Editing

To begin with I created several mono tracks for the sounds I recorded in the sound studio, and began to play around with inserts to see if I could make them sound more fairytale like. I soon decided that I thought the effects made the clips sound tacky and I didn't like the effect of them at all.

I then imported the rest of my sounds from the Roland into my pro tools session and named all the clips appropriately so I could keep track of them throughout the edit. 

I began to layer up the sounds with my voiceover in mind, and with them building up slowing and peaking at intensity in the middle. 

With my sound piece I was aiming to keep a fairytale, sort of creepy, haunting effect going throughout, as in Grimms' fairytales especially,  fairytales were rarely all light and fluffy and usually had much darker undertones when you read the original. This is why in my piece, although the part that is read out is the beginning of the fairytale, the soundscape is actually quite creepy (well that's what I was aiming for). I wanted this to be the case as one the surface, a fairytale is a sweet story with happy endings but when you look deeper into them they are actually pretty messed up at times.

I used a recording of the opening of a book at the beginning of the piece to emphasise that it was the start of a story, and used a lot of fade in/outs through the work so that everything flowed together well.

As I suspected I did run into a few issues with wind noise in the background of some of the clips I recorded outside. I then discovered a way to use the inserts that was actually really useful to me, I used the frequency shifter to remove certain frequencies from the clips such as the wind. This made them sound so much clearer and I was really glad I changed my mind about using the effects.

I also raised the pitch of some of the clinking sounds to make them sound higher and slightly more etherial which I wanted so they matched the theme more.

I had to spend a long time correcting the sound on my piece as for some reason through my editing I had repeatedly adjusted the sound on individual clips and turned them down, so overall my piece was very quiet but there were a few sounds that seemed were relatively quiet but actually caused the sound to peak, such as clicks or snaps. I had to either take down the volume for those particular tracks or cut the sounds out. I also tried compressing the piece but I found that doing that made the whole piece sound different to what it was and so I decided that the areas that were effecting the sound I could either remove without taking anything from the overall piece or just make quieter with fade ins etc.

Recording Sounds

As my text extract is from a fairytale, I wanted the sounds I used to reflect that in my work. Following this theme I decided to use a lot of natural sounds in my work. To record my sounds I used a mix of sound studio and field recording. 

In the studio I brought with me a large variety of items to use, such as rice, wooden items, water and glass. I asked my friend to help me so that I could record the sounds from the operating room and she could use the items I brought with me in the recording booth to makes different noises with. 

We experimented with using the same item in different ways to create more than one sound I could use, which meant I would have a lot of stuff to pick from in the edit, and it's always better to have options later on, when I won't be able to book out the sound studio again in time.

I just tried to think of any sound you would associate with a fairytale and tried to recreate that, such as tinkley sounds, or hooves, rain, chains clinking, fires crackling or walking/running and any number of things that I could imagine in a fairytale setting.

I made sure I saved all of my sounds to my hard drive to use later on when it came to editing.

Then I used a Roland to go out and record a lot more natural sounds. I went to a local park, and using the Roland I recorded leaves rustling, walking through dead leaves, knocking on old wooden doors and creaking gates. I was worried that there would be a lot of wind noise and tried to stop it as much as I could, although I knew it was inevitable that some would get through. It was unfortunately, a very windy autumn day.

A week or so after I had recorded the sounds for the soundscape, I booked the sound studio out again and I asked someone I know on the creative writing and journalism course to come and help me out by reading out my text extract. 

She was more than willing to oblige and really enjoyed trying out different voices with the extract, some of which were hilarious as she is rather good at accents.

In the end I tried to keep it simple, and knew I'd end up using the first take. This one she had recorded without faltering, was very clear and spoke in such a way as that I knew I probably wouldn't need to record anything else all morning. 

Nonetheless I had booked out the studio so I decided to carry on anyway, and at one point she whispered her way through the text which I made me hesitate in my decision to use the first recording we did. I then thought about another way in which I could incorporate both.

It was a very successful morning until I realised later on I had exported my files in the wrong format and had to go back to the recording suite with my sound tutor and re-export my sounds correctly - nearly had a heart attack when I first realised, but luckily they were still saved on the computer.

Learning Pro Tools

Pro Tools

Last year we had to create a soundscape as a part of our course and we were taught how to use Adobe Audition to complete it. This term however we were taught to use a completely new sound editing software called Pro Tools. At first this was very disorientating as the layout was completely different and it was the first software we had been exposed to really that wasn't Adobe, however once we got the hang of the basics it became clear that they are really quite similar - of course they would have to be as they are merely different tools to create the same thing. 

We were first of all shown how to import sounds into the clips folder and into tracks. We were shown how to rename clips and tracks so we can keep our edit window organised. 

We were also shown how to cut and edit different sounds together and how to use different tools on clips such as the fade in, overlay, highlight, cut, slow down/speed up and others as well.

Research for Text Extract for Sound

It took me a long time to find the right text piece for my sound project as we had no limitations on what we could use. This meant I could pick literally anything I wanted and even write something myself if I wanted.
Initially I thought about looking in religious texts such as the Bible, but decided that quite a lot of people would be doing that and changed my mind. I knew I definitely didn't want to write it myself as I would have no idea where to begin, and realised that getting something from a book would be my best chance.
At first I began to look at poems such as 'Do not go gentle into that good night' By Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I loved the imagery of the piece and the descriptions incorporated in the stanzas were amazing but I couldn't decide what segment would be best to use for my project and I couldn't imagine the soundscape in my mind, there would have been a lot of different ways I could go with it! 

After a while I moved on, and began looking at books such as 'Infernal Devices' (K.W. Jeter) which I thought would have a lot of descriptive text in it due to the steampunk theme. I thought the way the author wrote about different machines would be really cool to create a soundscape for. Unfortunately there wasn't a segment I found that jumped out at me, the book is also written in first person and is more about describing that persons emotions - which, while that would be cool to create a soundscape for someones emotions, it wasn't really what I had in mind for what I wanted to do with this piece.

I also looked at 'Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children' (Ransom Riggs) and I found a couple of segments that I almost used but decided against as I couldn't settle on which one I liked most. 

Eventually I decided to try something else, and started looking at the most basic type of story there is - fairytales.

The one that I found that spoke out to me the most was the original introduction to 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.'

Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing, and the frame of the window was made of black ebony. And whilst she was sewing and  looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. And the red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself, what if I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window-frame.

I thought that the visual descriptions used in the piece had a really pleasant aesthetic and the simplicity of the writing allowed me a lot of creative freedom with my sound piece, so I decided that this would be the text extract that I would use.

Presentation

Initial Idea

Our concept is derived from the networks part of our theme, looking into connections and links between events in day to day life.

We looked at Chaos Theory and The Butterfly Effect, and decided this would be a good starting point to build on.

The Butterfly Effect is the notion that small events have large consequences - such as a butterfly flapping its wings creating atmospheric disturbances that could cause a hurricane on the other side of the planet. This theory also relates to everyday events and paths leading to outcomes and consequences that could easily have differed if one thing in the sequence had diverged. From this we decided we wanted to make a short video piece exploring a narrative or chain of events in a mundane situation, looking at connections and networks and how everything and everyone is connected in the choices and paths they take, affecting others without them even knowing that it's happening.

Example of The Butterfly Effect in films

To start our research off we looked at scenes within films we were already aware of such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Mr Nobody.
In the following clips they show a chain of everyday acts in different peoples lives, all happening by chance but if any one of them had happened differently, the outcome would not have been the same.
These scenes try and explain this in narrated short stories.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button



Mr Nobody



Twin Screen Idea

For our idea, we thought of making our short film into a twin screen piece. This would enable us to show two different outcomes for the same person. Both screens will show the same footage for an amount of time, until in one of the films, an action is different to the other, and therefore the paths diverge and both sides of the screen have two different possible endings to the scenario.

Sugar Water


Summery of Film Plan

• Twin screen
• 2 different outcomes
• One main character - Nicole's Grandad?
• Follows path of small actions/events
• No narration
• Two screens, one on top of other
• No dialogue
• Primary location - Grandads house

Maps and Networks Initial Ideas

When we got given out maps and networks theme, I instantly began to think about where this topic could take me. As our piece is an installation piece I didn't quite know where to start as this was a very new area for me. I ended up having quite a few ideas of how I could make the piece an installation but not having any sort of thought of what I wanted to show behind it.
I was thinking along the lines of interaction for the audience as well, so what I was thinking was placing a giant map of the world on a wall and getting the audience to place a pin on where they're from. It would be displayed of course inside the uni, and there is a very diverse range of countries that are represented here so I was thinking it would be interesting to see how widespread it was.

It was inspired in a way by the work of Arem Bartholl, who did an interesting piece about maps and technology. He used large red map markers from Google maps and placed them in the spot that Google maps said the city centre was.

I found this an interesting notion and began to plan similar ideas. I quickly found however that I wasn't very invested or interested in this notion and realised that without those key feelings this would end up being a very dull project that I wouldn't be very motivated to complete.

Another issue with this idea is that it wasn't really an idea, there is no meaning behind it and it was a very shallow notion with no depth, so I quickly moved on.

I decided that I would probably produce something better if I 1) looked at subjects I find interesting and 2) considered collaborating with someone else so we could bounce ideas of each other, make filming easier and help spread out the work enabling us to do a better project.

So with that in mind I proposed the idea to Nicole who agreed with me and we decided to work together for the project.
We began by doing some mind maps around the theme and finding as many different possible directions we could go in as possible.

We spent some time thinking about what direction we wanted to go in from the theme, and decided networks/connections would be a really interesting route to go down as it's so broad and we could interpret it in so many different ways.
We came up with the concept of 'The Butterfly Effect'. This is the notion that tiny events can have large consequences - such as a butterfly flapping its wings creating changes in the atmosphere that eventually result in a hurricane. It is another name from a branch of mathematics called 'chaos theory'.
We originally thought of the sequence in the 2008 film 'Benjamin Button' as a perfect way to explain it.

Props

Props

An object used traditionally in theatre during a performance. They are usually fake copies of objects from real life, such as fake guns used in movies.
The earliest known props were masks used in the theatre of ancient Greece.

These masks were used in celebrations and rites to honour the Gods and were made out of organic materials that were placed on alters after the performance. They were used to help the actor vanish into the role and covered their entire face with just holes for the eyes and mouth.

The word 'prop' comes from the term 'theatrical property' and was used to describe objects used in plays to further the action.
Originally used in plays, musicals and circuses and over the years extending into television, film and other media.
Props are kept on a table/in a room backstage and are managed by the props master/mistress and they are in charge of all the items.

Props table

'Prop' is a that moved easily over the film and tv, and over the years a rising popularity of 'movie memorabilia' (often also including costumes) extended the after life of props as many collectors will pay a lot of money for items from films/shows they love. In some cases after the film has been released, directors/actors/producers/people who made the film will sometimes put items in an online aution or a charity event to raise money for a cause.

Sometimes the director will give a prop to an actor if there was something iconic linked to that character, such as in 'Lord of the Rings' when director Peter Jackson gave the main cast each something related to the character such as 'The One Ring' being given to actor Elijah Wood who played 'Frodo'.

The key thing for props is that they look real to the audience. They shouldn't be able to tell if a gun is made out of plastic, or if that giant piece of metal weighs next to nothing. The harsh lights and hd cameras also mean that even if a prop is real then it might not look it on screen and so has to be made to look even more realistic than the real thing does. If that makes sense.

Sometimes props have to be designed differently to normal for the sake of safety. For example guns and swords. 'Prop weapons' need to look real, but not be able to hurt anyone. Guns will fire only blanks, swords have dulled edges and knifes are usually made of plastic or rubber. The proper handling of the real weapons being used as film props is the primary job of the props master.