Posts Tagged audio
The Final Touch
Finally, the major project for this course has come to the end with week13 presentation and I have done pretty much everything I wanted to achieve. There will be another big day on COFA Annual Screening at Chauvel Cinema. Unfortunately, the audio in the night will not be surround sound 5.1 as I would like it to be.
In fact, we had to compromise the presentation on a TV monitor since no room in COFA that is equipped for surround sound except CG15. The film was squished into 3:4 aspect ratio in the monitor and the colour was de-saturated. That was the trade off when you want to present your project in surround.
I learned a lot about surround sound design from previous semester and I applied to this project but it is different this time:
- It is sound design with visual whereas the other one was just an audio piece.
- I mixed in stereo first then imported the session in surround later. Every track was in mono to avoid the confusion in surround.
- There is music involved. The composer sent split tracks to me to work on it and I find it is tricky since the original is in stereo. Hopefully he is happy the way I treated his music.
Frankly, I do not see why this film will not get selected for Chauvel night. The next challenge is to distribute it and step my foot in the industry. Finger crossed.
To summarise, I am very happy with the outcome of this project. What was a dream I had in the beginning of the year has become a short film I wanted it to be. And I hope this film will, at least, help someone realise his or her self-significance. In making it, it certainly helped me find myself again.
This project could not finish without help of all the lecturers, classmates in Master of Digital Media at COFA and everyone, cast and crew, involved in this film. Thank you everyone.
25 October 2009
PS: This post was the last one I put onto the School’s blog. I find that it is posted here on the day the film is premiered at COFA Annual 09 Screening. At the time I am writing this, it is very retrospective what it has been done in past few months and this project is very personal and introspective. The process has taught me about myself as I used it as a therapy for myself in many ways. It is still a rocky road but there is always hope.
The Record Session
After the big weeks of my own shooting production, the first presentation, Joy’s production and the re-shoot, now I can feel at ease and have a time to reflect on the project and update it here. First of all, the record session.
One of the most beautiful scene we shot was the laundry room scene. However, we anticipated that the sound would be the problem because of the noise of the dryer. ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement) seemed to be the only solution. Thanks to Tony, setting up room CG15 went smoothly and was on time with Fay arrived for her session. She confessed that she’d never done this before. Well, I once dubbed myself in a speaking extra role in a Thai movie years ago. She got used to it quickly and pull it off very well.
There was a change in final script in the bedroom scene. The telephone conversation between Daniel and Chrissie was added to the scene. Helen was called to record the audio with Gerard. These actors finally met each other. It was easy for Helen even though, to my surprise, it was her first recording session. Gerard overcame his speech difficulty with breathing technique. We could hear his deep breathe between the line as I directed him to pause into a rhythm. The outcome was satisfying even though I felt I did not force him to break out of his monotone.
30 August 2009
Blindfold
Blindfold from ApostrophePong on Vimeo.
A 5-minute length thriller drama produced in a 5.1 surround sound scape. The aim of this audio production is to explore the power of sound that not only envisages a story but also draws the audience into a deep dark atmosphere.
This piece I made for the Sound Construction 2 class at COFA. The challenges were to explore the tool for to make surround 5.1 sound and to create a narrative work without visual element or dialogue. This is the stereo version which does not do the same job as when you sit there in the middle of so dark room and let yourself go with the soundscape. The full surround sound 5.1 version will be included in the extras of my final project, Memory of You | Reflection of Me, which the DVD production is on the pipeline.
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