| |

Learning Soundtrack Pro

Byrichard

During my second year at university with some friends, we worked on a zombie film where my friend was a director and I was Lighting Camera Operator and editor. As a result of this, we had almost total control of the film and it was a great learning experience.

Several weeks were spent preparing the script, finding actors, and testing different types of makeup. As a result of this, I was in a pub dressed as a zombie. The shooting went well and so did the editing but I committed one stupid mistake. I  didn’t leave the sound loud enough, as a result of which it’s hard to hear what’s happening.

At the time of editing, I had worked in a number of stages from rough cut to cleaner cut to fine cut and sound engineering. At some points, there are eleven tracks of sound to be taken care of. It’s taken several months but I finally have the time to re-work the project. I’ve got the project file in at least one or two places on my iBook and once I get to London I’m going to transfer it over to the Macbook pro. That’s when the fun will start.

I’m going to getting al the clips back online and export the video to soundtrack pro and that’s the point at which I will attempt to learn the software well enough to re-work sound once the other stages are finished. I’m looking forward to that stage because both my friend and I have been talking about re-working the sound on that short film for at least a year by now. Finally, I have the time and the resources to get on with it.

On being directed

Byrichard

Being directed is often a good thing. It helps you achieve the tasks you are meant to achieve within a certain amount of time. Other times it helps you learn something useful. In occasional cases, though direction is one of the most frustrating things in the world.

I have spent many hours standing over the past three days being directed by someone who had not taken enough time with multicamera directing theory books or taken the time to familiarise himself with the theoretical aspect.

You’d expect most people who direct to watch others carry out such tasks, as I have with video editors for example. You’d also expect individuals to take the time to understand what shots can be achieved with which cameras. Over the past few days though I have seen an individual with the lack of skill to direct a team of people for a multicamera event.

Among the flaws were: lack of clarity, both in ideas and direction, lack of direction – for onscreen talent, too slow resulting in people being bored, etc.

One flaw I have seen from a number of directors is that they concentrate too much on the shots they would like to have without actually looking at what’s going on through the three cameras already in place, often missing one shot.

Don’t stop a take just because your vision mixed the wrong camera at the wrong time. Keep it going and see whether any more of the production can be salvaged.

I’m glad that the task is completed. Now it’s up to me to make it work in post-production.

Bad organisation

Byrichard

When you’re the producer one of the first things you do is make sure that the person you’re meant to be filming is at the location where you want him at the time you would like him to be there. A few days ago though, when someone else was producing the talents did not show up and we waited five hours for no reason. This was frustrating since i had at least two other things I could have been doing instead.

Today I have another more spontaneous vox pop gathering excercise around central London and probably Camden. I’m not sure about the best location but we should see this within a short amount of time.

I’ve been thinking more about the topic of my dissertation and the research queston and whilst reading Documentary In the digital Age I think I may have found an essay question. I have to fine tune it to be neither to focused nor too broad.