Category: Project films

Project 13: Soundscape – “…and you can go inside if you want to”

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Soundscape: “…and you can go inside if you want to”

NOTE: For full effect, please listen through headphones

Feeling very much out of my depth with this project, I jumped straight in by recording a variety of short and long sounds for the soundscape. The idea of manipulating  these sounds for the soundscape felt very alien to me. I couldn’t see how pulling and twisting them was going to produce a pleasing result.

Collecting sounds

All the sounds were recorded using the SoundDevices 633 mixer/recorder with Rode NTG-1 shotgun microphone. Except for three stereo sounds, ‘traffic’, ‘wind in trees’ and ‘a breath’, one of which I planned on using for the background track. These stereo sound tracks were recorded using an iPhone6 with a Rode i-XY stereo microphone attachment (see post ‘Field recording with the Rode i-XY‘.

Short sounds

  • light switch
  • footsteps on tarmac
  • footsteps on leaves
  • door squeak
  • wine glass
  • fridge door closing
  • metal gate slamming shut
  • dripping tap
  • chair scraping floor
  • a breath (stereo recording)

Long sounds

  • conversation (on radio)
  • inside fridge
  • kettle boiling
  • wind in trees (stereo recording)
  • traffic (stereo recording)

Not all the sounds were used in the final soundscape.

Editing in Pro Tools

I have decided to purchase a twelve month subscription to Pro Tools, as I know I will continue to use the software for sound editing. Having not used Pro Tools before, I needed to get to grips with the basic functions. The layout and controls are very different to what I am used to when mixing sound in Media Composer. Again, I feel a little out of my depth using Pro Tools.

My first attempt at assembling the soundscape was very poor. It felt shallow and uneventful, nothing more than a simple, joined-up sequence of sound effects with Delay and EQ. Something was missing, but I didn’t know what. So I began experimenting with the placement and juxtaposition of the sounds. Each sound was ‘treated’ with an EQ to remove high or low frequencies and a Delay for reverb effect. Pro Tools comes with a wide range of plugins for this. A range of factory presets within each plugin provides great creative flexibility when applying Delay and EQ to sounds. Through trial and error, I was able to create some unusual, but effective sounds.

The turning point in my investigation came when I realised I could create a ‘sound space’ – by first laying down one of the long stereo sounds for atmosphere, allowing it to run for the full length of the soundscape and applying the techniques suggested in the project brief (slowing it down to half speed; adding reverb and reducing the volume so it sat in the background) and then adding other sounds on top. So the whole thing would work together as one cohesive piece.

I also discovered I could blend two or three short sounds together, end to end for effect, or overlay two sounds to create a new one with a greater depth of character. It was only through trial and error like this, that I made any progress with the project.

As I was creating a soundscape with no corresponding picture, I realised I needed to treat this as a sound composition. Letting the sounds bounce off each other. Creating a sense of movement through the juxtaposition, blending and pace of sounds. Treated with a range of different EQ and Delay settings.

Sound selects and treatment

Audio 1

  • Track: ‘traffic’ (stereo)
  • Plugin: Time Compression Expansion; Ratio: 1.5  – reduced to half speed
  • Plugin: AIR Dynamic Delay; Preset: Stereo
  • Plugin: AIR Kill EQ; Preset: Kill and Boost Low
  • Gain: -3.8 dB

Audio 2

  • Track: ‘T16 – light switch’
  • Plugin: AIR Reverb; Preset: Basic Large
  • Gain: 0dB

Audio 3

  • Track: ‘T15 – fridge interior’
  • Plugin: Modulation/SciFi; Preset: Dirty Drums
  • Gain: +6dB

Audio 4

  • Track: ‘T06 – metal gate slamming shut’
  • Plugin: AIR Dynamic Delay; Preset: Chaos After Loud
  • Gain: 0dB
  • Track: ‘ T07 – footsteps – shoe on tarmac’
  • Plugin: Air Dynamic Delay; Preset: Chaos After Loud
  • Gain: +2.6dB
  • Track: ‘T08 – footsteps – shoe on leaves’
  • Plugin: Air Dynamic Delay; Preset: Chaos After Loud
  • Gain: -12dB
  • Track: ‘T18 – kettle boiling’
  • Plugin: AIR Dynamic Delay; Preset: Chaos After Loud
  • Gain: 0dB
  • Track: ‘T19 – fridge door closing’
  • Plugin: AIR Dynamic Delay; Preset: Chaos After Loud
  • Gain: 0dB
  • Track: ‘T23 – chair scraping floor’
  • Plugin: AIR Dynamic Delay; Preset: Chaos After Loud
  • Gain: 0dB

Audio 5

  • Track: ‘T11 – conversation on LyricFM’
  • Plugin: EQ3 7-Band; Preset: Telephone-1
  • Gain: +6dB

Audio 6

  • Track: ‘a breath’ (stereo)
  • Plugin: Time Compression Expansion; Ratio 1.5 – reduced to half speed
  • Plugin: AIR Reverb; Preset: Cathedral
  • Gain: -6dB

Audio 7

  • Track: ‘traffic’ (right channel only)
  • Plugin: Time Compression Expansion; Ratio 1.5
  • Gain: +8.6dB

Master Fader

  • Plugin:AIR Reverb; Preset: Basic Medium

Finally, I applied a little reverb to all the sounds by adding the Reverb plugin to the Master Fader, and using the ‘Medium sized room’ preset. This has helped to gel them together and sound like they are all in the same acoustic space. The finished Soundscape was output as an MP3 audio file.

It’s amazing to think this soundscape has been made out of a handful of very ordinary sounds.

Project 12: Music to picture

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‘Music to picture’
Music: ‘Little Birds’, from the album Touchstone © 2017, Brigid O’Neill

Although not a conscious decision, I have found myself returning to an earlier theme explored in my Assignment 3 film. The result of selecting a music track playing in my head, with a similar theme.

The stripped back sound of ‘Little Birds’ feels as delicate as birds wings. A slow, smooth rhythm, with a langourous and elliptical feel. Mainly a vocal track, accompanied by Uilleann pipes in the background, it’s a piece of music that I find hauntingly beautiful, probably because of its use of the pipes, which I love the sound of. Here, the pipes are used to create a layer of sound, a drone, which helps gives the song a floating, dream-like feel.

The message of the song is clear, from the perspective of a parent watching a child grow and finding her own path in life.

Fig.1 Logbook 5, pages 43-44

 

Fig.2 Logbook 5, pages 45-46

I wanted to convey the song’s dream-like feel. So I adapted an approach similar to that used by Jonas Mekas in his diary films.

To achieve this I realised I needed to find a way of capturing movement with the camera, both movement within the frame and the movement of the frame itself. So I decided to use a Sony A6500, as it’s small form factor would enable me to capture footage handheld while allowing me the greatest freedom physically in creating the effect I was looking for when moving the camera. My Sony FS7 would be too heavy for this.

Reducing the frame rate from 25fps to 5fps (something I have never tried before) and combining this with very fluid handheld camera movements, enabled me to experiment with a simple way of applying dream-like textures to the image. Although I knew that reducing the frame rate would result in a blurred image, I had no idea how the final effect would look or even if it would actually work for this film. It required a leap of faith. So, while keeping an eye on composition, I decided to let go and accept a more free-form approach to capturing footage, and see where the experiment would lead me.

This free flowing approach to capturing handheld camera movements, with slow pans and tilts, letting the camera drift almost randomly through the scene, and an occasional lift to the sky at the end of a shot, has resulted in the dream-like ‘texture’ I had hoped for.

The guiding rule behind the editing was to let the film work with the music. This involved cutting to the beat. Beginning with a rough assembly of clips over the music track and then re-ordering them several times in order to create an effective flow of images. Cutting to the beat required shortening and lengthening many clips to make them fit the beats. Some clips were slowed down to make them fit their allocated place on the timeline. Static frames at the beginning or end of several clips were cut out, to maintain the overall sense of movement within the film. Using the audio waveform was particularly helpful in cutting to the beat, as it helped me line up the start of a clip with the beginning of a musical beat.

Fig.4 Screenshot, edit timeline

As the music sets the tone and pace of the film, the images and editing had to work with this. Cutting to the beat has given the film its visual rhythm. Creating a rhythmical structure has given the film a form unique to the combination of sound and picture within the moving image. I’m very happy with the result.

 

List of references

 

 

List of illustrations

Fig. 1 Logbook 5, pages 43-44

Fig. 2 Logbook 5, pages 44-45

Fig. 3 Logbook 5

Fig. 4 Screenshot, edit timeline.

 

Project 11: Headache

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‘Headache’

Brief: A character is suffering from a thumping headache. Looking around she sees various sources of sound. Use sound to emphasise the subjective experience of your character.

 

The Script

Fig.1 Script

 

The Picture

Fig.2 Notes on Medium Close-up and framing

 

The Sound

 

 

 

 

List of references

Maher, M. (2015) ‘How to Frame a Medium Shot Like a Master Cinematographer’ Premiumbeat.com At: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/how-to-frame-a-medium-shot-like-a-master-cinematographer/ (Accessed on 25 April 2017)

 

List of illustrations

Fig. 1 Logbook 5, pages 27-28

Fig. 2 Logbook 5, pages 29-30

Project 10: Kaleidoscope

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‘Kaleidoscope’

 

Brief:

Collect a diverse range of shots of your chosen subject – long shots and close shots, low angle and high, moving shots and still shots. What you are searching for is anything that stands out a special to you – something with narrative potential or conceptual resonance or just an interesting shot or image.

Subject

My chosen subject was a journey on the DART. A journey I had not made before. Although many of the suburbs were familiar to me.

The DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) system serves the coastline and Dublin city centre, stretching from Greystones in County Wicklow  to Howth and Malahide in north County Dublin.

For the purposes of this project I decided to travel the full length of the southern stretch of the line between Pearse Street station in the city centre and Greystones in County Wicklow, as that would be manageable in a single day.

Filming

The project guidelines suggested I should ‘think of this as active visual research’ rather than making a finished film of a particular type.

As the country was in the midst of a heatwave, I decided to travel light and carry as little equipment as possible. So rather than take my usual full size camera with me, I decided to use the smaller Sony A6500 camera. This enabled me to move around quickly and unhindered by equipment. It also meant I could be more discreet in my approach when filming.

I used the camera without any additional add-ons or a tripod. I also decided to use the kit lens (Sony Zeiss 16mm-70mm f4) rather than carrying a bag of Samyang cine prime lenses. Using a telephoto lens rather than four individual lenses meant I could work quicker. The telephoto range of the kit lens is quite good, covering a wide range of focal lengths from wide angle to shorter telephoto.

I also attached a 0.9 ND filter to the front of the lens to enable me to shoot with a shallow depth of field. Though on the day, the sunlight was such that I rarely managed to get down to f4.

I spent the whole day capturing shots, starting in the area around Pearse Street station and then boarding the train and travelling south along the coast. I got off the train at several stations to capture shots from the platforms and left the station at two places to explore the surrounding areas.

The weather on the day was extremely hot and sunny. The light was so bright that it was difficult to see the LCD screen on the back of the camera, which made it almost impossible to find focus for the shots. Which meant working with the viewfinder only.

As I had chosen not to take a tripod, I was able to operate the camera handheld, which allowed me to move quickly and spontaneously both within and off the train. Which meant I could capture shots as and when I saw them.

One of the joys of this project was that I didn’t know what to expect. Thinking of this as an exercise in visual research was very liberating. I worked spontaneously, capturing things as and when I saw them.

Editing

I captured more than 150 shots in the day. Almost an hour of footage. However, some of the footage was not usable. This was partly due to inaccurate exposure or poor focusing, and to duplication – shots were too similar. Some shots didn’t feel right within the context of the film. Other shots were simply too dull, uninteresting or too static.

I began editing by looking for visual, conceptual and continuity connections.

I looked for a sequence of shots that would work together for the opening of the film. I selected several city shots: a long shot over the river Liffey with traffic crossing a bridge; a wide shot of a parked lorry with the the FM104 radio lorry passing in front; a series of shots of the DART train crossing bridges. My aim in selecting these shots was to set a slow, meditative tone and introduce the theme of the journey.

I then decided to cut to a dark, moody, eerily empty shot of the stairway inside Pearse Street station. I liked the emptiness it portrayed. This was something I was not expecting at the time on a weekday morning.

From there the film follows roughly the actual route of the journey. I realised there were two visual threads within the film: one inside the train; the second in the external locations along the route. So I built up the film by cross-cutting between these two threads.

What struck me about many of the shots I had captured was how empty they were of people. I decided to go with this and build sequences of quiet, empty spaces. Even the sea was quiet. There was a calmness and tranquility about the day and this comes across in many of the shots I captured.

So I decided to go for a more meditative film.

One of the first things I did was ditch all the camera sound and look for a piece of music that would give the film a meditative feel.

As I was filming, I had thought I would be using the camera sound to help tell the story. The sound of the train approaching the platform, the sound inside the carriage, the general background noises of the the various places on the journey. But I decided to ditch the lot.

Going instead for the pictures only, I found I was looking at shape, pattern, line, colour and, more interestingly, the contrast between stillness and movement within and between the shots.

I also noticed several motifs emerging: ‘keep behind the line’; platforms; water.

Some shots cut together to give a sense of where we are and what is happening. Such as on the platform in Pearse Street station. In other places I cut images together in order to create contrast. For example: at 1:10, the exterior shot of the DART contains a strong sense of movement and activity is juxtaposed with the interior shot of the empty stairs; at 2:53, the static shot of the glass building behind the platform is juxtaposed with the moving shot inside the train looking out through the window; at 4:37, the interior of the train is contrasts with the unusual design of the interior of the footbridge with a view over the sea.

I purposefully held some shots longer than expected. I did this to give the viewer a sense of how slowly time seems to pass on a rail journey and to help reinforce the meditative feel of the film. Four shots in particular were held longer than expected: 00:20 to 00:41 – the shot of the DART crossing the river is allowed to run long enough for the viewer to see all the carriages cross the bridge; 01:35 to 02:11 – the shot of the woman on the platform waiting for the train to arrive; 04:46 to 05:23 – the shot of people descending the station steps (also reduced in speed by 50%); 07:44 to 07:59 – the shot inside the carriage as it emerges from the tunnel.

The choice of background music was quite straightforward. I wanted something that felt meditative and found a piece of ambient music on premiumbeat.com that also had the sound of waves in the background. I thought this would be an unusual, but effective piece to use, as it enabled me to foreshadow the sea. The sound of waves at the start of the film does not match with the pictures on screen. It is only when we see the sea that it makes sense.

Choosing the final shot was the most difficult part of the editing process. Nothing really stood out to me. There wasn’t anything that made a bold, dramatic statement for the film to end on. I tested out a few different shots, but they didn’t flow very well with the rest of the film.

I then realised that I didn’t need a dramatic shot to finish with. Instead, as this was more of a meditation than a documentary, I decided to go for a wide shot of the beach and sea.

Project 9: Fast and slow

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‘Fast and Slow’ – Version 1 – Slow

 

‘Fast and Slow’ – Version 2 – Fast

 

‘Fast and Slow’ – Version 3 – Combined

 

Project brief: Make two films of the same subject of your own choice, narrative or conceptual.

  • One FAST.
  • The other SLOW.

When you edit these films, think in terms of:

  1. beats
  2. pattern
  3. tempo

Make a third film – an edit that combines the two and emphasises variations between FAST and SLOW. Look for a pattern of accents that works dramatically.

The two opposite ideas of fast and slow are related to pace and rhythm, the speed at which the scene unfolds.

 

Version 1: Slow

Thinking of the ‘Slow’ film as a portrait of a character, I looked back at how Joanna Hogg drew her inspiration from paintings by Vilhelm Hammershoi. One painting in particular by Hammershoi caught my attention. ‘Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor’ (1901). What I liked about this picture was the artist’s use of a limited colour palette made up predominantly of whites and light greys, and the way in which the figure is placed to one side of the frame with her back to the viewer.

Fig. 1. ‘Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor’ (1901) Vilhelm Hammershoi

Looking back at Archipelago, I noticed one scene in which Hogg clearly drew upon Hammershoi’s paintings. I liked the way we are outside the room looking in at the character sitting on the edge of the bed. Like Hammershoi, Hogg uses a limited colour palette of muted tones. The character is placed to one side of the frame is dressed in dark clothes, similar to that of the woman in the painting. Hogg uses a static camera to capture the scene in a single long take, consisting of a single wide shot with no close ups or cutaways. The effect is that it allows the viewer to look at the frame in much the same way they would a painting. A similar technique is used by Roy Anderson to striking effect in his film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014).

Fig. 2. ‘Archipelago’ (2010) Directed by Jonana Hogg

I have drawn upon both the composition and colour palette of Hammershoi’s and Hogg’s images in my film.

I decided to use a very simple narrative: someone puts on a jacket then pulls a case out from under the bed, opens the lid, checks the contents, closes the case and leaves the room.

One of my aims in this film was to use as few shots as possible. So I decided to create this moving image out of three shots: a master shot and two covering shots.

I composed the master shot using elements from both Hammershoi’s painting and the scene from Archipelago in which we are on the landing looking into the bedroom. I did this by controlling the colour palette within the mise-en-scene and removing anything in the bedroom that would distract the viewer’s eye, such as pictures on the walls and other large or brightly coloured objects within the room. I then composed the shot so as to place the bedroom door in the right half of the frame, enabling me to place the character with his back to the viewer roughly in line with the right vertical third, similar to that of Hammershoi’s painting.

When editing this film, I was looking for a way of using beat, pattern and tempo to help express a sense of slowness.

Building upon the idea of being on the ‘outside looking in’, I realised I could structure the film around the concept of Chinese boxes – three shots, one inside the other:

  1. Master Shot (WS)
  2. Medium Close Up
  3. Close Up

Cutting the shots in a way that brings the viewer from outside the room into the room and back out again.

  1. (WS) viewer outside the room looking in
  2. (MCU) character looking into the guitar case
  3. (CU) character looking at guitar
  4. (MCU) character looking into the guitar case
  5. (WS) viewer outside the room looking in

The result is a slowly paced film lasting approximately a minute and a quarter, built around a series of static shots in which the viewer watches the action unfold within the frame.

 

Version 2: Fast

The ‘Fast’ version moves at a very different pace. As I was looking for a way of expressing the same idea through a fast paced sequence of images that echoed in some way the narrative set out in the first film, I decided to keep things simple and concise by filming and editing a series of images showing the guitar being taken out of its case, the amplifier switched on and the strings being tuned. In each shot I was looking for the key moment, movement or sound that defined that action.

As a teenager I would turn the volume off, pluck a note and then slowly fade the volume up again to create a strangely ethereal tone. While filming the shots of myself tuning the guitar I started to play with different ways of making musical sounds using a single string and the controls on the guitar, and without realising it, I absentmindedly played with the volume control while plucking individual strings. It was only when I began editing the shots together I realised the musical tones I had captured could be used as an additional layer of sound beneath the natural sounds within the sequence.

The shots fall roughly into four groups: opening the case; switching on the amplifier; emptying the case; and tuning the guitar.

When editing this film, I was looking for a way of using beat, pattern and tempo to help express a sense of fastness. I did this by cutting each clip on the beginning of the action and letting it run for a second or two. Creating a moving image with a logical sequence of events.

However, although the sequence of shots do move forward at a quick pace, I am not happy with the finished film. I think the images are too generic. They are neither narrative nor conceptual. They illustrate a very simple process rather than inspire a mood or feeling, or trigger an idea. One solution might be to shoot the images handheld, which would give the sense of a live performance. Another solution might be to include more of the character, giving a sense that this is about a person rather than generic shots of objects.

 

Version 3: Combined

Editing this version was like solving a puzzle. Taking elements from the previous two versions required considerably more thought than I had imagined it would. It was not simply a case of inserting the ‘fast’ shots into the ‘slow’ film.

Working with my original script, I decided to use the sequence of shots from the first version as the main spine of the film. I decided on this for two reasons: First, because this would give the film the sense of a narrative; and second, because the long static shots would establish the overall feel inspired by Hammershoi’s painting that I was looking for in the film.

The challenge was in finding the right point at which to insert the ‘fast’ shots. I was aiming for an overall flow that felt natural and not too contrived.

The musical tones serve an important function within this version. Oddly, and quite unexpectedly, these ethereal tones act like a sound motif, complementing the visual imagery and drawing our attention to the fact that the guitar is a string instrument. They evoke the light, airy sound of an aeolian harp. They also create the sense of something breathing.

 

References

‘Archipelago’ (2010) Directed by Hogg, J. [DVD] UK: Artificial Eye

Murch, W. (2001) In The Blink of an Eye: A perspective on film editing, second edition. Silman-James Press.

 

 

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. ‘Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor’ (1901) Vilhelm Hammershoi

Figure 2. ‘Archipelago’ (2010) Directed by Jonana Hogg