Sound: Music

There are two aspects to sound in a media production that need to be considered and thats diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sound is everything that is within the scene such as footsteps, cars driving by, explosions and so on. Non-diegetic sound is music that accompanies the scene for added effect, and this is typically done in the form of music. Music can greatly impact the feel of the production at its given stage. For example if the production was a thriller the music would have to be quite suspenseful whilst if the production was a comedy the music would most likely be upbeat.

For my production, music is key to make the scenes feel more mysterious as this is the intended feel of the whole film. Therefore the music will be quite harmonious and not include a massive amount of instruments as if only one instrument is used it can help represent how alone the character is when time is frozen. The problem with using music is that the majority is copyrighted. Copyright protects the owner as it doesn't allow others to use their music without consent. This limits the amount of music available to me as mainstream music could only be used if I contacted either the record company or the artist themselves. As there was no specific music I wanted to use I decided to stick to using copyright free music which meant I could use it without going through the process of getting permission. After researching, I found the best site to use was 'Incompetech.com'. This site was full of genre specific royalty free music which meant I could use it as long as I acknowledged the artist (Kevin MacLeod) somewhere, which I plan on doing in the credits of the production. The music on this site could be filtered to fit moods such as suspenseful, uplifting, bouncy and many more. Therefore I filtered it with the moods suspenseful, mysterious and dark and it came up with a large list of music that could be used and I found a few tracks that will work well and I will then implement into my piece.

Here is the link to Kevin MacLeod's site, Incompetech: http://incompetech.com/

Sound: Foley sound

As my production is a short film, the sound is just as important as shots. One important aspect of sound is foley sound. Foley sound is the extra sound effects added after the production process and can be anything from footsteps to explosions. This is useful as it can sometimes be hard to capture the sounds that make the whole production believable. For my production, I have had to add a large amount of foley sound. The most important foley sound is the sound of the pendant being used. This sound consists of a quick whooshing sound whenever the pendant is activated. This is effective as it confirms to the audience that the pendant has been used. Another less noticeable but important foley sound is the footsteps added. The original footsteps had to be edited out as there were other sounds, such as the wind, ruining the overall sound. Other foley sounds included the ambience that was associated with the setting. For example when the character is in the forest there is a slight breeze and bird chirping every so often and when he is in the town you can hear all sorts of things such as cars driving past, babies crying and church bells ringing. This background sound gives the production a more believable aspect. Below is a snippet from the production in which all the sound that can be heard has been added using foley sound.

  

Editing techniques: Flash Transition

Within my production, a pendant is used to stop time and it was important to make sure this is obvious to the viewer. One way to do this is using the transition effectively between the shot where he twists the pendant and the shot afterwards where he is in frozen time. After researching various options such as fading to white I decided that the best transition would be a white flash that takes the viewer to the next shot. The reason I chose this was because it gives off the idea something important has happened. The only hindrance about this transition is that it wasn't a preset on the editing software I was using so instead I had to create it myself. To do this I combined two separate video effects to make up the flash effect which were 'Fast Blur' and 'Levels'. Fast blur blurs the image quickly whilst the levels allow the colours to be changed. To make the flash effect I increased both the amount of blur and the amount of white every few frames until the image was completely white. The finished transition only lasts a second however it works well to make it seem like there has been some sort of change. Below is both a screenshot of how the transition was made along with a snippet of the production showing the transition.

 

Editing techniques: Colour Grading

An often less represented part of editing is the colour correction. The colour correction and colour grading applied can often change the overall feel of a film. For example if a film was light hearted it would have an overall bright colour grade whilst if the film was quite dark and gritty it will have a quite saturated colour grade. It is important to implement this as it can greatly impact the overall feel whilst not necessarily being noticed by the viewer. In my production, the use of colour will be used effectively. One of the problems I had was making it clear when the character had frozen time and when he hadn't, and this is where colour grading came in. For the parts where the character hadn't frozen time I saturated the colours 50% so that there was an overall gloomy look. However, when the character had frozen time I increased the brightness and contrast slightly as well as increasing the amount of yellow in the shots. This gave an overall brighter and enhanced look, which was effective as the character would also feel enhanced due to the ability that is available to him whilst he's frozen time. Overall, this was effective as the contrast between the two colour grades was greater than if I left one without any colour correction. Below is a preview of when the character first uses the pendant and it shows well the difference in colour between the two states.    

Production progress

Recently I have finished the filming process of the production. Overall, the filming process was successful although slow at times. The first couple of sessions of filming were quite spread out and didn't work well in the terms of time management. However the third session and so on were done in quick and efficient succession meaning the shots would all work well within my production.


I am now moving onto putting all the focus on editing. I have been editing the main footage together roughly whilst I was filming however it was not done precisely and no effort was put towards the sound. The plan is to first edit the footage so that it is in the right order and at the appropriate length. After this, I will move onto adding the video effects such as a special transition when the pendant is used and implementing the colour corrections. Once this is done sound, whether it be diegetic or non-diegetic, will be the main focus. I will need to add foley sound to start off with, such as footsteps and ambience sounds and then move onto adding appropriate music to fit the feel of the production. However, it will probably not be that simple as I learnt from my AS piece. While editing my AS piece I came across problems that weren't necessarily there to begin with. One example would be sound being out of sync or lack of continuity which was noticed at the time. I feel that I have taken care of this not happening while filming and will keep this cautious attitude whilst editing to make sure there is no serious problems there either.

Another focus that needs to be considered is the evaluation questions which will evaluate my media piece and the ancillary texts that go with it, however I will go into more detail of these questions and how to answer them on a separate blog post.    

Making an item glow

Within my piece, I want to make a certain item glow to show it's significance that it has magical effects to it. The item in question is the pendant that can enable the user to stop time. After filming the initial shots I realised it wasn't clear that the pendant was the cause for time stopping so there needed to be some significant visual to emphasise that this is the item causing it. I've researched the best program to use to do this and it seemed that Adobe After Effects will work well. I do have some experience with this program as I used it to create the motion tracked titles in my AS piece There are also many tutorials online showing how to do nearly everything on After Effects including making things glow. Below is the tutorial that I plan on using when it comes to that stage in my editing.

Beginning to edit

Now that I have done a good amount of filming, I am beginning to enter the post production stage. Unlike a conventional production process, I have decided to edit whilst still having quite a lot to film. By doing this, it means the raw footage can be implemented at stages rather than having to edit all the raw clips all at once. So far, the editing process has gone well and has helped me decide on what I want to add in this stage. These things include the titles I will use, the colour corrections and the effect used to show that whoever wears the pendant is greatly affected by it. To perform all this, I am using Premiere Pro CS6. I decided on this software as it is strongly recommended by many editors and has more features available than its competitors, such as Serif MoviePlus. I have edited the initial opening sequence of the film as well as a few rough edits of the main part of the sequence. Next editing session I will attempt to add the music needed and edit the majority of the main sequence.