Evaluation

For my sound designs, the films I picked were PI and Oblivion, PI being for the first task, as it was my first task doing sound design properly it gave me a chance to get to grips with Protools. The strengths of the PI sound design were that it the mood was understood and the sounds reflected the darkness of the black and white footage, the mood and tone was set with a low frequency sound being heard throughout, this definitely gave an understanding of the space that was being seen. The foley sounds that had been created were clean and synced up well with the visuals on screen, a lot of the foley sounds had been created using unusual objects that wouldn’t usually be associated with the objects that they had been used for. The anger of the main protagonist was also felt with a lot of high impact sounds when he begins to go crazy. I feel that it was also strong in the way that there was no music or midi sounds used, so all of the sounds involved were that of what we were seeing, which suited the mood and tone of the film well. 

The weaknesses of this piece were that although the low frequency suited the mood it didn’t change at all throughout and should have as it becomes quite ominous, there were also clicks heard throughout the low frequency. I feel that some of the sounds that had been done through foley didn’t quite suite the sounds they were meant to be, for example the drill and also the sticky stuff that is also featured. The keyboard sound that was used for the typewriter also didn’t work as well as it could have as the sound wasn’t heavy enough for the keyboard seen in PI. Overall throughout this I believe I achieved most of what I wanted to achieve it helped me to understand foley better but in terms of the actual film I feel that I set the mood and tone that I wanted to and things I changed were that I didn’t put as much sound in for the male protagonist as I wanted and should have done.

For the major project I worked on Oblivion, this gave me a chance to do something experimental as its Sci – FI and futuristic. The strengths of this piece were that a major part of the piece was done through a midi keyboard, this set a mood and tone for the type of place that it was set in, the midi sounds echoed what was being seen in the visuals and was moving through each scene with different sounds creating different tones. A lot of the sounds were unusual and linked together quite well. The other sounds that had been put in all suited the electronic sounds, for example the sounds used for the touch screen matched up well and the sound used was what you might expect to hear.

The weaknesses in this piece were that the Midi sounds might have been a bit overdone and kind of took it away from the actions of the characters, this meant that the sounds lack the element of telling the story that we were seeing. The tone that was created definitely could have been a lot more subtle in its approach perhaps just taking some of the levels down are maybe just not even using them. 
From my initial ideas I wanted this sound design to be very electronic based and I think from a personal perspective this is what I achieved I felt that the electronic sounds suited the futuristic style of the film, things that changed were that in my initially plans I didn’t want to involve many of the sounds of the characters or what we were actually seeing as I really wanted the electronic sounds to take you through the moods and feelings shown in the visuals.

This was my first time of using of Protools, which meant that doing these projects would help me get to grips with it. In the process of making this work I feel that I have been very passionate in my approach and I have tried to doing things different and be quite experimental with my approach. The process of making PI for me was to watch the silent clip over and over again noting down every sound that I thought would be needed; this helped me to get an idea of the mood and tone of the film. I also thought that the best way for me to think of sounds would be down get some equipment out and try out loads of different objects to see what sounds they created and whether or not they would fit in with what I was going for, by doing this I did fine a few different sounds that I quite liked and decided to put them in and experiment with the variety of different editing tools available. Due to it being directed by Darren Aronofsky, I thought it would be a good idea to watch another film of his, so to watch Black Swan, I think this helped massively as it gave me little bits of inspiration that I could carry through into my own ideas.

For Oblivion my approach was very similar, I decided to just keep watching the clip over and over again to try and understand the tone of the clip, as I wanted to go very electronic based, this prompted me to get a midi keyboard out and trawl through the many different sounds available on Protools, I found this a great way to understand the way the sounds would fit into the clip and whether or not they would match up. To get into the mind set I decided to listen to loads of different electronic music that I like, such as Bonobo and Jamie XX as to me when I listen them, I feel they create a certain mood, which I something that I wanted to do. I also decided to watch Drive through again as I think that this has very electronic sound running through it, especially with Kavinsky Nightcall at the start and the little electronic sounds heard throughout that create tension. I felt that combining all of these things it helped me to come up with ideas and definitely helped me through the production side of things.

As I stated, being my first time using Protools through this module, I got to learn quite a lot about it, although it did come with its problems. In terms of it being successful for me, I think I definitely got a lot more positives from it than negatives. I found that once I got the hang of it I thought it was quite intuitive and everything seemed pretty simple to find, even if there was a little problem or something I hadn’t learnt I thought it was very easy to look the problem up online or look through the manual to find the answer. Previously I had used soundtrack pro and I felt that it wasn’t as a strong a programme as Protools and different have as many dimensions to it. As I was doing an electronic based project for Oblivion I was very happy about the vast amounts of different sounds and instruments to choose from, this side of it made a massive difference to my project as I could sit and click though all the different sounds till I found one I liked or suited the tone of the film. I also found it massively easy to sync up to the video as you can move the audio along by the second and less. In terms of manipulating the sounds channel EQ was something I was going to time and time again and most of my sounds involved in both projects used channel EQ at some point, I thought it was great to make sounds more futuristic or to take high and low frequencies out. 
In of the problems I came up against it was definitely when using the midi sounds, the reason for this being was that when I was recording them I would try to edit or cut them and I was having no look and I couldn’t seem to find an answer anywhere. I also found that when I would come back to a project the sounds I had done would be deleted or Xpand2 has reset itself and I had to look for my midi sounds again, I rectified this by writing down all the specific sounds that I had used for each midi sound. Other problems I came up against were just little things such as the levels resetting themselves on some of the sounds, but things like this weren’t major as I could easily find ways around it, in turn helping me to understand all the different attributes to Protools. 

My approach to what making the work, definitely came from a lot of what I learnt in the sessions, this especially came in handy in terms of manipulating sounds to make them sound a certain way. I learnt a great deal do with channel EQ hence the reason I used it so much, but in terms of the actual technical side, it helps me to understand which frequencies you change around to make it side how you want it to sound, for example, to make a sound muffle you want to take all of the high end frequencies out or if you want a radio or TV sound you want to bright all the high and low frequencies out.  Worldizing is something I also found very interesting as I like the idea of try to manipulate or record sounds so much it takes the characteristics of the surroundings that it is put in and this is something I felt I tried to do with PI; I wanted to make my sounds that appeared as though they were from that world. 

During this semester I also read; The Sound Location Bible, this was fantastic help when doing my foley sounds. Whenever I felt I was stuck or didn’t quite understand something I could refer to the book and nine times out of ten, I would find what I was looking forward. This book was also very useful for trying to combat other sounds interfering when I was recording; it gave me a lot of different suggestions on how to counteract everyday issues with on location sound recording. This prompted me to start using the Protools studio as I could get a good quiet space so that I could get the good clean sounds that I wanted. 
So overall all of these things have played a part in both of my finished projects and by going over and over them, it means that most of the information has gone in and will stick with me.

Luke Hall

Bonobo

For inspiration I have been listening to a lot of different electronic artists that I feel have a good idea of production and creating a certain mood within their songs. Bonobo is someone I find I can get a lot of inspiration from. All of his music seem to have a different mood and when listening you can imagine them fitting well in a certain scene or even a location. 

Nightcall

As I'm doing Oblivion, I have decided that I want to do something electronic with the sound design, this will mean that I will use a midi keyboard for the majority of the sound. I decided to watch drive as during the film it has a lot of electronic tones that create mood. I also enjoy the soundtrack to it, Kavinsky Nightcall especially, this song kicks in at the start and I think it works tremendously, although drive isn't a very futuristic film I think the sounds it uses work great and I feel I could do something similar. 

Chris Watson

Carrying on from my previous post about Joanna Milne the women who only heard for the first time at the age of 39; I was watching my local news and story came on about Chris Watson, I involved Joanna and Chris going to Saltwell park in the early hours of the morning, this was so Joanna was able to listen to the variety of  sounds from the different types of wildlife that inhabit Saltwell park.   

I found this very interesting from my previous idea of somebody hearing for the first time and the effect it would have on you and I really like the idea of introducing the sounds of somewhere close to your home that even someone who could hear probably hasn't heard before. Such as the sounds of the wildlife early in the morning or even the simple sounds of trees, stuff they we take for granted and block out. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-27039085

Oblivion

I have decided to choose oblivion as the film I will do for my final sound piece, the reason I have chosen this one is because I will be able to experiment with synths as it will fit in with the genre of Sci-Fi. I want to use synths for as many of the actions that are involved in it as possible. I have already created a sound design for the first 30 seconds as shown in my screenshot. 

Hearing For The First Time

I have came across a news article on the BBC about a women from Gateshead who has heard sound for the first time for 39 years. So this got me to thinking how overwhelming a feeling this must be and I could create such an overwhelming feeling through a sound design. 

I feel that if I was to make something to mirror this I would need to do a lot of research into how this women felt and the transition from not hearing to hearing, you could even make an art instillation to do with this so that people can get into the mindset of this and see what it actually feels like. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-26779079

Location Sound Bible

A couple of weeks ago I got Ric Viers; The Location Sound Bible out of the library after being advised to do so, It has took me quite a bit of time to go through this book as I have to go back over chapters to try and get my head round some stuff. I plan to keep a hold of this book as I think I will find it useful for when I'm on location and I'm not 100% sure about something.

I had previously used a mixer in a sound lesson so I was still a bit unsure about the basics of how to use a mixer, this was something I found very useful in this book.

The mixer basics are found on Pages 188 - 208, I find it to be very concise and fairly easy to understand.