Sound Workshop

SOUND WORKSHOP 

by Josh Tomany

     I went to the sound workshop this past Sunday and I do not regret it. Even though sound isn't necessarily the field that I want to go into it is extremely important to understand it and to make sure everything is being done in a film to produce the best sound possible. What I learned from these professionals in the four hours I was there I will surely carry with me into future projects and hopefully have future connections in the industry.  

     One thing that I need to say is that the turnout was a blessing and a curse. I understand that it was Cortaca but the lack of people was truly disappointing especially knowing how much effort and time it was to get some of these working professionals to talk to us. That being said I will say that having as many professionals as students there made it an extremely hands on and personal experience, and I think the speakers were more candid and open with us then if it was a lecture type presentation. After the Q&A type portion of the group we split up into even smaller groups, some going to post sound and some going to locations sound. Knowing the challenges and experiencing first hand the devastating feeling of bad location sound I chose to go to that one to benefit myself and my future projects. Fo those who couldn't make it here are some things I gathered from the workshop in general.

1) NYC is a freelance city

2) The industry is often "Quantity over Quality" and the turnaround is extremely tight especially in Network television. 

3) Attitude, timeliness, connections, be fast, develop self discipline

4) The importance of the Union and how and why to join. 

5) Think about the environment you thrive in when picking a job to do. 

6) LISTEN

     Obviously there are many specific tricks I gained especially in the location sound portion but learning about the environment of NYC was really helpful. I didn't know if NYC would be a place I could work in and I always dreamed of LA but now I am definitely considering it an option , and seems more appealing when I consider other factors in my life. It was also really helpful after and in-between moments of "learning" to just talk with the people about the industry in general and what it's like working in the field and how to make it as a human being who wants to make a living and also live. Very helpful, and couldn't be happier that I chose to go. 

Some sound speed on a Saturday

I am a firm believer in that every choice you make affects the path your life will take. I sat in my bed Friday night thinking of what I wanted out of the weekend. I knew that we would be shooting the Stopover City title sequence and scootering pickups most of Sunday, and also had my 10 AM-noon WICB Best of Broadway show before all of that. So basically Saturday was my only time off; therefore I had a choice to make about how to spend my Saturday; I could either:

a.     go to the Cortaca football game and have a mediocre time whilst freezing my butt off.

b.     sleep in and regain some strength lost from overworking the whole week.

c.      attend the sound workshop held by multiple Ithaca alumni and professionals in the field.

After a fair amount of late night internal debate, I decided to attend the sound workshop. I reasoned that there are a ton of opportunities to sleep and have fun with friends, but it’s not everyday that professional location & post sound mixers come in to talk with students freely (it literally only happens once a semester). I also don’t know a ton about on-location sound mixing but would really like to improve in case I ever needed to do emergency sound mixing for a film.

So I woke up the next morning (at 7:30 AM because my roommates were blasting music in preparation for the game, *sigh*) and made my way over to Park to learn! I thought I would experience some fear of missing out (aka FOMO) but the workshop was so interesting that I forgot all about the other potential plans I had.

The workshop began with the sound mixers in a panel discussion, including both location and post-sound mixers. They spoke not only of the sound industry, but also of the overall tv/film industry workflow. The panelists had a lot of very helpful/inspirational things to say—some of which I wrote down in my handy-dandy notepad. Here’s a few pieces of advice they gave (all 8 of) us:

-it’s really important to invest in your own equipment—that way you get more practice with the equipment.

-(more audio-concentrated but) know signal flow; that helps you troubleshoot a live recording session if something isn’t working

-learn how to manipulate mics

-“it’s all about listening”

-the turnaround is a lot faster in television than in TV.

-fast problem solving is the key to making yourself irreplaceable

-if & when you’re a freelancer, you have to be accountable for yourself

-figure out what type of work you thrive in and what works for your personality*

*I found this piece of advice most significant for people of all concentrations. I am still unsure of where my “calling” is in the industry based on my personality. On the one hand I love doing art department but it is extremely difficult with little to no budget, and I am not interested in producing because I don’t enjoy bossing people around. Location sound is not something I’d like to pursue as a career but I would definitely like to get a better handle on it so I could run sound on a future documentary passion project(?). I am getting quite off topic, but that’s how most of these posts go.

the 1 picture I sniped: mama & baby mixer--SO CUTE

After the panel, we split off into location and post-sound mixing. Four people (including myself) meandered off to 269 for the location sound where Jeff Pullman and David Rosenberg worked with us on refining skills such as boom and lavaliere placement, in addition to little tips and tricks in making our location mix the best it could be. While most of the mixing stuff went right over my head, it was extremely helpful to learn about the microphone manipulation tips. It definitely inspired me to refresh on the pickup patterns of different mics to be better prepared for shoots. At the end of the workshop Jeff generously offered for any of us to shadow him on Madame Secretary in the Big Apple, which I will definitely do (hopefully) over winter break.

Overall, it was a very intriguing workshop and I feel that it was time very well spent.

More Test Footage

This week, the crew and I went down to location to figure out just where we were going to place lighting on our set. This visit was one of the most crucial moments of pre-production. The Gaffer, Sound Recordist, Assistant Director, and myself had taken loads of lighting equipment to set during our second visit. This visit definitely gave us some advantages.

The first advantage was that obviously, we were able to figure out how to light each room for every shot in advance. When we go to set on our shooting dates, there will now be no time wasted trying to figure out just how to light our project. We won't be referencing loose diagrams and fixing issues as we go, we will be ready and prepared to set up and get to that first shot in significantly less time.

The second advantage to our visit was that because we have fixed the various issues that come with lighting our particular set space, we will no longer have actors sitting around and waiting to be lit properly. When we can get in the zone and begin grabbing takes sooner, the talent is likely to give a better performance because he or she is not impatient and/or waiting around.

The third advantage to our visit was that we can give our editor something to work with that will get him prepared to handle the actual footage when it comes his way. He can play with various presets to get our footage looking much closer to what we desire when we have finished collecting it.

Finally, because we brought our Sound Recordist, we have some room tone to work with, featuring random creaks in the house, cars passing by, and at some points, rain falling outside and on windows. This will give both her and the editor a sense of what kind of sounds we should prepare to work around in our natural space, since we do not have total control of what's outside the set.

All in all, we came out with some footage that we were happy with, but it is also footage that we can now improve upon when it comes time to actually shoot this thing.

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.

Music

I think the one of the most important aspects in a film is sound, especially music. Music can either destroy your project or help enhance. It can also add certain feelings and emotions to a scene. One of the biggest mistakes that we as filmmakers often make is adding music just to add music on our projects. If the score you choose does not fit your idea or concept, the final result may look cheesy and weird. That's why I think that the director and the music director have to work together to combine film and music together to create a master piece. I think that one of the greatest movie's composer of this era is Michael Giacchino. The man is a genius. He can literally make you feel happiness and sadness with just one song. He has composed for TV shows like Lost and Alias. He also made the scoring for movies like Ratatouille, Up, Star Trek and Super 8. I just love that all the music that he composes tell a story along with the movie. It is absolutely amazing. One of the greatest example in how music and film sync in perfection is in this montage from the movie Up, where Giacchino literally brings the audience from one extreme to another in terms of emotions.

Bur my favorite Giacchino's song is actually the "Main theme" of movie Ratatouille. I feel that this song depicts the main message of Ratatouille. it just fits perfectly with the movie. Also the instruments used by Giacchino remind me of Paris, and French culture.

Giacchino also composed one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Lost. With its music he added suspense and drama to the show. Every fan of the show would recognize this next song used composed for Lost.

Finally I think that everyone should keep this post in mind, and really think the kind of feelings you want to transmit to your audience when choosing the score for your short film.