I found myself quite relaxed when it came to this unit and I think thats because I am quite confident in myself and my ideas. When I think of my projects I usually tend to think of it quite visually and this helps with the look of the film, which I think was really important for ours. Overall I am quite happy with the general aesthetic of the film and I think it works well to get the message across. When I first pitched my idea to the class, I imagined it to be more or less exactly what we created and in some ways I'm really pleased about that. Im happy that I was able to create a piece that I thought of and directed myself and that what was produced is actually good quality but I have found that when it comes to film I am very structured with my approach and this held me back, I feel, from being even more experimental. If I could start again, I would probably try and get more shorts of Yasmin being affected by the images as I think more footage would have been more interesting to work with. Overall I am happy with what we produced. I think we worked well together as a group and Ive really enjoyed making this film.
Putting the Film Together
As I had the footage on my hard drive, I decided to edit the main footage myself, as we had picked out the shots we liked most and wanted to use. I decided to edit as if the film was in four parts: when the characters is watching the TV, the montages symbolising what she had watched, the effects of the subliminal messages and the aftermath. As we had not yet edited the montages I decided to leave a gap where they would go so I could edit around them. I started with the long shot panning between Yasmin and the television to set the mood and theme of the film, followed by the shots of her watching the TV. Then I left 5 small gaps where the montages would go and around them I put the reaction shots of Yasmin watching the television, which I cut very short so they would blend with the montages. After the montages I added the shots representing the affects of subliminal imagery. I didn't have much of a plan in terms of arrangement but I thought it made sense to start off with the less 'extreme' shots and build up the crazy throughout the film, ending with the mess the character made.
Next we edited the montages as a group. Together we spent some time looking for archive footage that would be suitable for each of the five themes and we started editing the first montage together. However this process was taking longer than expected so we edited the montages individually, I edited sex and fear, Nicole edited drugs and violence, and Rufaro edited food. To create the montages we used found footage, this was because the footage was meant to symbolise what people watch everyday. We cut the footage up really short as if they were like a bombardment of flashing imagery representing subliminal messages. After we made each of them they were added into the main film.
When it came to colour grading, I used the colour wheel to change the tones in the footage. I added more blue and purple into each of the clips to cancel out the orangey colour and make the walls look whiter. I also turned up the contrast on all of the clips to make the shadows stand out more and enhance the colours. I think this improved the look of film especially the makeup scenes as the black and red makeup now stood out stronger.
After watching the film, we thought that the montages blended into the film to much and it wasn't obvious enough that the montages were what she has seen, or a representation of what she'd seen. So I decided to make them look like they are being watched on an older television, like the one we actually used in the film. To give them a VHS look, I first added lines overplayed on the footage and then added TV grain. The grain was very subtle but adds to the effect.
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| Original |
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| With lines added |
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| With grain added |
Finally I added typography to the film starting with the title and credits. I decided to add the credits to the opening of the film as I felt it worked aesthetically with the longer shots. I think the font I chose worked well with the film as its futuristic look coheres to the theme of watching television and the media. We also added quick flashing text to the montages to recreate the old techniques of subliminal messages. For each of the themes we chose certain words to flash such as: heroin, overdose, drugs are cool, for drugs etc. and we put around ten words in each of the montages. To recreate the classic technique we use Arial Black, a large bold font, in white for each of the words. The idea was very inspired by the artist Barbara Kruger. For the rest of the film we decided to use more of this idea but make it even less noticeable by adding the typography but using the overlay effect so it blends into the film. Lastly I decided to add all the words to the last shot before the aftermath, flashing one after the other.
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| Film credit |
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| Film title |
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| Subliminal text in montage |
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| Subliminal text in montage 2 |
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| Subliminal message in real film |
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| Subliminal message in real film 2 |
Evaluation and Final Sound
Recording Sound
As the session in the sound recording studio did not work out, I realised I would have to take out a recorder if I were to get my sounds ready in time to edit for the deadline. I decided to take out the H4N Zoom Recorder out as it was recommended to us as the best one we could take out from uni. Again I did not have any experience with this equipment so I decided to watch a YouTube tutorial so I could get an idea of how to use the equipment. It turned out that it was very simple to use and managed to record all my sounds quickly and easily. I decided to record the sounds that I could make with my body parts on this device as I already had the sounds for the 'museum' and hammering, that I recorded with my phone while I was at the sport centre. I thought that the echoing sounds from the large halls would work well in sounding like a museum so I quickly recorded the sounds of people as they were leaving. I also got the hammering sound while I was home for the weekend.
I also decided to rename the sounds so editing the sound would be easier.
Sound Studio
To record the sounds of my project me, Chloe and Nicole booked out the recording studio R23, that we were shown. We had the room booked out for a few hours, so we were hoping we would each have enough time to record all of our sounds for our projects. When we got into the room we were not 100% sure on how to use all of the recording equipment, but we remembered some of our induction and there was manual with information on both the main recording area and the recording booth. We managed to get everything working but struggled to actually record any sound. As Nicole and myself had a tutorial during our scheduled time in the recording studio, we were away from R23 for about an hour with proved to be quite an inconvenience as it meant we had less time to work out what we needed to do. Towards the end of our time in the studio, I worked out our issue. As I have little to no experience with any sound recording equipment, I did not realise that the recording button pressed once was to prep before recording and pressed twice was to actually record the sound. We tried to get help for the situation but James was in a lesson and we was not sure who else to ask. Luckily we worked it out by the end of the session so if we decide to book out the studio again we would be able to get on and setup faster. I wouldn't consider our time in the studio a waste as we managed to work it out on our own so it will be a more memorable experience.
List of Potential Sounds
To prepare for my time in the sound recording studio I decided to create a short list of sounds off the the top of my head so it wouldn't feel like I going into the recording blind. I think these are the most obvious sounds that can be made with these body parts and would work into my soundscape. I am planning to record a variation of these sounds, ranging in pitch and speed.
Nose:
Nose:
Heavy breathing, snorting, sniffing nose
Mouth:
Speaking, whistling, smacking lips, teeth chattering, eating, gasping, scream, pop, breathing, laughing, kissing noise, ah
Body:
Scratching, clicking fingers, clapping hands, rubbing hands together, stomping feet, shuffling feet along floor,
Sound Research
For my soundscape I was thinking that I could use my sounds to create a short song rather than just a collection of sounds. I could use all the different sounds like percussion to first create a beat to the song and gradually build up layers to create a melody. I think sounds like breathing and stomping would make a good bass to the track and the vocal elements would work in building up a melody. For inspiration I looked on youtube at artists such as Pogo who uses sounds from films to create a song. I enjoy their work as it take many elements like speech and sounds from the movies to create something new.
Of course as this is my first time creating something like this I am not planning on doing something as intricate but I do think I could make something similar. I think I will start with a very subtle bass like breathing and then gradually build up, I would also like to try cutting up the voices like Pogo does but I am worried that it will take away from the idea of different identities and the uses of different languages.
Using Adobe Audition
For my first try on Adobe Audition I was given certain sounds based around an avalanche, the sounds including walking through snow, various cascading winter particles and skiing sounds. I decided to make my soundscape about a person walking through the snow gradually getting higher and higher up the mountain. On the way they are stopped by a skiing coming down the mountain and covering them in snow. They then carry on with the journey but now in deeper snow so the walking is slower and clumpier. Towards the end of the soundscape, the character starts to run and gradually the sound of snow falling gets louder and louder until you can no longer hear the person running.
I found it quite easy to get used to creating a simple soundscape on audition as I transferred my skills from Premiere Pro which is kinda similar. I added a short visual to the soundscape and uploaded it to Vimeo.
Filming Day
We were originally meant to meet on the Sunday to shoot for our film, but due to issues taking out equipment on the Friday before, we had to reschedule. We decided to film on the following Tuesday because unfortunately this meant that the equipment would have to be returned the next day so we had to film everything at once, but I was confident that we could.
We met at 1:00 to get out the equipment and we all met at the equipment hire, here we ran into a few problems. We had all the forms ready including permission to film but we did not have an equipment list so we could not get the equipment out straight away. Instead we had to wait until we could get an equipment list which took quite some time and set us back a few hours. Afterwards we went to lidl to get some props, we bought: a small chocolate cake, 3 jam doughnuts and whip cream for the food sections of our film. It came to around £3.07 which me and Nicole split between us.
We got back to my house, where we filmed, at around 3.30 pm and started to setup. We arranged the room to make more space and placed plastic sheets on the floor and a small VHS TV in the corner of the room. I liked the look with the plastic and TV on the floor as it gave the room an eerie, strange vibe and would keep the floors clean. We also setup one of the red head lights and Nicole added a blue filter and two diffusion sheets to give the room a bright but natural glow, which darkness around the edges. We also setup the camera, tripod (to a mid height), the microphone and covered the window with a black sheet so the only light we had was from the red head.
It took us around 3 hours to print overall and in my opinion it went really well, considering we had the pressure of filming all in one day I think everything went quite smoothly. We followed the shot list that I had made and this really helped with the flow of filming. I think we worked well as a group and everyone gave their opinions and ideas on the shots which really helped. I also thought Yasmin, as our actress, worked really well, she got herself into the roll and was really enthusiastic about helping us with our film.
My Vows by Annette Messager
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| France 1988 - 1991
I liked the Annette's piece My Vows the most out of the 3 I chose because I thought I could use the fact that the piece is presented as an installation to my advantage. I want to tell a story in my project and I thought it would be an interesting idea to make my soundscape sound as if the artist was putting the work up on the wall.
I was thinking about using speaking, initially French as the artist is from France and that was where the piece was created, and gradually add more voices (male and female) but in various languages to represent the idea of different identities. To symbolise the pictures themselves, I was thinking about using other sounds that can be made with the parts of the body like: clicking or clapping for hands, whistling or kissing for lips, stomping for feet etc. The sounds would gradually get louder and louder like the more pictures that get hung up the more sounds there are.
To record the sound I have booked out some time in the sound recording studio G23 from 1:30 till 5 and I am hoping to get as many different sounds as possible so I have a variety to chose from for my piece.
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Ideas
The Technical Standards
48 kHz sample rates
24 bit resolution
WAV/BWF format
Mixed to -10 dBFS
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| The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalli (1931) |
In Dali's piece, the most prominent feature is the melting clocks, which is what I would focus on, as well as the ocean in the background and the 'face' draped across the middle. Obviously I can develop on this but I think my other choices would have more options and influence more solid ideas.
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| Dull Gret by Peter Brugal the Elder (c1564) |
Brugal's painting Dull Gret features a woman wearing a dress, breastplate and helmet running across the 'fiery mouth of hell'. You can see in one hand she's holding a sword and in the other she has a basket of food, pots and pans. You can see a hill resembling a face suggested to be the 'mouth of hell in the direction she is running and the entire scene is filled with strange, deformed creatures eating people and attacking each other. I liked the theme of chaos in the picture which is why I was drawn to it, but I would like to make a track that wouldn't be too overwhelming.
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| My Vows by Annette Messager (1988 - 1991) |
My Vows is a collection of images of different body parts from a wide variety of people (male and female, old and young) hung together in the shape of a seemingly solid circle. Through mediums of gelatine silver prints, paper, pencil, string, tape and pushpins, Messager conveys a message through these identities depicting how people commingle in an incredible variety of unpredictable relationships.
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