Unit 38 Soundtrack Production Proposals

Proposal 1

The deadline for this assignment is the 29th of March and I need to create proposals for 2 scenes of my choice as well as completely re-dubbing them entirely with my own dialogue and sound effects. I am aiming to continuously work on the proposals whilst working through the soundtracks to make sure they are accurate.

I have chosen a scene from The Dark Knight Rises which was directed by Christopher Nolan. The clip that I have chosen is 4:45s long.

There are multiple sound effects in the scene for me to replace such as gunshots, other miscellaneous weapon sounds, fighting, glass breaking etc. The whole scene is also set on a plane so I will need to recreate the sound of a plane engine heard mainly from inside the plane with its door open. I will most likely do this with a vacuum cleaner at home or maybe i could record a particularly windy day as i believe this would sound similar to the sound in the original scene and will fill the foley sound criteria. I will most likely use freesound.org as a sound library. Freesound.org has a very wide range of sounds which will make it more likely that I will find a sound effect that matches what I need and what I am looking for. I will also have to dub over the dialogue which I will most likely record in an empty classroom or at home in an empty room. I want to record empty rooms to avoid unwanted background noise messing with my recordings. as a student classrooms are also easily accessible to me I will also have to add new music to the scene.

The music in the scene is all non-diegetic, runs throughout and is all quite tense, action music. The music plays constantly throughout the scene and is used to amplify the tenseness of the scene and the events within it. I will either record a soundtrack in garageband or find a track online through youtube or a similar site. Using youtube will allow me to find an existing track to match the mood of the scene without me having to compose 5 minutes worth of music myself. This would make the process easier for me. I will most likely find royalty free music to avoid any copyright issues.

All of the spoken word in the scene is dialogue. Most of the dialogue comes from the character 'Bane' who has quite a recognisable and unique voice. His voice has also been subject to a bit of modulation as it comes through his mask which is something I will have to take into account when re-recording his dialogue. I will have to lip-sync over the dialogue in the scene which I will again record in an empty classroom or an empty room at home. This location will be good to record in because they are empty so I will be able to avoid background noise in my dialogue tracks.

I will be recording my dialogue using the voice notes app on my iPhone 6 or using the microphone on my headphones to directly record into garageband. The phone has a good quality microphone and a voice recorder app which will make the process easier. I also already own an iPhone 6. Online reviews on the Apple forums also say that the 'quality is crystal clear'. I have found though that the headphone microphone records louder sounds which in quite a loud scene is probably better. This will then be imported onto the mac computer which I will be working on. I am using a mac because the software which I am familiar with and which I am going to use to create my soundtrack is only available on Apple computers. I will be using garageband to edit the sound effects, dialogue and music together to create my soundtrack. I am using garageband because it is relatively simple to use and allows me to combine a film clip with my own soundtrack.

Personnel

Alex - Producer, editor and voice actor

David - Producer

Louis - Voice actor

Romilly - Technical assistant

Proposal 2

The deadline for this assignment is the 29th of March and I need to create proposals for 2 scenes of my choice as well as completely re-dubbing them entirely with my own dialogue and sound effects. I am aiming to continuously work on the proposals whilst working through the soundtracks to make sure they are accurate. I will need to re-dub the the sound effects, the dialogue and the music.

I have chose the opening scene of the video game 'Fallout 4' which was produced by Bethesda. The clip that i have chosen has a runtime of 2:43s.

There are only a few sound effects in the scene that I will need to recreate. The first sound is a sort of fizzing sound when the game title fades onto the screen. There is also the sound of a 'domestic robot' trimming a hedge, bombs exploding and some wind. I will use freesound.org as my sound library for this scene. Freesound.org has a very wide range of sounds which will make it more likely that I will find a sound effect that matches what I need and what I am looking for.

The music in the scene is all non-diegetic and runs throughout. It is quite dramatic to support the meaning and mood behind the scene. this means that i will have to find something with a similar tone so as not to take away from the emotion the scene is meant to envelop. I will most likely find a song on youtube to act as a backing track for the scene. Using youtube makes the process easier for me because I can find a track that matches the mood and meaning of the scene without having to compose one myself. I will most likely find royalty free music to avoid any copyright issues.

The majority of the scene is dialogue because the scene is a sort of monologue. This will be the most challenging part to record due to the amount of dialogue and the need to convey the emotion in the scene. The character also has an american accent which shouldn't be too hard to recreate. It also has some awkward timing to it. I can, however, combat this by using markers in garageband to mark where the dialogue is. I will be lip-syncing over the dialogue and will record it in an empty classroom. I will record here because it is quiet, so I avoid background noise, as well as easily accessible to me because I am a student.

I will be recording my dialogue using the voice notes app on my iPhone 6 or using the microphone on my headphones to directly record into garageband. The phone has a good quality microphone and a voice recorder app which will make the process easier. I also already own an iPhone 6. Online reviews on the Apple forums also say that the 'quality is crystal clear'. I have found though that the headphone microphone records louder sounds. This isn't a particularly loud scene, being a monologue essentially, so either should work. The phone has a better recording quality however. This will then be imported onto the mac computer which I will be working on. I am using a mac because the software which I am familiar with and which I am going to use to create my soundtrack is only available on Apple computers. I will be using garageband to edit the sound effects, dialogue and music together to create my soundtrack. I am using garageband because it is relatively simple to use and allows me to combine a film clip with my own soundtrack.

Personnel

Alex - Producer, editor and voice actor

David - Producer

Romilly - Technical assistant

Documentary Proposal

As the final assignments of Unit 31 I will be creating a community media documentary as part of a group. The first part of the assignment was to research ideas. We then move on to pre-production where we complete things such as production schedules, shot lists and risk assessments etc, these tasks will be split evenly between my group. My group includes me, Lloyd and Isaac. During production we will all be directing and filming (including sound recording) as well as setting up shots. We will also all be editing individually to create a documentary each. I personally will be conducting the interviews, however, which means that I won't be responsible for filming at these points.. The producer and client for the documentary are Coulsdon College.

Our documentary is called Making The Grade and is centred around the problem of student stress. This will be focused around our college to meet the community media criteria. The purpose of our documentary is to increase awareness of the increasing stress that students are under due to things like increasingly high standards and educational budget cuts which limit resources. The impact we would like Making the Grade to have is an increased awareness and empathy for student stress as well as a larger debate about what can be done to combat it.

We will be recording all sound live on location. We will conduct our interviews in empty classrooms because of this so we can combat any unwanted sounds it also keeps it realistic. The student interviews will most likely be recorded in room 219 as it is often free to use and is an open space which will be good for recording. The teacher interview will most likely be recorded in the psychology classroom on the bottom floor as this is the main classroom of the teacher in question. It is also an open room with nice space which will be good for recording. The interviews are the only scenes where diegetic audio is needed. The other clips we will record without sound and then add a voiceover to. This will also be recorded in an empty classroom, again to avoid any unwanted sounds being recorded. The voiceover will most likely be recorded using the voice notes app on my iPhone 6 using it's built in microphone. I used this for my soundtracks as well and am happy with the quality it produces. During the interviews it may be best to record the audio from two separate sources incase one has an error. This isn't needed when recording voiceover, however, as it can just be re-recorded if an error occurs. Other than this I don't believe that any other technical issues could arise in sound recording. 

The personnel for our documentary are:

·      

     Alex – Directing, camera operation, setting up shots, voiceover, editing and interviewing.

·      Isaac – Camera operation, directing, setting up shots and editing.

·      Lloyd – Camera operation, directing, setting up shots and editing.

      The resources that we will be using are an iPhone 8 as a camera and sound recorder. We will also be using an iPhone 6 as a sound recorder. These have built in microphones which online reviews on the Apple forums say are 'crystal clear'. We will be editing using mac computers. I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my video clips together with my sound recordings. I will then export it and burn it to a DVD to be turned in.

     

      The script for our spoken word is as follows:

Narrator
As times have changed, technology has advanced and many other things have developed, students are dealing with higher workloads in college. The amount of work has had negative impacts on them mentally. This along with the increasingly high standards, cuts to education budgets and the limiting of resources are large contributions to student stress being so rampant.

In the national Stress in America survey, an annual analysis by Harris Interactive for the American Psychological Association 35% of young people polled since 2007 reported feeling more stress this year compared with last year. The worst part of this data is the fact that most people do not feel like they can manage this stress well and that it’s taking a toll on their bodies.

With all these statistics and facts, it is hard to ignore the immediate problem of stress in students. We asked ourselves how stress is being handled in our own college. We collected data and researched the issue to understand it better. We then decided to go and ask students within our college about how they deal with stress and teachers who come from a professional standpoint about the issue.


Questions for Students
1. What subjects are you studying?
2. What qualification level are the subjects?
3. How are you personally affected by student stress
4. What do you think could be done to combat it
5. Do you feel enough is being done? If not, why?


Questions for Teacher
1. How does stress affect neurology?
2. How does the body respond to stress?
3. What are your opinions on student stress?
4. A brief description of the HPA axis and on the adverse affects its activation has.
5. What do you think is being done to combat it
6. Do you feel like enough is being done? If not, why?


Narrator
So how can we combat student stress? What more can be done to aid students in these issues? There are some easy methods to resolve this. When studying students should take a rest every hour and a half to their brain a break. They should also talk to someone so that they are not alone in their studying and stress. Some colleges are equipped with therapists that are there to help and will be understanding of the stressors that can affect students. You should never feel afraid to seek out help. These things, however, are only part of the solution. This problem will never end if we don't fix the underlying problems of budget cuts and increasingly high standards. Education should be gratifying not tiring.

As you can see it will be a split between voiceover and interviews. The interviews will use live location recording and the narration will use studio recording. Everything will be done using our normal accents as we are not playing characters..

If we are to put music in our documentary then it would all be non-diegetic. If i was to use music it would only be in the background during the parts of the documentary which make use of voiceover. I would leave the interview portions without music as I want the audience to especially focus on what is being said from relevant peoples. Any music would be quite tame, relatively simplistic music as I wouldn't want it to take away from the spoken word of the scene and it would only be in the background at quite a low level. I don't really want it to have a large effect on the mood or meaning of the documentary, only to strengthen it a bit or back it up. I will most likely find a backing track on youtube which i will then edit into my individual documentary edit.

I will not be using any sound effects in the documentary as they aren't real life and the majority is interview based which doesn't warrant any added sound effects. In the live recording the only sound effect I would expect is the background ambience that comes with any real life space as nowhere is truly silent and there will always be some small sounds in the background. I want background ambience as it makes it sound more realistic and normal to our ears as absolute silence is abnormal.