When reflecting with my colleague, Danielle Crooks who I have had the pleasure to work with on a variety of projects, we realised this film was the equivalent to eight Sweeny Todd’s (a five minute level two project) and four Trajectory’s (a ten minute animation project at level three). 5150 consisted of the following audio production job roles:
- Location Sound Recordist
- Dialogue Editor
- Foley Artist
- Studio Engineer (Music, ADR, Foley, SFX)
- Sound Designer
- Sound Editor
- Music Composer
- Session Player
- Music Editor
- Rerecording Mixer (Music, Dialogue & Effects)
- Mastering Engineer
The above array of roles required towards completing this film could however, be considered a double-edged sword.
- The workload between two people greatly increased and therefore took longer to complete the film than a larger team would.
- I have now acquired a holistic experience in the audio production chain of which has provided me with a vivid, well-rounded and valuable insight to the processes of film sound production.
In terms of problems encountered, the list is too great to document in this blog, however the obvious issue underpinning this whole experience is time. We attempted to tackle this in a variety of ways:
Music Composition
The length of audio required in music alone is no small feat. Therefore I opted for a minimalist approach in terms of layers. I used some of the preparative time to decide on which scenes required more time and which scenes I could get away with one or two instruments. The psychiatrist scenes occupy the most duration and are dialogue heavy. The decision to write minimalist music here meant I could compose quickly over a large duration of the film without distracting from the dialogue. I also took the decision to write music here in the same key however, although this saved some time, the music still required automated EQ as the settings were not quite universal enough to use throughout. The rest of the time saved was by prewriting a series of leitmotifs including the main lullaby and the Duchess theme. This meant the concept of the pieces were already written and could be adapted easily depending on the mood of the scene. On the flip side of this, the similar orchestrations and themes meant that the music played an essential role in the overall branding of the film of which I feel this was a success and provided an air of continuity. I would have liked to have spent more time editing the music as I personally feel some of the performances could have been tightened up somewhat.
Foley Artistry
The decision to do this together utilising the imaginations of Danielle and my own was a fantastic choice. We successfully managed to track all foley in a total of sixteen hours–making decisive decisions in a concise manner. The artistry vs engineering was actioned on an alternating, shift pattern basis where the performer would be responsible for establishing optimum microphone positioning so they can monitor their own performance, while team member no. 2 would manage the desk ensuring the implemented system was conducted correctly to ensure editing and mixing was productive. By working on this as a team, we were able to bounce, discuss and develop ideas thrown into the mix of which I believe equated to the small amount of time spent on this aspect of the film and delivered well-thought-out choices of sounds.
Final Mix
We worked solid hours right the way up until the final couple of days set aside for mixing. This was very touch and go as the FTV team were still doing edits on the day, resulting in extra sound design and music to be sourced and edited on the early hours of submission. On the evening before the deadline, we received communication from the team that the entire film audio needed to be with the editor by 3am on 8th May 2014 in order to render the audio with the visuals and burn a number of DVD’s for required delivery, which would take a large number of hours for them to complete. During the final mix; all panning (except for Danielle’s SFX in which she implemented herself), effects and the panning of effects needed to be applied to the entire audio. To combat this I implemented auto-latch mode which allowed me to apply automation in real-time which saved a lot of time that would have previously been spent physically drawing automation lines. One of the final jobs before bouncing down the audio was in fact spent panning all the reverb sends so the stereo effects reacted to the pan position of the audio. I discovered a paste-special function in Pro Tools called “To Current Automation Type” which allowed me to copy the pan positions of the audio to the effect sends. This was indeed a life-saver in time-saving and has now been implemented in my routine.
The Golden Room
Research in monitor positioning made me rethink about the mix location after discovering that it’s better to mix with plenty of room space in front of the speakers to disperse early reflections in the room. We came up with the idea to uproot from my poor quality, box room and set up all necessary equipment at Danielle’s flat after I noticed it was far less resonant after mixing another project there. This is quite possibly the most integral learning curve to take away from the entire experience as listening suddenly became easy. The new location gave me the confidence to make permanent EQ moves by printing the audio as I went down the timeline. Mix and “mastering” productivity towards music also increased as the entire score for the film equating to 28 minutes of music was mixed and mastered in twelve days.
The version of the film as it stands in the final blog post is purely for the purpose of submission. However, editor Graham Borrajo and the audio team will be making further audiovisual edits and mix adjustments under the agreement that the film can still be improved upon (including the spelling of Danielle’s name in the end credits!).
Overall, this project has not only provided a nice portfolio piece for future endeavors, but has offered a huge amount of audio to practice my skills. Overall skills have now expanded and production has increased. My implementation of tools have become more rounded and my listening skills have also vastly improved. This kind of experience would not have been possible should we have embarked on a smaller project.