Thursday 20 March 2014
Monday 17 March 2014
Sunday 16 March 2014
Foley Sound Research.
Foley Research!
A Foley Artist is someone who creates everyday sounds to add to a film to make the quality better. These sounds that have been created can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. The best foley art is so good and sounds so realistic that it goes unnoticed by the viewers It helps to create a sense of reality within a scene. Without these background noises, movies wouldn't feel natural and instead uncomfortable.
The order the foley artists create sounds starts off by doing the footsteps of the main character and then the background footsteps and then they go through the 'prop pass' which is where they provide a sound for anything moving on screen.
The key skills and qualities foley artists need are a creative mind, a good imagination and good timing as well as the ability to think outside the box because these types of artists have the ability to come up with unusual ideas to create a certain noise. They will also need a good knowledge of computers and technology as they will be working with lots of different electrical equipment.
Here is an example, in this clip from star wars, he began to hit a guy wire from a radio tower, and it bumped and made a twanging noise and this is where the laser gun came about
Composing for films
Guide on how to compose music for films.
Firstly, you want to watch the film without any sound or music. This will give you more concentration on the film and help you to notice more detail of certain things in the film. Keeping the sound on will also distract you which means you wont be able to focus on whats going on.
Another thing to do is to select the instruments. You need to do this because instruments are normally chosen depending on the atmosphere and if they are not selected you may end up using instruments you've never used before.
Make sure you understand the beat. You need to do this so you can stick to the rhythm of the editing as it may be fast or slow and it may vary throughout the video so you need to be able to change it.
Stick to the feeling of the film. When you are making music for a film, its all about emotion. You need to be able to understand this in the film so you can give off the right feeling to the audience.
Experiment with music. It is really important to do this so that you can get a feel for less obvious music choices. This allows you to have a wider variety of choices to work with.
Firstly, you want to watch the film without any sound or music. This will give you more concentration on the film and help you to notice more detail of certain things in the film. Keeping the sound on will also distract you which means you wont be able to focus on whats going on.
Another thing to do is to select the instruments. You need to do this because instruments are normally chosen depending on the atmosphere and if they are not selected you may end up using instruments you've never used before.
Make sure you understand the beat. You need to do this so you can stick to the rhythm of the editing as it may be fast or slow and it may vary throughout the video so you need to be able to change it.
Stick to the feeling of the film. When you are making music for a film, its all about emotion. You need to be able to understand this in the film so you can give off the right feeling to the audience.
Experiment with music. It is really important to do this so that you can get a feel for less obvious music choices. This allows you to have a wider variety of choices to work with.
How Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan worked together to create the music for Dark Knight?
Hans and Christopher spoke about it early on and Christopher would send Hans stills and shots of clowns to help each other with ideas.
What was the process that Hans Zimmer used to come up with the music?
He was after music that built lots of tension. He tried to use as little music as possible, but still say what he wanted. So you could hear something really small but you would identify easily that the joker is close by. He also recorded lots of extraordinary sounds that he may use.
What was Hans Zimmer's intention when making this soundtrack?
they were too not make a summer blockbuster. He wanted something that people could really hate because it was uncomfortable to listen too.
What qualities did Hans Zimmer want the music to have?
He wanted it to be very small but very effective, as well as be able to build a lot tension.
How do you feel about the final score and explain why you feel it works or doesn't work?
I think it works quite well because it's very minimal but still builds tension in a mysterious way and helps you to sense the danger as well.
Thursday 6 March 2014
Recording Ambient Sounds and Dialogue
1) Recording Ambient Sounds
Ambient sounds is the sounds of a given location or space in the environment. The sounds can include things such as wildlife, wind, rain, distant traffic etc.
For example, in the film 'Hunger Games: Catching Fire' when they had a forest scene they'd take a microphone to a location (jungle, ocean) which would give them good quality sounds and would record them themselves, he used libraries as well but his helped supplement and this meant they didn't have to completely rely on sound libraries. This helped them give a better atmosphere and show claustrophobia. It also allowed them to build up the 'world of the sound' very early on in the process so they didn't have to wait till the end and start over as such. Recording the ambient sounds also allows for tiny details to be heard. In the arena scenes it helped allow them to intensify things and they wanted to make it really dense, really busy and add a claustrophobia to you could get a feel of being with the characters. It helped it become unique to its location. The benefit of using microphones on location instead of library is that it allows you to not have to do what is called 'looping' which is where characters rerecord their dialogue which is then looped on top of the footage. While recording sounds of location, they would use 2 sets of different microphones and separate them about 70 feet apart, this allowed to get sounds with different qualities as they both picked up different sounds. It also gave them a wider range of sounds to use. Hard cuts aren't often advised for sound mixing, for example in Hunger Games if a shot is done in the arena and then after that, is shot in the capital an ambient sound, such as wildlife, is slowly added which helps interact the audience instead of using a hard cut. The software used for Hunger Games: Catching fire is Dolby.
2) Recording Dialogue
Recording dialogue is much more difficult to be done rather than ambient sounds. This is because of reasons such as ambient noises interfering with the recording, which can effect the quality of the dialogue. As well, sometimes if the camera is a fair distance from the characters speaking, and you had no form of microphone, then often the problem can be that the voices are found very quiet on the footage. This can be over come by potentially using microphones or looping which is where actors re-record their lines in sync while watching their original performances in looped playback, this helps match the wording and lip movement. Ambient noise is important when filming a conversation scene because it helps create an atmosphere, avoids silence in the background and possibly echoing. It can also help the audience understand the situation, depending on what is happening, for example if a tense sound was used, this would allow the audience to know something was going to potentially happen. When they were filming the Hunger Games: Catching Fire, for the jungle locations, when filming they always had a constant presence of canopy leaf movement as useful as this is for the ambient noise, it could have effected recording dialogue.
Ambient sounds is the sounds of a given location or space in the environment. The sounds can include things such as wildlife, wind, rain, distant traffic etc.
For example, in the film 'Hunger Games: Catching Fire' when they had a forest scene they'd take a microphone to a location (jungle, ocean) which would give them good quality sounds and would record them themselves, he used libraries as well but his helped supplement and this meant they didn't have to completely rely on sound libraries. This helped them give a better atmosphere and show claustrophobia. It also allowed them to build up the 'world of the sound' very early on in the process so they didn't have to wait till the end and start over as such. Recording the ambient sounds also allows for tiny details to be heard. In the arena scenes it helped allow them to intensify things and they wanted to make it really dense, really busy and add a claustrophobia to you could get a feel of being with the characters. It helped it become unique to its location. The benefit of using microphones on location instead of library is that it allows you to not have to do what is called 'looping' which is where characters rerecord their dialogue which is then looped on top of the footage. While recording sounds of location, they would use 2 sets of different microphones and separate them about 70 feet apart, this allowed to get sounds with different qualities as they both picked up different sounds. It also gave them a wider range of sounds to use. Hard cuts aren't often advised for sound mixing, for example in Hunger Games if a shot is done in the arena and then after that, is shot in the capital an ambient sound, such as wildlife, is slowly added which helps interact the audience instead of using a hard cut. The software used for Hunger Games: Catching fire is Dolby.
2) Recording Dialogue
Recording dialogue is much more difficult to be done rather than ambient sounds. This is because of reasons such as ambient noises interfering with the recording, which can effect the quality of the dialogue. As well, sometimes if the camera is a fair distance from the characters speaking, and you had no form of microphone, then often the problem can be that the voices are found very quiet on the footage. This can be over come by potentially using microphones or looping which is where actors re-record their lines in sync while watching their original performances in looped playback, this helps match the wording and lip movement. Ambient noise is important when filming a conversation scene because it helps create an atmosphere, avoids silence in the background and possibly echoing. It can also help the audience understand the situation, depending on what is happening, for example if a tense sound was used, this would allow the audience to know something was going to potentially happen. When they were filming the Hunger Games: Catching Fire, for the jungle locations, when filming they always had a constant presence of canopy leaf movement as useful as this is for the ambient noise, it could have effected recording dialogue.
Use of music - legal considerations
Rights Of Use.
A Publishing licence can be gained from the copyright holder to use their music. This kind of copyright only applies when the music has been noted or written down.
A Recording licence should be gained from the person or people who for example, perform a cover of a well known song.
To clear a piece of music for use in your film or sequence in our case, the first thing you would have to do is message the copyright holder. If the Owner/Creator has been dead for more than 70 years the copyright will have expired which means you will not have to ask for permission.
Incidental Music is music played in a film or a clip and is played as background music to create atmosphere.
2) Creative commons
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/music-rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons
A Publishing licence can be gained from the copyright holder to use their music. This kind of copyright only applies when the music has been noted or written down.
A Recording licence should be gained from the person or people who for example, perform a cover of a well known song.
To clear a piece of music for use in your film or sequence in our case, the first thing you would have to do is message the copyright holder. If the Owner/Creator has been dead for more than 70 years the copyright will have expired which means you will not have to ask for permission.
Incidental Music is music played in a film or a clip and is played as background music to create atmosphere.
2) Creative commons
- What is creative commons?
Creative commons is a non-profit organisation which is devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. They have released several copy right licenses known as 'Creative commons licenses' which are free to the public. The licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which ones they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.
- Why does it exist?
So that you can use the work without having to seek out the individual creator or licensor and ask for permission.
- Explain the 6 different types of license (include the logos if possible)
Attribution - This allows others to distribute, remix and tweak your work, even commercially but they must credit you for the original creation.
Attribution- ShareAlike - This license is often compared to 'copyleft' free. It allows others to remix and tweak your work even for commercial purposes but they must credit you and license their new creation under the identical terms.
Attribution- NoDerivs - This allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial but it must be passed along unchanged and in whole with credit to you.
Attribution- NonCommercial - This lets you remix and tweak your work but non-commercially and thought their new works must be also acknowledge you and be non-commercial they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - This lets others remix and tweak your work non commercially but they must credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - This license is the most restrictive of all 6 as it only allows others to download your work and share them with others as longs they credit you and they can't change them in any way or even use them commercially.
Attribution- ShareAlike - This license is often compared to 'copyleft' free. It allows others to remix and tweak your work even for commercial purposes but they must credit you and license their new creation under the identical terms.
Attribution- NoDerivs - This allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial but it must be passed along unchanged and in whole with credit to you.
Attribution- NonCommercial - This lets you remix and tweak your work but non-commercially and thought their new works must be also acknowledge you and be non-commercial they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - This lets others remix and tweak your work non commercially but they must credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - This license is the most restrictive of all 6 as it only allows others to download your work and share them with others as longs they credit you and they can't change them in any way or even use them commercially.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/music-rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons
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