Research –
Example of audio engineer blog – http://acousticengineering.wordpress.com/
Noise ? What is noise? ‘Noise is an unwanted or objectionable sound.’ Being an audio engineer, one of the many reasons why i put so much practice and effort into my work is so that the audience/viewer can experience pleasurable sound. When it comes to post production for a children’s TV show i believe noise is unwanted by most but the unwanted noise could be used positively by grabbing the attention of a child quickly so that they are more focused. However, i would not use it more than once in an episode as the ‘noise’ may become an irrational fear for some children. Even though i believe this about noise, i didn’t want to pursue any of it in Hoodoos. The main reason behind this is that there are other ways of focusing attention to the screen without loud noises or uneasy sounds.
‘Exposure to moderate level of noise can cause Psychological stress, Annoyance, interference with activity, isolation, Headache, tiredness and irritability; may impair intellectual function and performance of complex tasks’
Listed above are the feelings and emotions that i want to avoid at all costs, especially when producing a TV show. I want every sound to be enjoyable and pleasurable to the ear.
http://www.who.int/ceh/capacity/noise.pdf Personal Learning Outcomes
‘Sound effects can create the illusion of continuity. The fact that a scene is made up of a number of discontinuous shots edited together will be disguised by continuous atmosphere tracks laid over the length of the scene, which the audience will then perceive as a ‘Whole’.’ (Wyatt, Chapter 12)
Wyatt gave me an insight into how to work with un-edited shots and how to mask and disguise those shots that did not flow together. Wyatt believes that sound effects can cover those pauses and discontinuity and that audio can be used to an advantage more than it already is. I challenged Wyatt to this theory within my own work. Within Hoodoos, there were many shots that were supposed to have sound effects supporting the visual narrative, however many of those were missing and it caused the visual element to lack depth and purpose. For example, there is a scene where Harry (main character) presses a buzzer, there is audio you can hear when he presses it but there is no buzzing sound. However, when that buzzing sound we used is inserted the whole atmosphere changes as it feels more realistic and less monotonous. The sound effect also makes it clear when it leads into the next transition of the following sound effects (opening the log). It also makes the narrative more clear as the buzzing sound symbolises the start or the end of something.
‘Sound effects can help fix problem areas in the dialogue track.’ (Wyatt, Chapter 12)
I completely agree with Wyatt’ theory again as i underwent this process in Hoodoos. In the scene where ‘Granny’ puts on her record you can hear the scratching of the disk in the background, even when the camera is not focused on the gramophone. This sound originally was there but it was so quiet and only lasted in the camera shot where ‘Granny’ was the focus. So we manipulated the disk scratch by creating our own version via foley and then duplicating it several times and increasing the volume too. Now the disk scratch made sense to the narrative to what was happening on screen, which is where everybody is about to dance as they are waiting for the song to play.
‘Audio Post Production for Television and Film: An introduction to technology and techniques’ by Hillary Wyatt and Tim Amyes
‘The dialogue moves the story and the plot points forward. Dialogue is usually the most clearly mixed element of a soundtrack.’ (Woodhall, chapter 1, p.6)
Having researched a lot about dialogue i came to the conclusion that many audio engineers, especially industry standard ones take great care and detail with dialogue above everything else. You could say that dialogue had top priority when it comes to post production. Taking this into account, i spent most of my time getting the dialogue in sync with the visuals perfectly. Fortunately for us about 90% of the dialogue was crisp with there being some dodgy takes too, which we managed to overcome quite easily. As there were many takes given to us underneath the original audio we almost always had a back up recording just incase one of them forgot lines or the microphones crackled etc. From research i gathered that this method of post production was the industry standard way of doing it, so i put it into practice myself and i felt that it was successful.
Throughout the process of Hoodoos i managed to find a template from my research to which i looked to back and forth over the whole process of my project. It is a post production sequence that really helped me keep on track with what i needed to do and what order was best to do it in.
Here is a link to that sequence: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ELCASvSwQvcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=audio+post+production&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OFmNVPaCDcGI7AaM2YGYAQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=snippet&q=children&f=false
Chapter 6 – The Postproduction Sequence
‘Audio Postproduction for Digital Video’ by Jay Rose
Other Sources used – ‘Motivational Design: The Secret to Producing Effective Children’s Media’ by Marilyn P. Arnone
-4.9 Children’s Programmes http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_publications/codes_guidance/audio_description/audio_3.asp.htmlPersonal Outcomes – This had some good information about how to approach a children’s TV show. For example, how to grab a child’s attention through the use of audio and the audio with whats happening on screen. Its kind of a basic rule to how children’s shows work successfully, so i think this was a good source of information for my research and project.
I am looking to collectively hone and further my skills in audio production to create industry-level sound in both musical and practical terms, but also keep to a specified brief whilst doing so, which ensures a required level of professionalism as i will be meeting the requirements of an external client. By the end of this project i would like to have more confidence in doing more work like this but by myself so that i can say that i have produced this all on my own. I would also like to hopefully work on something like this again, and try to produce something just as good or maybe even better. Having almost finished the final project i believe that i am more confident now when it comes to post production, especially for moving image. I have not had nay experience working with TV shows before so i think this was a great learning curve for me, and will be be able to pursue these skills learnt further and develop my field of knowledge in audio production.