with PRS when the first director departed the project.

As such, and precisely because I didn’t want the production team getting too attached to the inclusion of Fred and Ginger’s Cheek to Cheek (and because our original temp music for this scene was the Star War’s Cantina Band theme), I subsituted a temp track – ‘One More Kiss Dear’ by Vangelis from the soundtrack to the film Blade Runner – in a scratch mix I supplied to the new, incoming director before Christmas. I’d selected this track because I felt the lyric supported the story of ‘George’, it being suggestive of a final seperation between lovers.

The new director became enamoured with it, saying she much preferred this piece or something very like it to replace the original music cue and so we found ourselves trying to license a piece of music which was definitely copyrighted for our film’s use.

Initially the soundtrack used 35 seconds of the piece for quite an important aspect of the film which is very much brought to the audience’s attention. We felt that we were unlikely to get license to use the original piece in that context (and PRS obliquely agreed) and as such the music supervisor felt that constructing a cover of the piece was the best way to go. She made this enquiry to PRS, and received the following –

Our music supervisor deconstructed the track to its piano component to create a guide, and we rerecorded the song’s other instrumentation seperately. I played the bass and we asked a local vocalist to sing the version for us before I recorded and mixed the minute or so of the piece we’d created, of which we ended up using 28 seconds, and which is available in this post. Furthermore, our use of the piece in the transition from diagetic to non-diagetic audio can be construed as a nod to the opening of Shawshank Redemption which uses a very similar device.

I learned three important things from this whole process:

“For many composers, working with a temp track is the creative equivalent of a straightjacket. After weeks or months of cutting the film to that amazing John Williams theme, the director has usually fallen in love with his or her temp score and nothing else will do.” – Trueherostudio.com

First, temporary music tracks are to be used sparingly. We were warned about this phenomenon in Lol Hammond’s guest lecture and this scene proved to be no exception to the rule, but in this case I think the result was worth the effort of recording an entirely new cover of the song and this was likely a simpler process than composing a new song in a similar vein which would then have needed recording anyway.

Secondly, I think it would have been more efficient to pick up the phone and call the PRS with our requests. We were dealing with this particular cue towards the end of a very short period of post production and, whilst fairly prompt, the combination of the email turnaround time and a couple of miscommunications as we tried to clarify the situation was inefficient.

The final thing I’ve taken away from this is that Star Wars Cantina Theme can brighten up ANY scene –

https://youtu.be/boPpfiaUNsw

——————————————————————

Key Points

Research and contact with PRS – Planning & Research

To expand my knowledge of the theory and audio techniques deployed in the films influencing ‘George’, and in drama as a genre more generally.
Examine and implement professional practices in their production work in relation to professional contexts, clearances, ownership, copyright and commissioning.
Comply with legal and ethical codes of conduct; health & safety regulations.

Involvement with production of cover version for the soundtrack – Application of skills and conduct in production

To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.
To have a good degree of creative involvement in the conception and direction of the soundtrack for the piece.
Assess the technical requirements of a production to inform the selection of appropriate tools, techniques and processes

Reflection on the process – Individual reflection on learning and team role.

Critically reflect and evaluate individual learning outcomes

RESEARCH – Mix Requirements + Final Mix

13421070 / January 24, 2016January 26, 2016 / Audio Production, Contribution, Learning Outcomes, Research, Role - Supervising Sound Editor

“Mix Stems are used to create the final print masters for film and high-end TV productions…If done correctly, mix stems will combine at unity gain without any adjustment.” – (Shepherd, Pro Tools for Video, Film and multimedia)

Our client did not specify any particular requirements for their files or mastering levels, so I suggested we deliver a single stereo mix and component mixes of dialogue, sfx and music tracks, to which they agreed. We also agreed with them to mix these using the BBC technical guidelines for audio which seemed appropriate for a drama of this type. An alternative would be to mix for theatre’s, given the intention to potentially show the piece at film festivals,or to the technical specifications of an average film festival. However, few of the major festivals I researched (including BFI’s and Canne) offer any specific technical guidance on audio mix levels, and it is difficult to mix for a large room without calibrating your mix environment to do so, and I’m unsure of the calibration in the LSM Sound Theatre.

Though my colleagues were still dealing with some of the specifics of the construction of our audio later in the piece, I spent much of our final two days on the project master-mixing each scene up to these standards and finessing the transitions. Again, this is not an ideal situation but we’d set ourselves the personal deadline of end of play on Saturday 23rd January to have completed the construction and mix of our hand-in version of ‘George’.

The BBC guidelines above informed the mix of ‘George’, along with a passing reference to the EBU R128 recommendations, also mentioned above. Each master auxiliary – music / dialogue / sfx / foley – had it’s own set of automated processing, which was generally lightly compressed and / or limited in some cases. This fed another gently compressed master bus compressor. I’ve tried to be careful with the compressors as George’s audio is very dynamic – some scenes have little in the way of loud action, others are much more heavily layered – creating a ‘blocky’ mix visually. I wanted to retain this dynamic artistically, because backed off atmospheres and near-silence helps maintain a sense of stillness in some scenes, but balance this with the technical requirements above, specifically that nothing peaks above 6 PPM, and that the focus points of the mix remain roughly within the levels above.

Here’s a visual representation of the music mix structure in protools, blue tracks are the music components, orange the aux subs, leading to the burgundy master fader –

The final point in this process came after mixdown, with a thorough mono / stereo check of the final stereo wav before the audio was delivered to the director.

– Circa 400 Words

Key Points –

Interaction with the director to discover delivery requirements – Process Management

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

Research and application of delivery standards in the mix – Contribution, Research

Comply with legal and ethical codes of conduct; health & safety regulations.
Assess the technical requirements of a production to inform the selection of appropriate tools, techniques and processes.
Application of skills and conduct in production

Conducting the mix – Contribution

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

CONTRIBUTION – Overview

13421070 / January 18, 2016January 28, 2016 / Audio Production, Contribution

In brief, my overall contribution to ‘George’ has included –

Present for 75% of the location audio work.

40% of the total audio editing and track-laying for the piece.
40% of the sound design and creative audio work (foley, SFX etc) involved.
90% of the final mixing of the piece.
Present for 100% of rerecording of foley and SFX on location.

Involved in 30% of the foley work for the piece as either recordist or performer.
Lead on 75% of the artistic and production liason with the client.

Ancillary work for the project included –

Involvement in the enquiries for clearance of the source music in the piece.
Organising use of and access to one of the main locations in the film.
Performance on one of the music recordings used in the piece.
Mix of said music performance.
Transportation of the entire crew’s equipment on numerous occasions throughout.

– 204 words

KEY POINT –

Breakdown of contribution to the work on ‘George’ – Contribution.

To contribute extensively to the creation and editing of foley, atmosphere, dialogue and SFX for the piece
To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.
To have a good degree of creative involvement in the conception and direction of the soundtrack for the piece.

ROLE DIARY – ‘George’ Early Planning and Liason

13421070 / October 26, 2015January 27, 2016 / Audio Production, Process Management, Role - Supervising Sound Editor

Our group agreed to work on the film ‘George’ roughly three weeks ago, and the main priority over this period has been to work with the film crew to solidify a shooting schedule which will enable us to properly cover the requirements for location sound for the project. This has been largely achieved by liason between myself and the director as single points of contact for managing our respective teams, and we now have the dates and our equipment and availability confirmed for shooting and location recording.

We also insisted that a rough schedule for post production be agreed, which has enabled me to plan and book facilities we will require for post well in advance.

Since we are required to score, compose and record the music for the piece as well as managing location recording and all post production in a relatively short timeframe, I am aware we should begin work on music and atmosphere prior to the beginning of filming as the schedule is tight. After receiving some basic guidance from the director on her requirements and an early draft of the script, we arranged several meetings with the crew to thrash out some more specific plans for the film’s audio.

The first part of this process was the discussion of the themes and motifs deriving from the story and script, and to what level these can or should be represented in the audio. In this case, the film addresses loss, sadness, institutionalisation and the rights and wrongs of judging others.

We were also informed that the director required ‘a lot of music’ which – practically speaking in the context of a short film, means ‘more music than not’ – and that this music should be rooted in a ‘classic’ score utilising acoustic instruments and tones, but should retain an unsettling, electronic edge. It is immediately apparent that this will constitute the largest and most challenging aspect of the project if we are to create the music to high standard, and that the 7 week timeframe for completing the entire project will mean we must begin the composition almost immediately, and before even basic rushes of the picture are available. This is unfortunate, and was specifically flagged as something which can cause problems by professional music supervisor Lol Hammond in a guest lecture to the AUP contingent this year, but is unavoidable if we’re to complete the job on time.

To this end, we requested further reference tracks and films from the director, and attempted to get to the heart of what works for her about these pieces. Since it is difficult to convey complex ideas in music and sound we worked to simplify these ideas and looked for ways to bridge the meaning the director intended to convey into music.

The information collected during this process allowed us to set about constructing a basic outline of our audio plan with reference to the script, roughly split into the areas of music – foley – atmosphere, whilst also taking the opportunity to document as many of the ‘physical’ (translating roughly to foley – atmos – dialogue) aspects of the script as possible, and arranged all this into several rough planning documents, with each group member concentrating in a particular area as dictated by their chosen role for this project. We checked a number of these ideas over with the director in conference as we worked.

This process of discussion and feedback enabled us to create rough outlines of the arcs of the audio components of the film which we fed back to the film-makers at our final panning meeting a week before shooting commences, which in turn will enable us to begin work on our contribution as early as possible.

——————————————————————————-

KEY POINTS –

How decisions pertaining to overall artistic direction were made, and why. – Contribution + Role

To manage the post-production workflow and contribute substantially to the sound design, construction and editing of the piece.

Process of liasing with client and discovering their requirements. – Process Management

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.

654 words