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Year 2

    > #filmadaption

    > #docfilm

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I was looking up tips for creating a showreel - specifically one for sound - so compiled some of the stuff I found. The first source had a lot of SD tips as well, so I included them.

Here's all my notes and sources on what I read!

Same thing I did with adaption, but with doc-- again, won't be too many!

My notes for the main body of our shoot - I didn't cut in order to catch everything I could in the limited shoot time we had, so this meant going back, having a listen, and transcribing the action(s) that were happening. I'm glad we had discussed not cutting and that I kept speeding, because this was actually easier to work with in post than if I had tried to break up the day with 'themed' sound files, when trying to catch certain things. All I had to do was change the position of the Boom and I could catch what I wanted immediately.

The links are to the transcribed interviews where there is speaking. I used Descript, which is pretty alright for a free software. I had to go through to edit for accuracy, which took so much time, and since I was kind of skimming i'd say it was maybe 90% accurate in the end. It might be worth investing in a (cheap but decent) transcribing software if I want to keep doing documentary.

I've been doing end of year organizing and since our producers have to compile the dossier, I figured I'd try to find stuff relevant to my department to post. There won't be too much (and I lost my sound notes!!! Arg!!)

I remembered I did a little sound breakdown- I wish It was more in depth and organized, but that's alright, it did the job! Just for me to remember things I def needed or wanted to get during shoots

Wahh the screenshots are blurry but you get the gist (postscript: actually they were fine once I posted hehe)

Kit List - Pretty simple. I kinda forgot that the Mixpre3 only have 3 inputs (unlike the 10? I believe it’s called? That we don’t have available yet) so couldn’t use two lavs- but it was nice having them in case of tech difficulties.

{youtube link xoxo}

Alright, lets get straight into it!!

For a quick Location recording review: I had been a bit concerned about the waves drowning everything out, but the 416 pleased me greatly and with some booming choices I managed to get some good chatter and some chatter in the ocean too. I wish I had done Wild Track of footsteps but the shoots were so quick, and with it being documentary subjects that we didn't want to ask to stage/do certain things, I didn't get it. I didn't end up needing it in post but just for some flexibility (And if I really had wanted it could have foley’d, but I was crunched for time due to picture lock and managing sound for adaption at the same time).

The interview was shockingly clean as well (or maybe expectedly clean, i did heave and haw over where to shoot it and did my best in an uncontrolled environment), and I think the location we picked ended up being the best in regards to the location for that. Even the birds weren't too much of an issue in the mix. The only thing is that I wish I had one other person there with me on sound. If they could have had a shotgun/boom as well, and maybe a second mixpre for being able to move around freely, it would have been interesting to have more variety.

Now onto post!

I did this film in three to four 10 hour days. Which. Jesus christ.

I built the sound from the ground up. The only thing I had was the voiceover and some sync sound, so It was an empty playground. Considering the amount of tracks I ended up using and what a full session it was, I am astounded at how relatively organized I managed to keep the session. So many folders.

I pulled in some stuff from my sound library and soundbanks, as well as atmos and got to work. Anne Marie gave me good advice, in that she recommended throwing everything you think you'll need if not more into the session and then go through it and mute/hide/lower volume/raise volume as needed. This was a massive tip and really helped create a fuller world.

It passed in a blur to be honest. The only thing I would do different is maybe try panning stuff, like the waves and voices, to match visually where they are in respect to the camera (ocean on the left, people on both sides/slightly more to the right). To be fair this might be difficult due to just how all encompassing and intermingled everything is, but with some creative cutting and jush-ing we could see what can be done.

All in all, again, good practice learning what works and doesn't in the workflow. It's a lovely doc and The Salty Sisters are really lovely ladies, and for the most part i'm happy with it

{youtube link xoxo}

And that's post wrapped!

It's been a long semester, and I'm stoked to have learned as much as I have and to have developed the skills and knowledge I now have for the future. I don't have too many photos of post because I was really hunkering down but I'll try to find some to put in!

I'm proud of the work I managed to do in the time we had after picture lock and before the crit. I think an extra day or two to sit on sound and let it marinate would've be nice, but considering, I think I managed my time and schedule well and am glad of that.

(pretty long post so pls open the readmore ive put in!)

As we draw nearer to the crit I become a little pile of mush that drags itself to sas on some of the nicest sunniest days we’ve had in edi as of late. It’s alright though cause I only start to mind if I’m in by myself and there’s a plethora of people to bother when I’d like a break!

Documentary is doing good for sound. Anne Marie gave me some good advice and I’ll implement it today, wanna get as close to done as I can by nine, screw the eye strain headache. I feel a bit like a wizard throwing bits into a pot and stirring precisely 3.7 times to the right and 8.2 to the left. Which is specific but how I feel.

Slightly late, but earlier I had went through my files and created little time codes / transcoded the interview for easy finding of good sound bites and moments

I’m gunna throw more stuff in (tactfully) to make the soundscape more full and use automation for the mix to help make it not overwhelming.

This semester has just been a whirlwind both in terms of busy-ness and just like personal stuff so I haven't done too many outside shoots but wanted to put the two I did do here! I met a lot of great people and learned a lot, especially from Doomboy - it was cool seeing how VFX is prepped for on set for post!

About That One Time (working title) - in post

Location sound recordist & Boom Op for Day 3

Doomboy - in production

Boom Op

I really wanna do more script supervising / first ad-ing on outside projects/other shoots even in our year group. I feel like I think about logistics and schedule and continuity anyways (and definitely annoyed Finlay by discussing specifics in terms of logistics and schedule heh) so I would love to embrace that more.

All the shoots are done - yay! Now we move into post.

They all went smoothly, in terms of scheduling and during. For documentary, after going over the rushes, we would like some more close ups and a few other supplementary things. Luckily our subjects go out wild swimming every morning and are super accommodating so its really up to when the group can go. I have everything I need for location sound, to be honest, and i'm going to be away when they would like to head back out anyways, so I'll probably focus on getting some wild track/foley.

For adaption, it's been like standing in a mirage screen academy sucked the energy out of me for four days straight. But!! I'm feeling good about it. I linked, transcoded and synced everything for Ethan, and bless his heart he's starting on the edit right after picture locking his other film. We have in mind a couple things that will be issues later on in terms of the style we want to input but we've been working really closely in order to discuss what the sound and edit can do together, and how they can integrate to create something close to the film we want! Execution is a different story, but we've been communicating a lot on this so I think it'll be alright. I had fun as a lil editing assistant heh.

I'm very nervous in terms of the timeline - both my films are picture locking on the 15th, so. Um. Yeah, there's that. I'm going to be breaking my back pulling 8 hour days at sas but I know I can finish on time! I just hope I can do everything I want to with both films, especially adaption, since it's supposed to be heavily stylized in some parts, and with alllll the dialouge to get through and mix I'm hoping I have enough time for the fun bits. I've not worked on such a dialouge heavy film so my workflow will be different than the more non-narrative, non-fiction stuff, but hopefully i won't detest fiction sound after the tight timeline i'm on.

Ideally we might've shot earlier for both films so post isn't such a stress basket, and both Ethan and I have time to experiment, but c'est la vie.

The other day we had tutorials in order to discuss sound and edit with Zoe. I found it very useful and will implement some of her notes!

We talked about the soundscape and I’m going to continue what I wanna do for the three different bits, I think it’ll work well. The interview being on the beach I wanna scrap and do somewhere clean but this will depend on the director and producer I believe, so we’ll see if that can happen.

I won’t be laving up the people on the beach after the swim, because of logistics and also it breaks the flow, having to stop to mic up a documentary subject- but I will Lav up Shelley for her interview because we want crisp clean audio for that. She mentioned ideally we have two 416’s on the beach but I don’t think Ill have enough people to do that, or kit, so it’ll just be one of them. A lot of the in the water sound will be foley/post, cause. They’re in the water. But I’ll hoping to get some good stuff from the beach for the drone bits, like distant talking and stuff.