Hello post-audio, hello score, goodbye sanity

Writing this post early in the week because Josh & I will have our hands full with editing audio all Thursday and then I'll be placing the score in the film.

When I think about this class I feel a lot of things: frustration, pride, anxiety, excitement. The time constraint is very unnerving and I just want to make the film the best it can be because we've put in so much work into it. There just isn't enough time in the day at this point to make everything perfect.

There are so many things out of my control. We wont get the edited ADR until Thursday, and I'm not getting music until Tuesday night. Then there's waiting for graphics editing/placing foley in. So I can't do anything on my end until at least tomorrow when we get all of that. (which is why I'm blogging now)

I know I'm the type of person who takes charge of things but I didn't expect to have to do so much of the actual work in post. I volunteered to do it because I know how to and it was easier to do in the time constraint than teach someone else how to log footage, etc. There are things I would change about the production, including my own work on it. I'm not perfect at all but I certainly tried. The film could not have been completed by the help of many of my group members and friends who are angels for stepping aside from their own productions to help in pre-production. This semester has given me so much stress and I am ready to be done.

Brb, crying over a bowl of cereal/pouring over all my other undone work/praying that I make it through this week in one piece. That was hella melodramatic and I know that everything will get done somehow. I'm trying to stay positive because I know the film will be great.

What I've learned from Filming Dollhouse

So throughout the semester, as the weeks went by and we time and time again had nothing tangible to show for our efforts, I knew that on the day filming Dollhouse was going to be a little hectic. I'm not averse to things getting a little hectic on set, as long as the group is working well as a team and stress levels are fairly low. However if I had to go through this whole process again there would definitely be a few things I'd do differently.

1. Get the Script finished faster:
I like writing a lot, but I've never really written a horror film before so this was perhaps the biggest challenge for me. I've grown to like horror movies a lot over the past few weeks, but I still feel as though their not really in my wheelhouse creatively. That being said I do think that our final script was leagues above the one I originally drafted up, and I have Sam and Anna to thank for that.

2. Get a solid budget together:
We've put a budget together fairly early on, but we had to make some cuts due to a few issues with funding. We wanted to stray away from crowd sourcing since we'd were thinking that we'd like to reserve asking for money from our friends for our thesis films, or if we ever become homeless. I thought that using venmo as a way to move money around would be easy as I could track everyone's contribution and make sure that we never spent more than we needed to . Venmo turned out not being such a hot idea, as only two of our group members actually used it to contribute, and the rest of the groups money came to me through cash. I think in the future I'm going to insist that we use cash exclusively for budgeting, things just get too complicated when I have to track two different accounts at once. That being said I really appreciate that everyone participated in lending some cash. It definitely made crafty a lot easier on me, and I'm just now working up how much I can pay back those who spent some of their own money on the project.

3. Better Group Communication:
The first thing that I got whenever I landed on a set in LA was a detailed rundown of what scenes we were shooting that day, and the shot order we were shooting them in. That did not happen on our set and I think our communication definitely suffered for it. There were times where I wished that had all met to talk more about the creative decisions we were looking to make, there were times when things like a storyboard would have definitely come in handy.

In Conclusion:
I hope that it doesn't come across that I didn't have any fun shooting over the past weekend, or that I don't think we put together a successful project, because that was absolutely not the case. I think everyone, no matter how tired, or frustrated, or hungry they were really brought it on set, and I think our final project will definitely reflect that. Though I didn't play a huge part in shooting the actual film, I had a ton of fun on set  and I hope everyone else did too. I can't wait to see the final cut, and I 'm really happy that this is the last film I'll be a part of here at Ithaca College.

GRRRRRR

Get ready for  A N G R Y   S A M.

Angry Sam

I'm generally a positive person. I'm always looking on the bright side, thinking about what I can learn from a bad situation, or figuring out how I can improve for next time. But there comes a time when a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. And that is cracking the whip on my group for this project.

Normal, happy Sam

Here's the thing: I have producer experience. I think one of my best skills is the ability to communicate with all types of people and make sure they are comfortable, while increasing their productivity as individuals and the entire group as a whole. However, going into this project, I wanted to do something that would force me to learn more about something completely different. I've always been interested in sound (I'm very involved in the FM radio station at Ithaca College, 91.7 WICB-FM) and I know I won't have time for more audio production classes. :( Volunteering to be the sound girl seemed like the obvious choice to solve my problem. I also scared myself even more by joining the group doing a horror film--I can't even count on one hand the number of horror films I've seen. (Currently working on that). But I came to IC to learn and conquer challengers, so that's what I'm going to do.

Now we're at that time in the semester where I feel like everyone has gone from being super motivated about the project to not giving a sh*t about it. This may not be true, and I hope it's not true; yet through the actions of my group members, (or lack of actions) their excitement is no longer being communicated to me. People don't show up to class, the ONE TIME we're all in the same place at the same time. People are not taking the initiative when it comes to their job. People are showing up late to meetings.

IT'S TIME TO GET OUR SH*T TOGETHER, PEOPLE.

It was not my job to apply for a Pendleton Grant, but I thought that having some money to spend on our production and craft services would motivate my group and make them more comfortable when we're on set together for an entire weekend (starvation = bad!!).

I took Fiction Field II because I wanted to produce a film that I would be proud of. I wanted to go to the screening day and sit with my group and watch our film for the probably 200th time and be excited that all our hard work was finally done. I'm getting the feeling that this may not happen at all, and I'm not the type of person to just say "Ah, well. Whatever." and give up. I cannot do that. I'm gonna whip my group into shape, even if I end up as co-producer.

If any members of my group are reading this, I'm not trying to start a fight with you. I'm trying to get us to work together more quickly and efficiently. We only have nine and a half weeks to produce our film. It's time to step it up.

Editing

For our film since I am an editor I've faced a lot of difficulties going through this process. Before college I had only edited one short ski video that I made with a crappy JVC camcorder I had gotten for my birthday. It had an amazing zoom so that was the sole reason I bought it. That movie was cut on     I-movie and I thought I was the best in the world. Little did I know what I had in store when I came to Ithaca college. I started editing on Avid Media Composer last year in Intro to Field Production. I picked up very quickly but I am still learning a lot tricks of the trade and workflow technique.

This semester I started to use Final Cut Pro for an ICTV show "Life and Death" and Adobe Premiere CC for Fiction Field Production. Last year in Intro we always recorded audio right onto the camera so there was no worries about syncing up audio. This year for Falling High syncing audio up was somewhat of a challenge sometimes the camera audio was turned off and I had to go off of the way the actors mouth was moving and other times we had no slate. In the editing software, I learned to use the wave lengths to sync the audio up and this seemed to speed the process up. The labeling process of clips was also a very frustrating thing when the shot didn't start with the slate or there was no slate at all however I learned to work around these obstacles eventually.

This is my editing set up in premiere. For the most part I used the arrow tool and drag the clips to their desired lengths and used the blade to cut off the access fat. In the top corner you can see my project tab and numerous sequences. Every time I opened and started to edit again I would create a new sequence so that if a mistake was made I could go back to a clean slate without any trouble. This was a useful technique to use and it took a load off of my back stress wise. I hope to start learning more shortcuts on the keyboard so that the editing process happens with a bit more ease. 

There are still hundreds of things I need to learn in the realm of editing but this project really helped me hone in on some skills that will help me in the future. I hope to use Avid more next semester for my Non-Fiction project since Avid is the media standard for now I will continue to use the easy program of Premiere.

Rode VideoMic

Anymore sound can be recorded directly onto the camera however most DSLRs have a very poor performing on-board mic system even on cameras like the 5DMII and III. Audio is something most people take for granted while in reality a lot of the time audio makes or breaks the film. The most common thing said about student films is that there sound is the worst part. There are a lot of ways a beginner can get good audio though without dishing out thousands of dollars for a Tascam and a nice shotgun microphone. One of the most renowned onboard shotgun microphones is the Rode VideoMic series.

This is the best comparison video I could find. The main difference between these two models are the size. The Rode VideoMic costs about $150 and the VideoMic Pro is about $230. There is now a newer model of the VideoMic that has fixed the wobbly shock mount and is the same price.

(Newer model of the VideoMic)

 I hope to invest in the VideoMic within the next few days. I plan to use the microphone for interviews for short documentary and feature type work. I'm on a limited budget and this is part of the reason for not going for Pro version and in reality I don't really believe that the $70 dollars is worth the size difference which is the big difference between the two models. Eventually I hope to invest in some lavaliere microphones  and eventually a zoom H4 recorder for this type of work. But for now I believe this will suffice.

Youtube now contains an audio library of free music

We have encountered the same problem at some point; you search for a video and by the time you finally find the exact video you were looking for, it has been removed due to some copyright infringement of the audio. Youtube realizes that this is a problem and is now trying to do something about it.

Youtube now contains an audio library of royalty free tracks to choose from. Currently there are only 150, but I'm sure it is growing daily. These songs are available for any use, not just Youtube videos. They can be downloaded forever to your computer as an Mp3 file.

Although this is an awesome tool for anyone in the media industry, it still has major flaws. 150 is a relatively small number, even for a free audio library. The songs can only be played with a start and stop button, with no option for skipping to another part of the song.

Obviously a paid service would better streamline the process of selecting an audio file, but lets be honest, who pays for music anymore? This is an awesome resource that I am very excited about using in the future, and I'm sure Youtube will be providing frequent updates to the library and video process.

http://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary?feature=blog

A functional audio interface, perfect for a college student

A popular audio recording app, Rode Rec, just got completely renovated and revamped. Rode Rec is an app for your ipad or iphone(currently unavailable to android users like myself), that turns your phone into a fully functional audio interface. It comes with options and abilities that professional audio interfaces have.
Rode Rec 2.8 gives you the ability to:
-Record at various sample rates
-Choose stereo vs. mono
-Control of your input & output signal
-Versatile compression and expansion controls
-Extensive "Rode Rec" equalizer
-iZotope presets for various scenarios
-and more

After you finish recording your audio, Rode Rec even has a built in sound editor. The sound editor program seems very in-depth for a phone editing program, but I'm sure it can not compare to any industry standard programs. Regardless, it would probably work in a pinch. With the Rode Rec editor you can:
-Edit with a trim tool
-Create basic or complex fades
-Create markers and regions
-Share directly to sites like Dropbox and Soundcloud
-Export in 9 different file formats

Rode Rec also sells lavalier mics that are made specifically for this app and your iphone which can be found here. In combination with the mic this app seems very practical. The biggest problem I see is that, depending on the situation, it will be very difficult to monitor your levels while you are recording, but there are ways to work around that.

I love that the industry is creating affordable alternatives that will produce a competing product, for simple use right on your iphone. I am excited to see what similar apps will be released in the near future. Here is a video directly from Rode Rec to learn more.



Introducing RØDE Rec 2.8 from RØDE Microphones on Vimeo.

(I tried to embed but couldn't get it to work with vimeo)

Semester Reflection

Last blog post of the semester! It has been fun. I want to give a shout out to Samantha, Dave, and Maddie. We managed to work on all three projects together. Great group. I'm going to miss you guys and Maddie, congratulations on graduating. Good luck with everything!

This semester has confirmed my love of editing. I definitely feel that it is something I am good at and a skill that I want to continue to learn about and perfect. I especially like editing audio. I realize I love making music and sound effects fit visuals. Working on Rat Bastard and having to find the best music to fit the mood of the film was both challenging and exciting for me. I had a similar experience in Fiction Field I. For our final project in that class, we had our music composed by a student in Whalen. The day before it was due, we mixed the audio with the video. It. Was. Awful. The music didn't match up at all, and it sounded like elevator music. This was a silent film. We needed playful, upbeat, music that helped tell the story. So that night, before it was due, I downloaded three royalty free songs that I sliced together to make the soundtrack for the film. I didn't tell my professor that I mixed the audio, he still thought it was composed by a Whalen student, and he loved it! I ended up telling him that I had done it, and he was impressed. It is something I like doing. To me it is like figuring out a math problem. It takes time and concentration to fit every piece together, but when it comes together it is so rewarding. Here is a link to my film from last semester.


Silent Love


Have a great vacation and spring semester!!!

ADR? The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Recently I, for the first time, watched the classic Clint Eastwood western, "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". I thought it was a great a movie and I think Clint Eastwood is one of the best actors/directors of all time.

But something that really threw me off the entire movie was the audio. At first, I thought Netflix was giving me a problem...but then I realized this was in fact a flaw in the production. I had no idea why/how a movie could be so monumental with such horrible ADR? Then, upon further inspection, I realized that Clint Eastwood was the one character who did not have bad syncing on his audio.

I did some further research...it turns out that the film was in fact filmed in Italy, and quite a few of the actors are Italian. I also found out that the movie is, in comparison to many others, fairly low budget. But I wonder if maybe the bar for things like this was much lower back in the '60s? Anyway, this was something that really stuck out for me. Regardless, Clint delivers a great performance in this classic movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it (despite the audio side of my brain screaming at me the whole time).