Client Feedback

Once I had sent off the finish audio to both of my clients, I sent them a Feedback form to give me some constructive criticism of the work I had done and to see if I had successfully achieved LO1 and LO2 and my aims. Here were the results:

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Both Directors scored the quality of out a 9 out of 10 and said that they would work with me again. There is some constructive criticism and suggestions for improvements in the petal child feedback, some of which I definitely agree with. however this will be discussed in the final reflection.

 

Showreel/portfolio

Related to LO3

Due to time restrictions it has been very very difficult to complete this part of my learn outcomes, that being to create a portfolio to showcase my work.

My original plan was to look at creating a showreel. The Audio Cookbook ,has some create information and guidance for creating a showreel. They recommend that it be kept around 4 minutes long, to start of with your best work, get feedback etc. After a bit of research I looked at a few showreels and how they looked on a website. I first looked at Soho Square Studios.

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There reel follows a lot of the guidelines the audio cookbook recommends. Their video is around 5 minutes long and the titles of the adverts are listed on the side, which is really effective. I also looked at one of the competitors of Soho Square Studios, Factory.

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This isn’t really a showreel, but a portfolio of work, clearly displayed with the names and category of what the clip is. I felt that because of how much time I had to complete my portfolio, it would be quicker and easier to make one like this, than edit up a ‘showreel’ as such. In the end this is what my portfolio looks like:

 

 

 

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This will have further developments once the project is over. I wish keep it the way it looks here, however add a large video above it which will include a showreel, much like soho Square studios, and that follows the guidelines of the audio cook book.

Links:

http://audiocookbook.org/guidelines-for-making-a-sound-design-demo-reel/

http://www.sohosquarestudios.com/

http://factory.uk.com/

http://jackwebberaudio.com/showreel

 

 

Petal Child Post Production

The process for Petal Child was different to All Ribbons End. The main reasons being it was a lot longer duration of film. I also had aid, or had a small team to work with. However this sometimes proved very difficult. This film was a part of the multi cam (FTV) module, and they had a designated sound person. The reason this was difficult was because he had very limited knowledge of sound. I also worked with Sid, his knowledge and experience working on film sound was also very limited. Therefore i had to be a leader and kind of tell the others how to do certain things. This took quite a lot of time and effort on my behalf, and outweighed the benefits of having an extra couple of hands in the project.

Regarding post production, my job was to supervise the post-production process, dialouge edit and mix/balance the film. Sid and Shaun were in charge of foley, and Sid was in charge of sound design and music.

The edit was given to us rather late and gave us just over a week to complete the 40 minute film (on top of the other film I had to edit.) Therefore my research was very limited at this stage. I had to use the knowledge and skills I had developed from the previous film to complete this one. I found that the speaker at home (KRKs) are purposed for music and don’t sound great from film editing. However i was limited to wear I could edit, as the sound there and mini sound there was fully booked. I did however book an audio edit suit for most days of that week. However the rooms sound very ‘roomy’ and the speakers are very bassy This meant forced to edit and mix the majority of the film in headphones, and referenced when i could grab an opportunity when the mini sound there was free.

Due to the problems with location sound, the dialouge editing was a massive challenge that took most of the time i had.

Once the dialogue edit had been completely I met up with Sid to get his sound design, music and foley stems, however some of hem were not yet completed. Due to being very close to the deadline Sid carried on finalising the music and atmospheres while i edited the foley and added in various sound effects that were needed throughout the film.

i then had no choice but to balance and mix the film using roughly the same levels as from the last film, whilst referencing through the speakers.

We then met with the director and went though the film scene by scene. the director seemed very happy with the film and only little bits and bobs needed changing. (mainly adding a few sound effects.)

All ribbons end mixing and meeting.

Once I had finished the foley and sound design i wanted to make sure the director was happy with everything before I level everything properly. Therefore I sent a copy of the audio to the film group. The director responded:

“heya mate

just watched it

jesus you did all that quick

Proper happy with it

its just a few minor points and thats it really

-the painting foley and newspaper sounds are too loud. bit overpowering.

-clothing ruffle throughout needs to be little quieter.

-when he puts the cake in all those sounds need to be little quieter.

-the ‘how many weeks are we talking’ sounds like its sped up for some reason. is there another take or can it be slowed to sound more natural?

-During the phone call, it sounds like theres a ruffle of clothing where there should be a breathing sound? (6:52)

-on the outside bit with the wind turbine thing, the wind and outside noises are a little overpowering.

oh and theres something strange with the breaths when he cries at the end.

it might be easier to explain this bit to you in person or on the phone?”

This is regarding this version: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxQ5TCl6APcRbU4zNGlmNE5HMDA

The majority of the issues were down to not mixing yet, therefore sorted everything else out, such as the breaths, the odd rustles of clothing’s and the line of dialogue (by using another take), before balancing everything out.

To monitor the levels I used the PAZ analyser. This plugin not only moments audio levels, but frequency and phase as well. I firstly began going through each track sections and levelling them up. E.g. made sure all the dialogue was level, then , made sure everything was level compared with the dialogue. Once I done this I used a reference film to see how the levels compared. The reference was a phone call scene from ‘Orange is the new black’

When running this reference film through PAZ analyser dialogue seemed to come through at around -20 and peaked around -12. Background sounds inside the prison were around -33, however outside the prison was around -39. Therefore i levelled the dialogue aiming for the same kind of levels.

I then organised a meeting in one of the only time slots that was available for the sound theatre/mini sound theatre available, with the editor and director. Here we went through the film scene by scene, making slight changes. These changes were tiny bits of foley, fades of music, and changing the bingo caller ADR by using different takes.Some parts of the film appeared to be out of sync, however a lot of that was down to the latency go the screen in the mini sound theatre. Once the director was happy with it I bounced the file into three different exports. This included music only, without music and one with everything. After these were bounced I transferred it to the editor.

Around an hour later the editor said that one of the scenes were slightly out of sync. Because of the screen in the mini sound theatre it was difficult to correct. Therefore I transferred it onto my laptop and ‘re-synced’ the scene through pro tools 11.