Evaluation
Sound Project
When me and Conor first got the brief for sound we were
quite interested in what the boundaries were of what we could achieve. We thought
about what sounds around us interest us and what sounds we can make ourselves. Neither
of us had ever made any work like this before and so we were initially unsure
about how to approach it. After looking at artists such as Lauren Lesko and György Ligeti we saw that
sound work really does vary and we could make of the brief what we could.
Both of us wanted to have some kind of narrative to our sound piece. I
was interested in how we could represent indoor and outdoor sounds and maybe
creating imaginary spaces where it is both at the same time. We thought about
how we could represent a presence by using footsteps, breathing, and a heart
beast perhaps? How could we show curiosity and exploration?
Originally we planned to have the character for our sound piece starting in
a wooden structure such as a shed and from there the person would go on to
travel through some woods and maybe through water as well. We also toyed with
the idea of someone being chased in our work but left that in the end. We
decided to have the sound of opening doors to signify a change of space, and
that we were going to have at least three spaces; a forest/park, under water,
and the city or some kind of stones building.
Conor and I booked out a Zoom after deciding what noises to record and
went around Sheffield city centre and well as Eccestall road to obtain these
sounds. Recording in the city was difficult at times because it’s hard to
pinpoint a particular sound you want without getting all the other sounds of
town in the recording as well. Another issue is the wind, it can be very windy
in some areas of Sheffield and this made some of the recordings distorted. We
recorded all the environments we planned to and also some extra ones we hadn’t.
Conor and I edited the recorded sound on Pro Tools, it was odd making a
sound track for the first time but I
think we did quite well considering. We plugged the Zoom into the computer and transferred
the sound files to the desktop, from there we opened Pro Tools and imported the
files and made them into a clip list. After listening to all the files again
and naming them all we began to discuss how to plan out and arrange our work
into a narrative. We started with the sound of a door opening and closing then
added the sound of someone walking up the stairs, then we faded in the sound of
someone playing an accordion outside. This was our first instance of mixing
indoor and outdoor sound. Then the character moved to a park where we added the
sounds of footsteps and rustling bushes. The transition to the next environment
was a bit different; you heard the sound of someone walking nearer and nearer a
fountain then the sound of being underwater as if they had gone in. One of the
sounds Conor recorded was the sound of him making whale-like noises under
water, we used these sounds in the water section of our piece and added reverb
to them so it sounded like some kind of mysterious creature.
The critique for the sound project took place on the fifteenth of
November. People liked the sounds for water in our work and the sense of
different places but felt that the middle section wasn’t as strong as the other
two. One person said they liked the use of reverb and the use of the door
sounds. Another person said the echoed drops worked nicely.
After taking this into consideration we went back to our sound project
and added more sounds to layer up and further develop the spaces we were trying
to create through sound. We recorded more sounds such as whispering and
dragging a penny along a guitar string and added these where appropriate in our
work. I think the second edit of our sounds piece is better than the first. We
have learnt how to use more effects such as equalising high and low frequencies
and time lapse which we have now used in our final piece.
I feel that we have achieved creating a sense of journey and of separate places
and environments but if I were to do it again I would record more sounds and
make a story board and plan out the narrative more.
Experimental Film Project
Me and Conor were very excited when we were given this brief, there is so
much freedom in experimental film so both of us were fall of ideas. We both
wanted to make something edgy and maybe a bit sinister. I wanted to film mainly
in a park or forest, I thought about using the children’s play park in Endcliff
park, using the swings and monkey bars and such like. I thought about filming leaves in the wind
and filming in the dark in torch light. Conor was interested in using chemicals
and showing violence in our work.
For the sounds to our film we planned to build on the sounds we had for
our sound work and use more sounds such as metal on metal sounds and
whispering.
We booked out a Canon XF100 and a tripod and (origianally) filmed in two separate
locations, Endcliff Park and my house. At Endcliff park Conor filmed me with a
hockey stick doing various odd things such as skipping around, wondering
aimlessly, playing next to the river, playing on exercise equipment and walking
over stepping stones. I then filmed Conor, running in the woods, jumping over
logs and hitting tress. At my house we mainly filmed Conor, he smashed a
pumpkin to pieces and smeared red food colouring all over his face then washed
it off.
On the second day of filming we went to the park at night when it was
dark, we filmed both of us interacting with the children’s play area. We filmed
in torch light which was difficult but gave the uneasy effect we desired for
our film. We edited this film work on Final Cut Pro and made it very chopped up
and used effects such as making the image negative, speeding or slowing down
clips, adjusting brightness and contrast as well as changing the colour balance
and saturation.
I was very happy with how we edited this work and it was working really
well however we did the encounter some problems. When it was time to put the
first and second half of the film together we couldn’t re-connect the media
files of the first part of the film because we couldn’t find the original
footage files of the server or on our hard drives. This was very upsetting and
meant that we had to re-film the first part of our film. However because it was
so late on in the semester we didn’t have chance to re-film what we originally
filmed so we filmed at my house and Conor’s what we could and made the most of
it.
The technical difficulties that we had with the editing of our experimental
film then resulted in us running low on time to do the sound edit so the sound
wasn’t as refined as we would have hoped.
If I were to do this again I would check where I saved all my files and
make sure I did it properly so I wouldn’t lose work again. I would also leave
more time to do the sound edit as it is an important part of the film.
For the sound project me and Conor both recorded and edited and I think
we worked well together and shared work equally. For the experimental film
project Conor was cinematographer, I was directed and we both worked on editing
and sound.
