#saintcatherines

Saint Catherines The Sound Design Chronicle

Pretty much straight off the bat of filming for Where Currents Meet I jumped into the sound design edit suite, back in the comforts of sound I got to re-enter the world of Saint Catherines. I was really pleasantly surprised by my on-set recordings. Recording sound on set as I have mentioned previously is something I find very stressful. In the suite is where I belong and feel most comfortable and in control. I found initially I had to find my bearings again and relearn everything, but I feel I got to where I needed to be.

Sadly mid-way through I got ill from exhaustion, so I had to take a break from the project and stay in bed for a few days.

I was really happy with the sound in the above scene 5, where Phoebe comes back from being assaulted. The sound design here was very minimal and raw and I think it hits the spot exactly where I wanted to do so.

I did not use any SFX for this project which I would say is quite unheard of, it is not my typical goal, by no means, but it did feel like an accomplishment and a reflection of how much and how well I recorded things on set. And also what a great working environment I had that allowed me to do this. Again, thank you Orla! I recorded Foley in the foley suite at Screen Academy for select sounds only, such as the bottle dropping in scene 4, the footsteps outside the caravan in scene 4, extra layers for when Harry touches Phoebe in scenes 6 and 8 and Jo and Phoebe hugging in scene 11. Otherwise, the only thing that I recorded in a different space was the kettle sound in scene 7, which I recorded in my home because I decided to cut one sound recording take on set short as we were holding everyone else up at that point.

Here are two photos of me on ProTools, one is my session with all its many folders each per scene and the other is me trying to do processing without destroying audio:

As part of my sound post-production, I went to Portobello with my mum, as we sometimes do, to audio record her walking into the water, this was meant for layering scene 10 where Phoebe walks into the water. Sadly the recordings were unusable because it was so windy, so I used the onset ones instead and processed them a little and removed wind from them. Even though I didn't end up using this it was part of my creative process. Here is my mum, my foley artist holding the recording gear for me:

I struggled the most with scene 8 (the confrontation between Phoebe and Harry) and scene 11 (resolution/support/confiding between Pheobe and Jo). The dialogue in these scenes was particularly damaged and difficult to fix due to surrounding sounds such as traffic, wind and waves. I am happy with what I managed even if I still think it could be much better. Scene 11's dialogue is practically all recorded in the sound take afterwards and I chopped and added it into the timeline, so the fact that it is synced well is something I feel proud about.

I am very happy with the final product of my sound design. I feel like my hard work has really paid off. I must mention that Orla, Katie and Zoe's feedback were all very helpful in different ways. On the whole, I feel it is finished but I feel there are a few things I could tweak if that is something Orla would like, but if not I am happy to let go because I know I will otherwise never move on to the next thing. So I might be in the sound edit suite briefly to reconvene but otherwise, my work here is done.

Cinematography is something that has frightened me in this course, I tried it once or twice in second year, and I always made the connection that doing art/composition and framing would mean cinematography would be my thing. But in the last 4 years I was scared of it, and all the technicalities that come with it. All the lighting and lenses and knowledge!! The more I avoided it because I was scared, the more scared I got. But I always thought about trying it once more.

Then, when Orla proposed the idea of me being a cinematographer for Saint Catherines, I was scared again! I thought about it for a while. But... I think I already knew I would say yes. And I'm so glad I did.

So! It's time to thank the camera team that made this possible :)

Eva, my 1st AC:

Eva is a miracle worker. She is so focused and unbelievably talented! Even though she is so much more experienced than me, I really appreciated that she just allowed me to do the best I could, and didn't overstep (which must've been tempting haha)!! She helped me realise my shots and was just generally an angel all round. :) I feel so lucky to have worked with her.

Sam, my 2nd AC:

Sam was such a joy to be around, and I was and am forever impressed by how dedicated he is to camera. He was so passionate and immensely helpful the whole way through, and I can't wait for his grad film!! He even did some 1st ACing on the last day when Eva left, and we were both a bit nervous but he absolutely smashed it :)

Alex, my gaffer

Alex was such a gem, crediting him as gaffer alone almost feels wrong. He was always there for me and I loved talking through lighting plans with him but also deferring to his experience in lighting and giving him the freedom to experiment a bit! He was also so respectful of my instructions and wishes and I think we worked so well together. :)

Saint Catherines THE SHOOT

The shoot for Saint Catherines was a very heartwarming experience.

We started out checking the equipment at Craglockhart Kit Stores where I colour-coded every character's lavalier microphone so that I could quickly and easily differentiate between transmitters and receivers on set and also know immediately whose was whose and thus where to connect it on my MixPre 10 on which I gave each character a channel each. The boom was 1, Phoebe 2, Harry 3, Jo 4 and Sara 5. The colour choices were Phoebe blue, Harry red, Jo yellow and Sara green. I also in a previous session where I had booked out the MixPre 10 to go over settings, learned how to use the WingMan App's reports (using a Youtube video), which is a log of the notes you make on each take on set, which is super helpful for post-production. This was the first time I used the MixPre 10 on set with so many channels and the first time I recorded a 4 people simultaneous setup.

We had also been introduced to the Tenacle Sync which syncs the timecode for camera and sound and saves time in the edit. I took it upon myself to set this up every day and coordinate with camera because they had so many other things to worry about. We had had a brief previous session going over how to use it and I messed up because I had put a cable in the wrong port of the MixPre I did not realise this until the last day, so the tentacles were synced but the MixPre was not receiving the timecode, but the camera was. So we only had the last day synced automatically, which took away time from our editor, Alyssa, but she had factored this into her edit window anyway. I still felt guilty and this was a massive learning curve for me. It will never happen again!

Here is a photo from the session of how it should have been and I forgot to double-check the photo, rookie mistake:

Back to Craiglockhart Campus, after checking all of the equipment, Katie, Eva and I helped Orla load up a van with the equipment and once we had done this she drove off to Saint Catherines. I then drove myself and some of our crew (Katie, Eva, Alex and Sophie, our continuity supervisor) to Saint Catherines.

From here I won't go entirely in chronological order because so many things happened, so I will just give some key highlights and summaries of what happened. Every day we would shoot from about 9 to 5 and in the evenings we would relax and play werewolf which became a proper daily ritual.

Before the shoot, I had been quite nervous about being in charge of sound mixing and recording because I usually find this very hard and run into many issues. After all, there are always issues when recording sound that in some instances are out of your control. But on the shoot, I fell in love with sound recording and found myself getting into the groove and getting more and more comfortable with it. Something I have to say is that when I listen back to my recordings and see photos of me on set I hear and see how serious I am! I think this will be my nerves coming out and me wanting to do my best, it must be the German in me or something because I am never so to the point and sharp. With the expressions, I am not as worried because I know I have a bit of a resting bitch face.

As we were recording both inside and outside I found the struggles for these were very different. Inside the mics were more sensitive in the smaller space and the lighting setups created lots of whirring sounds. Outside cars were extremely loud as we were situated right next to a main road, something I had been aware of on the location recce, but it had seemed like a much quieter road at the time. There was also a construction site where someone was building a house, but somehow this did not interfere with dialogue too much.

Something I learned about dialogue was to do with recording overlapping dialogue. When so many people are on set it is very hard to avoid having actors not interrupt each other during takes. Usually, they will and this will be what is used in the final picture edit because it is a natural performance and what is required of them but in sound, this means the different character's dialogue are not separable from each other which means it is less manipulatable and hard to get rid of. Usually, dialogue is separated into each character but when there are interruptions this is harder. However, overall my dialogue was mostly very clear and I had fewer problems with it than I expected. While on set I was most nervous about scenes 8 and 11, which are the confrontation scene and the support and reconciliation with a friend scene. These are arguably the two most important scenes of the film. Sadly when I got to the sound design I found these were the hardest to work on and contained the most affected dialogue due to loud wind, waves, and traffic.

On this project I learned a lot about micing up the cast, I looked into it and found that placing the mic between the dip in their chest proved to provide the best and smoothest audio. For women, this dip is in between their breasts and I found this was a very new situation for me to navigate. I was told by friends that on their sets women had to lav themselves up, but the actresses had no idea how to do this and I did not find it fair to ask this of them, nor did I want to risk having bad dialogue. But we were lucky, who knew being gay can pay off in the workplace. I would lav up the actresses while my boom op George would lav up the only actor. I would navigate this by ensuring actresses felt comfortable and most of this involved them moving the microphone through their clothes themselves and even holding it in place in the necessary dip. My main point of contact was applying the mic to their chest with medical tape that I had procured before the shoot. What I also had to take into consideration was costume. Different costumes required different lav positioning and these also required different housings made out of tape, something that I learned from Tom in the test shoot and then adapted to fit my own needs. These housings lessened contact between the lav and the costume. Laving up the actresses would get quicker each day and we quickly found our rhythm and a way to make this work for each of them. From the second day after having a noisy necklace on our lead I would speak to costume and as much as possible ask for changes if they were detrimental to sound. This of course did not always happen, but I found solutions along the way.

I was absolutely blessed with Orla, I feel we worked really well together and she always left space for sound. This was something we had spoken about previously and I had requested extra room for not only time for room tone but also wildtrack sound takes of actions and sometimes even dialogue, especially where there had been interruptions previously. This meant I had many options in the design for when things had gone wrong in the actual takes. As Orla is a sound person as well as a director this is something she pushed for so I got nearly every sound recorded in the space where we shot it. They would call wrap for camera and then me, George and the actors would record whatever was on my sound shopping list for that scene. Every afternoon after shooting George and I would go over what we were shooting the next day to make sure we had everything on the shopping list that was needed. Overall I was super happy with clear dialogue and production sound. I know the actors had also never taken part in wildtracks before and I am aware I was in a very lucky position and I am very thankful for it, I think it really paid off in the sound design edit.

I felt we worked incredibly well as a team and built some close working relationships and friendships. Everyone put in so much and without each and every person we would not have been able to make the film that we made. Katie and her camera department were incredible, I have described them as a well-oiled machine and they were just that. Also working with Katie has been a creative experience that I really enjoyed because I feel we connected really well and worked hard together. Having Eva on set was such a relief, she is so near and dear to my heart and it was nice to see her excel and be such a strong support for the camera team. She was also a big support for me as sets can be stressful and having her presence around meant I had something and someone from home and it was nice to also work on a grad film together. George as my boom op was my saviour coming on board very last minute and being an incredible boom op, he has his own separate post coming up. One day as a treat I let him sound record because I was going to do on set folley footsteps to the water's edge to replicate Phoebe's steps towards the water. He again excelled. Orla was an incredible director and made an incredible space for everyone on set, she looked after all of us so well and kept us on the right path. We all felt we were in safe hands and we definitely were. The cast was really well picked and as the days went on they fell deeper into their characters and we all very quickly believed who they were. The whole crew was great to work with and helped provide a positive atmosphere on set.

My one issue on set was the bathroom and shower issues that we had, but this was unavoidable as we were so many people and our lodgings were not used to this. As an IBS girlie, I had multiple evenings and mornings where I would run to the car drive from the lodge to the caravan carefully to then barge in and use the toilet. Cold showers were not an issue as this is something I do regularly. I was a bit cheeky and had these every day as I am unbearable to be around when I am unshowered so it was best for everyone that I broke this rule. Or at least that's what I am telling myself, but I know I get insufferably grumpy when I feel unclean.

I did find I had to manage my stress and my resting bitch face, but with time both eased and by the end I felt completely in my element as if this was something I had been doing for a long time.

So at the end of the shoot, I found myself as a happy sound girl, as we say, I fell in love with sound recording and felt comfortable and in my element. We all made it back to Edinburgh in one piece and so did our equipment, which myself Orla and the camera department helped unload.

Here are some shots and even a little video from all of our days on set, as you can see we had a blast:

The Saint Catherines Fundraiser, Pub Quiz and Open Mic Night

After the location recce, we were having an issue as a group with our funding. We had much less than we expected to have and there was little time remaining until our shoot and we knew we needed more money than we had to make the film. So despite Orla's incredible efforts and organisation expertise the money just wasn't coming to the extent that we had planned for on our crowdfunder.

We talked as a group and after attending Oj Tato's fundraiser Katie and I were keen to organise a fundraiser of our own. This was something we had both wanted previously but were unsure if we would have the time to do it, but seeing Oj Tato's night we felt inspired to do it. Orla and Jack as our co-producers amongst so many other roles, on different films as well, had so many things on their plate that it made sense for us to help out extra and make the fundraiser happen so that they had something less to worry about and think about. I took this role as lead organiser, so to say because as DOP, Katie still had more to do than I did in preproduction.

Upon Katie's suggestion of getting in touch with The Three Sisters and them not replying to her email, I took matters further and emailed them as well as called them immediately after and thus secured the venue, which we could hire for free as students and solidified our fundriaser's timeframe and an estimated capacity for the event.

I then put together a running order which was as follows:

Doors Open: 7pm

Start: 8pm Katie and Orla introduce the project Screen Proof of Concept (Test Shoot): 8:10pm

Talks by Charities: 8:20pm ⁃ Sexpression and Sex on Campus

Pub Quiz: 9pm-10:30pm ⁃ Rounds: 1) Film and TV, 2) Women in History, 3) Music and 4) Physical Challenge

Open Mic: 10:30pm ⁃ Open to all to participate

End/Doors Close: 00:00

I also made an Eventbrite and created an account on Square: Point for Sale, so that we could sell tickets, merch and artwork at the door.

Here is what the Eventbrite looked like:

The photo right above this is the beautiful poster that Katie designed for the event which we posted on our Instagram and Eventbrite page.

Here is the link to the Eventbrite (It looks a bit different now because the event has happened and Eventbrite does not show all the information after the event):

Katie and I had an art session before the event where we created paintings, postcards and t-shirts with Saint Catherines written on them underneath a print of the view from Saint Catherines onto the hills that overlook Loch Fyne. These were our prize products and they required some planning to figure out how to execute them and they took hours to make. But we were super happy with the results.

On the night we started off with Orla and Katie introducing the project (their love child as I secretly call it). We then screened our test shoot as our proof of concept to show everyone who was attending what the film would be about.

Making a film on such a delicate and important topic as sexual assault we all agreed it would be great for us to have some charities there to speak to our audience and show other projects that are currently making a difference and fighting against sexual assault in society and trying to make the world a better place. I organised for two student-led charities to speak at the event. These were Sexpression and Sex on Campus, both are run by Edinburgh University students and support a cause that we at Saint Catherines thoroughly support as well. Sexpression is a sex educator group that is based at universities UK-wide where students go to schools and teach sex education to pupils from ages 11 to 18. I am part of this group outside of uni and can confirm that it is run and handled with great professionalism and care for young people's safety and ensuring that they feel more comfortable moving forward through their youth and into young adult life. Sex on Campus was a more similar and well-paired cause to our project as it is battling rape culture in universities, especially at Edinburgh University. Sex on Campus is even affiliated with our film which felt like a very special backing to have which we are honoured to have and very grateful for. I'm afraid we were unable to have Sexpression's affiliation as they are such a big charity and their affiliation would have meant that they would have been involved in the edit of the film as well.

Here are some photos of Sexpression and Sex on Campus giving talks at the fundraiser:

I also created a pub quiz with help from Katie on a few sections and this was the absolute hit. Or at least I had so much fun making it and hosting it as well. We, of course, had a film and television round, a women's history round (because of our feminist crew and project), a music round and as inspired by James Fox himself we had a physical challenge round, where we had participants suck and lift skittles with straws from one plate onto another. What I really enjoyed about this was trying to make it into a quiz that was doable for a different audience to your typical quiz goer, offering music and film choices that I would mostly actually be able to get myself, when usually I can only offer a couple of answers correctly. I tried to put in a little something for everyone, but of course, you can't make everyone happy. My favourite part was the physical challenge because it completely changed the dynamic and the atmosphere in the room.

Here are some photos from the quiz, including Katie and I hosting, the physical challenge set up and people at their quizing tables:

At the end of the night, Katie hosted an open mic night which was really special as well. That girl can sing! No, really her voice is beautiful and actually features in both soundtracks of Saint Catherines and Where Currents Meet.

The fundraiser was a success and helped us with getting together some substantial money for our film. Most importantly though it was a great time and felt very rewarding. It reminded me why I am on a project like this trying to support and further a cause I believe in so strongly.

Funnily enough a couple of days after the fundraiser we had a massive donation from an anonymous donor who turned out to be a rich man Orla had met at a bar a month earlier. We all joked about it, but this just happened to be someone who often puts money into different projects and we were lucky. And even though we might not have needed to do the fundraiser if we had known he would donate, I am still so happy to have done it. It showed me that I can organise events to a level that I am very happy with and can be organised when I put my mind to it.

Inspired by Oj Tato, and knowing that events were a great way to both celebrate Saint Catherines’ potential, and raise money(!) Peer and I were the main instigators of creating our fundraiser. I have to allocate about 80% of that to Peer to be honest, as he was so on it and passionate about it happening! I did however find the potential venue, remembering that we are allowed to use the Napier student union room in Three Sisters for FREE!!! (Thanks longboard nights ;)) which seemed like an obvious win. Peer then remembered that there is a nicer venue room that photography students use, also in three sisters! So I reached out to them. They did not reply and I was stumped (I am definitely not producer material). Peer then stepped in and called them somehow (no idea where he found the number, I couldn’t!) and we secured it no problem :)

Peer and I also wanted to make merch to sell and as we both love doing art we thought printing shirts with fabric paint would be cool and a one-of-a-kind way to support Saint Cats.

The red picture above was some plastic-y material that we painted onto and then we printed it onto the shirts! This also meant it dried way faster than it otherwise would have… and each one was unique!

Here is what they looked like on (thank you ben and alex, very cute)

And we also made some paintings! I did only a few small ones… - peer was much more industrious and got a tonne of beautiful larger ones done!! Was so impressed by his dedication. :)) also his boyfriend Steven did a few!

Peer also secured some speakers from local charities Sex On Campus and Sexpression, which was such a cool idea and was so important to the message of the film.

content warning: discussion of sexual assault

I think in writing about something as intangible yet personal as sexual assault, where different people have varying expectations and knowledge and boundaries, it is very hard to write a narrative that meets it with the respect and nuance it deserves. Most often I think it ends up being the pinnacle of drama, because an act so violating is a draw for drama and tension, and aligns us with the morality of characters. Sexual harassment, assault and rape are all also tied strongly into our culture and how we construct power/gender, and are often topics kept behind closed doors. Many people understandably don't know their own boundaries, or reflect back on an experience that they were uncomfortable about without labeling it as sexual assault. It's extremely personal and also unfortunately extremely common.

When writing and shooting Saint Catherines, I wasn't even particularly interested or focused on the act of sexual assault itself, but rather how the dynamic of a group, in the culture we live in, would work its way around such a thing happening. Sometimes it is said that we live in a rape culture, and I suppose this is what I was also interested in. When Sara doubts Phoebe, she is making excuses for her own discomfort at having to reconcile 'Harry the friend' with 'Harry the wrongdoer', thus she finds it hard to confront the Harry who is really there. It's very hard to see your friend do something awful.

For Phoebe it's particularly awful, but I didn't want to relegate her to victim status in this narrative. There's nothing wrong with being a victim, but I perhaps wondered what would happen if Phoebe had been beginning to suspect that Harry wasn't such a great friend to her (or Jo, for example, who often gets sidelined in the group as the quieter one). When developing the script of Saint Catherines, I talked to Chris about Phoebe's agency. He recommended that I make her stronger, with more authority even. I remember talking to Orla about a Greta Gerwig quote she liked about how Gerwig mentioned that when she writes characters, she makes them braver than herself.

Saint Catherines Reflection of Final Film

Overall I am very happy with the finished product of Saint Catherines. I feel all of our hard work has come together and is clearly visible. As for sound, I am very happy with my results there. Minus scenes 8 and 11, I feel the film is finished to a standard that I am proud of. The two scenes I have mentioned need to go back to an earlier form where they are less processed and more delicately edited.

I feel the first 4 scenes introduce the characters very well and my hours of work have paid off here. There are very few things I would change here if at all and I am very happy with transitions from scene to.

I am very happy with how scenes 5 and 6, after the assault, have turned out as I feel they have this tight close feeling and really bring across Phoebe's POV.

Scene 7 where she starts to realise what has happened has become one of my favourite scenes as there was less to work with in a way in terms of sound when I received it but I feel now it really works as an even better beat in the story.

Scene 8, the confrontation, is a scene I am not very happy with, with all of the cars in the background and some issues with the EQ of both actors, this is not only processing but also some issues I have yet to fix.

For scene 9, the smaller confrontation between Phoebe and Sara I am happy, but it is not my favourite scene even though a lot of effort has gone into designing the different movements and textures of this scene.

I'm very happy with scene 10 as I feel it has turned out nearly exactly how I wanted, the only issue is the transition into the following scene.

Scene 11 was the bane of my existence and I always knew it would be the hardest scene to fix. I hope to find a sweeter spot if I were to go back into it where I can fix the dialogue an make it less processed.

I really enjoyed working with the score I felt this worked really well with the film and helped further build the world.

My biggest achievement for this project is my recording, and that I have recorded every sound that you can hear in the film except for the score. This is not something I usually by any means aim for as I have mentioned but I am happy to have managed it on this occasion and I do feel it adds to the natural feeling that we have gone for in the project.

Location Recce for Saint Catherines

For Saint Catherines, one thing we knew early on was where we would be filming. The film is named after the place where it is set, as I believe, I have previously mentioned on this blog. This is because Orla and Katie found through research that sexual assault victims often relate the place where they were assaulted to the assault itself. This meant as the name suggests we would be shooting in the small Scottish town of Saint Catherines which is on the shore of Loch Fyne and thus looks out onto a relatively calm and very beautiful body of water. I had previously wondered if we could film somewhere nearer to Edinburgh as this seemed easier to me, but upon seeing the location it was without a question to me why we had to film there.

Orla had had the namesake and location of the film in mind from reviewing first drafts with Katie, having gone there on several holidays herself when she was younger. And so Orla had both our set location (the caravan) and crew accommodation (a lodge nearby) booked in and sorted well in advance with her family and family friends who owned both properties. She is such an organised and incredible person, and I have to say I aspire to her level of organisation, togetherness, iconicness and all-around loveliness. It is always a pleasure working with her.

So before we entered production we knew that we, the rest of the core HOD's, needed to go to Saint Catherines for a location recce. It was quite the road trip. We did this at the beginning of February, giving us plenty of time to plan for each department. This was a little later than we had planned because the MOT of my parents' car had expired, so we had to wait an extra week until this was sorted. We only drive safely and legally of course! That makes it sound like we don't, but I promise we do. Luckily the extra wait did not impact things too much because Orla had planned this well in advance so going a week later did not affect the rest of our schedule or creative process.

I was our driver and the rest of the gang brought the vibes. It was Orla, Katie, Jack and me. Aimee and Alyssa couldn't make it and there weren't enough seats in the car for all of us anyway. The road trip brought us into the holiday spirit that is an essential nostalgic element of the film and really added to the experience of our filmmaking and creative process, even from this preproduction stage of recceing the location.

The overall return journey took around 5 hours, roughly 2 and a half hours each way but sitting in the car flew by as we played music from each of us which is something that Katie does with her family where we each would select a song from each decade gradually moving forwards in time. It was a nice way to see who had picked what song.

As an experience, I feel this really brought us together and gave us a sense of being a team.

The journey was not only fun, because there was a major accident and we had to go on a little diversion to arrive at our destination and Google Maps nearly led us onto a private army firing zone. But we made it and it was also very beautiful because we were surrounded by stunning Scottish landscape whilst driving through all 4 seasons.

When we arrived it was snowing so we stayed in the car until it died down. This was not something we had expected, but being February in Scotland it was not out of the ordinary.

Being on set location helped further materialise the film for each department. Although we were unable to get into the caravan we could still get a real sense of the location. Each department could find things that they would need to think about and develop for themselves. Katie looked at her shortlist and saw how shots would look within the space. I recorded sounds within the space to see what it would sound like and this later translated into my sound shopping list and my sound design where I think about the wooden steps leading up to the caravan or the gravel ground around it. Or the pebbles and seaweed at the shore of the loch or the crunch of the leaves in the forest. Looking at the caravan from outside as a space before shooting also gave me a sense of claustrophobia and entrapment within such a beautiful location that I hoped to use somehow within the film's sound design where I planned to keep the sound space within the caravan close and tight.

Here is a recording I took of steps on the pier and in the surrounding seaweed there.

Overall, I feel the location recce was a key part of our early foundation of the film that further solidified the group and project into one.

Here are some photos of the location recce crew (I felt the others look like they are in a band):

Here is a link to a video of the recce that Orla put together on the Saint Catherines Instagram: