As a group we were given the highly challenging task of creating a 45 minute radio show using each of the six group radio projets. we were given just a few hours to come up with some ideas to tie the very different shows together, we worked quickly under the pressure and finally managed to organise a show but had a few technical issues during recording. Our show didnt quiet make the required 45 minutes and some of the sound from the begining of each radio project was lost due to a slow fade in. I have edited the show and replaced the missing sound, the edited version is bellow for the benefit of the other group members.
On Friday the team got together after class, using Logic we began putting together the material that each of us have been working on independently. Deciding what should and shoud not be in the final show is a difficult process but between us we managed to narrow it down quiet quickly.
Monday saw the three of us begin to tighten up the edits and automate the sound levels with in the multiple sound tracks. We recorded Simon for the voice over introduction and added it to our project. we used a Coles microphone for the task as we were working in the gate house and their were many environmental sounds. The "Coles lip mic" was designed to pick up sound directly around it and not to record unwanted background noise.
Logic Automation
The sound levels and automation proved to be tricky, resulting in the fine editing process taking a little longer than we had anticipated resulting in fifty seconds of the punk rock section incomplete as we ended the session, we also realized that we did not actually have any suitable material that we wanted to use. After some encouragement from Esther we decided I would record a voice over for the final piece, I brought the coles mic home with me and after over coming a few technical hitches I managed to record the last piece.
Tuesday during the tech hour we mixed together the final pieces and finished the assignment just in time for hand in. Another close one for me and once again I was wishing I had given a little extra time for the unforeseen problems that inevitably seem to occur some where during the process.
Here is our final piece...
I have really enjoyed this project and working along side Esther and Simon ,they where good team mates who communicated well and contributed their efforts on all levels. I think we all would agree that we cut it very fine at the end and could of done with another afternoon to work on the piece. Overall I am happy with the show and think we achieved what we set out to do.
I was personally inspired by the blues journey series which I mentioned on one my earlier posts (Blues journey podcast) I liked the way they had combined a narrative voiceover with interviews and music in order to tell their story, I found their program kept you interested and the same time entertained. Although we did not have the same amount of time to go into any kind of detail I still think our program captured the essence of Blues Journey and we managed to add a little humour too. Well done Simon and Esther.xx
In last weeks lesson we were asked to go out and collect a selection of Vox pops from students around the university. Together with simon and Esther we asked various people the question, do you like poetry? We recorded around fourteen responses and then returned to the gate house and began the process of editing.
The task was very rewarding and helped my overcome my initial feeling of reserve at stopping people and asking them to comment. I realized that most people do have something to say and that the responses are very varied. I think this task has helped set us up for recording on thursday, it was a good practice run and has given us a good idea of what to do and expect.
For this assignment we have been asked create a soundscape 3 - 4 minutes in duration which demonstrates an understanding of the use of audio to evoke an atmosphere.
I have decided to record the process of cooking dinner for two, which will involve a trip to the supermarket as well as cooking dinner.
I have begun recording the sounds for my soundscape using the Edriol mp3 recorder.
I had to experiment at first to try to get the sound levels right and have found that it is better to break a sound affect down into sections if there are various sound levels. For example with opening the door the first part the door handle going down is much louder than the actual squeak of the door opening so I recorded them separately at the correct level and will put them back together in the edit.
Having collected most of the sounds I want to use I have been going through the lengthy process of editing each sound using Sony Sound Forge audio editing software. I have given each sound a relevant name and normalized the levels, with some sounds I have managed to edit out unwanted peaks and noises and have experimented with the noise gate to reduce buzzing sounds in the background.
Sound Forge
Once I have processed and named all the sounds I will then use logic to assemble them and create the soundscape.
Final stages
I have now completed naming and processing my sound recordings and have begun to assemble the sounds in logic using mulitracks, one track is for enviromental back ground noises and another two tracks for the individual sounds.It now seems my sound scape is begining to take shape.
I reckon I have another three hours or so to finish assembling the sounds and making any final adjustments, but I am going to give myself a whole day in the gate house in case of any unforseen problems that might occur.
Famous Last words...
Today I learned the very valuable lesson in the importance of saving your project as you progress, I managed to loose a few hours work whilst working on my project in Logic, which resulted in my having to stop two thirds of the way through, bounce out the project and bring home the files to finish off. I saved what I had of the project as a wav file knowing Sony Vegas was compatible with the format, and was able to import it along with the other sounds and finally complete it just in the nick of time.
Although I gave myself a little extra time thinking I might run over by a few hours, after todays experience in future I will give more time for unforeseen problems and think at least a day would be a much better time scale to give myself.
It works in a different way to final cut pro, but the principles are the same, and I have gained a better understanding of the program by doing the tutorials on Final Cut Pro. I am now able to organize all the media into bins and understand the setup process more clearly.
In the lesson today I finished off my montage, although I had worked on it at home I still needed to tweak it a little.
The music I used was from a band called Back of Beyond and the album is called meeting pool, all the imagery was taken by myself.
We have been set our first group assignment. Together with Simon and Esther we are to produce and construct a radio program 4-5 minutes in duration.
At the end of last weeks lesson we were given some time to come up with a topic, Simon came up with the subject of music and we were all happy to go along with it and got down to discussing what would make interesting listening.
I found that ideas developed quickly between us in comparison to working alone and after brain storming for half an hour or so, we decided to do do a short program about music and the effects different eras and genres have had upon society and how that compares to music today. We will use a mixture of narrative, music, voxpops and interviews to construct the program.We have each taken different subjects to research, mine been punk rock and the blues. The team will meet again on Tuesday to discuss our ideas further.
Today we had to present our pitch proposal but had to rethink and refine some of our original ideas before making the presentation. Mike pointed out that we would need more than five minutes to cover all the topics we had chosen, so we narrowed down the idea but have kept with the original theme of Music and its revolutionary effect upon culture and society.
We will be asking " Why isn't music revolutionary today" and looking at the reasons that might be.
The digital age and the major changes in technology.
The way people consume music today is very different from how it used to be, with the click of a button single tracks can be simply down loaded to a computers music library, not as engaging as physically going out to the shop and buying a C.D or vinyl album, which came packaged and would usually tell some sort of story about the band.
Has society simply become more apathetic and our youth less rebellious. Is there less to kick against hence the lack of new raw talent crying out against the system. As we have seen in the past with other musical movements there have always been clashes and rebellian against establishment.
I found this clip whilst researching for ideas and think this illustrates some of the issues weve been looking at.
On Tuesday our team got together to discuss our radio program further, we have each taken on different tasks and have arranged to meet in Bath town centre to record vox pops from the general public. The question we will be asking is "in your opinon why do you think music isnt revolutionary today". We are also going to interveiw people who have a conection to the music industry and ask the question " why do you think the advent of the digital age affects music production and consumerism today"
The action points I have been given to complete before our next meeting on thurs are as follows..
Book recording equipment and broadcast lab.
choose five music tracks from the dance era
collect voxpops from freinds people
Tues 17th nov.
The team had a brief meeting today to catch up on how things are going. The equipment is booked and we are all set to go on thursday, to collect vox pops in Bath town centre. We discused how the introduction would go, and what music we will use.
Radio Program Update
Today the team met in bath town centre, we set up the equipment and checked the sound levels and set about collecting vox pops. We tried to aim for sheltered parts of the street as the wind was howling a gale today and also took into consideration the street cleaners noise. I had asked for a 'Dead cat' to cover the microphone as I knew the wind was going to cause us some problems.
We found that most people were willing to give us their opinion and were not deterred by the few no,s we received . Each of us took a turn at both recording and interviewing, when we were happy with the amount of vox pops collected, we went for a coffee and did a spot check on the recordings to make sure they were fine.
I will save the recordings we have so far to my computer, then the team will meet again on wednesday to begin editing.
I am pleased with the outcome of today I feel we achieved quiet a lot and we each had a positive input into the project, what is more I found the task enjoyable and was intrigued to hear the very different responses that people gave.
Meeting 23rd november
Minutes
present : Simon Partington, Esther Ridings, Mandy Briggs.
location: gatehouse, Bathspa
Date: 23/11/09
Action point: each team member to edit down recorded material.
Action point: have their chosen music ready in a format to import into Logic.
Time line : edit together the remainder of the vox pops and audio by 2nd dec and finish overall process by 4th
Today we had a short meeting in class and ran over some of the details we wish to use in the edit. Each team member has collected vox pops, interviews and music needed for the show and its now just a matter of editing the audio and choosing the relevant material then recording the narrative.
25th November
I began the process of editing the vox pops and interview I have recorded, I found that some of the techniques I had learned previously in the voice over edit, came in really handy. I have had to really narrow down and edit the recordings as five minutes is still a short amount of time for all the content we have.
I have put together just over a minute of the radio show combining the interview music and voxpos relating to the dance era. The music tracks have been sourced from both my own music store and from you tube: Ledfeild, dance track, rave track. I have combined the music with relevant vox pops and sections of my interview. Keeping things to a minimal is proving to be difficult and a ruthless approach must be taken, only the most relevant recordings need to be used.
The team plan to meet again next week when we can go over what has been done so far and discuss the finer details of what will go into the final edit.
minutes Meeting!!
Present: Mandy, Esther and Simon!!! Date 1/12/09 Location: Gatehouse
Action point: Meet Friday following class to further post production. Possible meet on Monday if needed!!!
Action point: All members of group to bring their recordings/music to aid with Radio show!!
Mandy says do not check with Rich, Simon and Esther disagree … after much deliberation we find out that Mandy is correct.
Order Coles microphone for voice over.
Mandy and Simon post to blog the voxpops and edits already completed.
Esther to write out ideas for the script.
When we met today one of the action points discussed was to post to our blogs the edited material we had done so far and the vox pops collected in Bath:
Vox pops and interview
Dance Rant x factor
Finished !!
Monday 6th December, the team got together in the gate house to finish off the final edit and record the voice over, we used a Coles microphone for the task as we were working in the gate house and their were many environmental sounds. The "Coles lip mic" was designed to pick up sound directly around it and not to record unwanted background noise.
For this exercise we were asked to take a series of 10 or more photographs and match them to 60 seconds of music, From a choice of four tracks by beatsystem I chose 23 million, but haven't yet been able to download the music.
During the 1920s, the pioneering Russian film directors Seirge Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov,Lev Kuleshov demonstrated the effects and potential of using montage in film.
Seirge Eisenstein 19898-1948
Eisenstein was fascinated how an audiences responses could be aroused by film and was convinced you could manipulate time and space in film and so create new meaning. By heavily editing sequences his aim was to create ideas and responses in the audience that go beyond that of images themselves,tertium quid' (third thing) is the name given to the greater whole that arrises from individual parts.
In the film Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstien demonstrates the power of montage in this scene "Odessa Steps".
Dzgia Vertov 1896 - 1954
During the 1920s Vertov and several other film makers created a group called kinocks (kinio-oki meaning camera eyes) they rejected the cinema with their staged plots and props, they believed the cinema of the future should be fact and recordings of real life and everyday experiences.
Vertov began assembling clips without regard for continuity, his focus was upon "film truth"and capturing the world as he saw it. Although Vertov criticized Eisensteins commitment to narrative film, he still used his theory of montage in his films and took the technique beyond that of Eisenstein seen in the film "The man with movie camera"
Lev Kuleshov 1899-1970
kuleshov was known to Russian film makers as the " father of soviet cinema" he was one of the first film theorists who began experimenting with editing techniques and montage.
Famous for The kuleshov effect an experiment where three identical faces were edited together with three different images, a bowl of soup, a women and a coffin, the audience connected the emotional expression of the actor to each of the images and believed that the expression was different for each one.
Kuleshov demonstrated the importance of using montage in cinema and significantly influenced film makers of the time and right up to the present day.
Alfred Hitchcock refers to the effect in this short clip.
Vsevolod Pudovkin a student of kuleshov once wrote "We make films, Kuleshov made cinema."
For this task I was asked to listen to a radio program or documentary and deconstruct the program in order to understand in greater detail how it was put together.
After listening to various different podcasts I decided to use this from the Blues Journeyit is the first of four episodes telling the story of the blues as it travel across africa the Mississippi cotton fields to the streets of Chicargo.
I found the pod cast to be well presented and very informative. With a collection of interviews, blues music and narration the story is told well in only15 minuets.
Presented by Kipp Cornell, Titled ;Got them blues a history;
Introduction to the title of the story and the presenter,with blues music playing in the background
music fades in plays for half a minute fades back out into the background
The presenter describes how the roots of blues music lie in the call and response slavery songs .
cuts to a spiritual 1890s slave song plays for 20 seconds.
presenter narrates over the song comparing hiphop and rap to the blues as they are all the voice of the black community.
blues rift
Interview with Mr l Hoppikins Texas blues player,describes his time in prison.
presenter gives a short history about how the blues were said to help deflect the hard times
Interview with Big Bill Brunsey who speaks of his experience of the blues
cuts to a relevant blues track.
The format carries on in the same way for the remainder of the podcast, the presenter introduces the subject then a short clip of an interview discussing the same subject is played, cutting to a relative piece of music also telling the same story through song. The podcast goes on to talk about the klu klux clan and interviews migrants who headed north. The pod cast fades out with a blues tune and credits.
With 70 percent of the population using supermarkets to do the majority of their shopping. It seems that today people are becoming more and more disconnected with the origins of the food they consume. Not only unaware of the long distances that some food travels but also how the food grows and is manufactured.
I propose to make a program series consisting of six episodes, each one featuring a different family but following the same format every week. A family are deprived of all their supermarket bought food and must live for one month on locally sourced foods, the program will illustrate the difficulties and frustration involved but will focus upon the growth and awareness the family develops and any positive affects that arise from the situation.
The target audience for my production would be families with an age range from children up to adults in their late forties. My program aims be both entertaining and informative, it will tackle issues such as the collapse of communities and local businesses as the amount of new supermarkets builds increase and carbon foot print, how we as consumers can reduce ours by making informed choices when buying food products.
I aim to increase the audiences awareness of their own consumer habits and by witnessing the positive effects upon the families during the series, I hope to impress upon people to think twice about what they purchase and take a more conscious approach towards where they shop and how they shop.
Vox pop is a latin word short for vox populi meaning voice of the people. Usually comprising of a very short interview from members of the general public expressing an opinion on a particular subject or issue.
Heres an example of voxpops on the subject of religion
Vox pops are normally recorded on the streets and in public places, random members of the public are asked the same question each giving there own point of veiw. The various different replies should represent popular opinion from a cross section of society.
The introduction starts with imagery of people shopping and a voice over explaining how many people today use supermarkets and raise the question, do we now take our food for granted? Introduce the family.
A family of five with both parents working are stripped of all their supermarket bought foods and drinks and for one month they will live by a given set of rules out lining where to shop and how to shop, all food and drink bought and consumed must be from a local source (within seventy miles. They will however be given some basic foods and expected to bake for themselves.
As the family try to adapt to the new rules, difficulties and frustrations begin to arise. They become aware of just how many foods are off limits and how difficult it is to source a variety of food locally,It is proving to be very time consuming. The pressure builds for the already over stretched working couple and tempers begin to fray as the children become increasingly disheartened and bored at the lack of treats sweets and drinks.
A few weeks in and the family begin to settle and adjust to the change, they become more organized and begin to work together as a team, although though there are still strains and stress, a more positive attitude is emerging, the kids enjoy baking and going out shopping which has taken on a whole new meaning. They become increasingly more aware of where their food comes from as in its origins and how far some food travels.
Once the task is complete the family are reunited with their goods and allowed back to the supermarket ,they celebrate with a favourate family dinner and chat about their experience whilst indulging in all that has been forbidden.
The family reflect back as they look over some of the key footage taken over the past month and express what their feelings were and what was going through their minds at the time. They discuss how the experience has had any long lasting effects upon their lives, and how they now do things differently bringing around a more consumer conscious approach towards Shopping.
In yesterdays lesson we were asked to edit out the mistakes made in a voiceover and make the sound natural using logic pro. sourced http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/logicpro/ I used the scissor tool to remove any mistakes and unwanted noises taking care when lining up the breaths so the voice flows and sounds natural. Once the process was complete the edit was bounced out as a wav file, then processed through the levelater which normalizes the sound and brings the levels together.
Here are the two voice recordings one before editing and one after.
This was a good exercise to refresh my skills in logic and become more familiar with some of the tools such as the zoom and the loop region, both useful tools when it comes to working in detail.
The most difficult part to this task was to actually find a place on the web to Host the audio clips. I finally decided to use Divshare.com and uploaded both my audio clips but was unable to stream the clips to my blog site. I finally resolved the problem by changing the file format of the audio files to MP3 using itunes and had no further problems using mp3 format.
A soundscape is a number of natural, Industrial or urban sounds that when combined together as a series of events creates an ambience and gives the listener an awareness of the environment through sound.
Key Note Sounds, may not always be heard but they give us an idea of the environment, with sounds such as wind, animals, urban sounds.
Sound signals, foreground sounds that jump out us such as alarms, bells and sirens.
Soundmark, is a sound that is unique to a location.
I liked the idea these guys came up with, it was interesting to see how they gathered their sounds and went on to develop them in their own unique way. This piece of film illustrates the importance of sound and the impact when combined with images.
I came up with this idea as I often have that very thought as I race around Tescos trying to do the weekly shopping. I do try where possible to support the local shops in my area and the town markets too and I have managed for periods of time not to use a supermarket. In my experience it is more time consuming and inconvenient way to shop in comparison to supermarket shopping but far more rewarding.
With supermarkets dominating the grocery market it is little surprise that many small businesses are closing as more supermarkets are been built. supermarket inquiry . Should we be supporting local businesses ? With the advent of online shopping people are becoming by far more detached from the food that they consume and from where it originates.
Take an average family of four or five, with both parents in full time employment, with children aged between five and sixteen. For a given period time around two to three weeks they would agree to filmed around the clock and live by a given set of rules. It would make a challenging subject throwing up some interesting issues.
The rules would be as follows.
On day one all food stuffs bought from a supermarket or have not been sourced locally will be removed from the house. They would however be allowed to keep or be given basic baking ingredients such as Flour, oats yeast in order to bake their own bread or whatever they might choose and be encouraged to do so.
No Supermarket shopping, restaurants, fast food or takeaways will be allowed.
All groceries must be bought and sourced locally within a fifty mile radius including dairy products and meat.
It would be interesting to observe how great the impact that living with out a supermarket would have on a family and what difficulties would arise. Also if the experience has any positive effects upon a family, would they become more aware of their consumer habits and change the way they shop and eat. These would be the key issues I would focus upon and would want portray.
The Format
Intro, how many people today use a supermarket and how will the family cope without one, etcetera.
All food is removed from the house except what is allowed in the rules
Family would be followed on their first shopping trip.
Clips of family challenged by the life style and focus upon the difficulties and stress.
Second Half
Clips of family enjoying any aspects of the life style.
Focus on any new changes adopted.
Family reflecting upon their experience having watched selected footage and if or how they might make any changes because of their experiences.
Finally, family are reunited with supermarket. The end
For this exercise I was asked to photograph an atmospheric location and create a slide show with six shots, the idea being that we were to say more about the place than just the content of the pictures.
Before I set out on this project I had a clear idea of the location I was going to use and a rough idea of the shots I wanted to take. On arrival at the location I spent some time photographing the outside of the building and then went on to take some shots of the inside, only to find the door was locked. On previous visits I had always found access was not a problem and did not think to check.
I decided to move on to the nearby Pilton church. A truly stunning building in its own right. As the church came into view I realized for the first time just how grand and majestic it stands and certainly atmospheric. Having taken a good look around I decided it would make a good subject for the project.
In my first shot I have tried to illustrate how the church towers before you as you approach from the front.
For my second shot I wanted to create a sense of how grand the entrance feels and also to lead the eye up towards the ceiling, connecting to my next shot
The skull and cross bone, I used this image to signify trouble and warning. The fourth shot of a fallen cross suggests a sense of sadness and neglect.
As I looked around I got the feeling that all is not well with the church and it seems to have fallen upon difficult times so I chose the fifth image to illustrate that point.
Finally the last shot of the cross overlooking the village I hoped to sum up the situation of the church looking to its community for help and support.
I found this exercise very rewarding in many ways and learned some valuable lessons. The next time I am planning to shoot in a location, I will check around the place first to ensure that it is going to be possible to collect all the material I need before I begin taking any pictures.
In future I will take more pictures in one session. When it came to sorting through the photographs to create the slideshow I wished I had took more shots of an image from different angles and had experimented a little more with exposure and depth of field.
I found that taking pictures of images that popped out at me and were not necessarily part of my plan actually came in very useful later on, as some of the photographs I used for the slide show were pictures taken randomly without any thought of how they might be used later.
As a result of what I learnt from this exercise I will now go on to do things differently in future projects, hopefully using my resources more efficiently.
Part of our first project was to take a series of photos around the city of Bath. The themes were as follows. Autumn, Activity, Water, Repetition, Musical, Light, Decay, Contrast, Self Portrait, Old and Flash. I found this project to be quiet rewarding as I quickly overcame my initial shy reaction at taking out the camera and went on to enjoy the task.
