Evaluation Unit 5

In this evaluation I will be talking about the good points and bad points in my audio production.

My task was to create foley sounds which would be similar to one’s you would hear in a film. The video was the fight scene in the film “The Last Battle” or “Le Dernier Combat” (Because the film is French)  by Luc Besson. The foley sounds had to sync into the non audio-visual accurately and sound as close as possible to the real sound. Which the audience would see in the non visual video. Some of my intentions were to use household objects like utensils, towels and light clothing which I could use to recreate some of the sounds in my video. The initial idea was not to choose this video. This was because I had a chose of seven videos to choose from, some were easy, and some were hard. The two I had in mind was “The Last Battle” and a Launderette scene from “Mr Bean”. I decided on choosing “The Last Battle” because I thought the “Mr Bean” video would have been easy to recreate. So I chose “The Last Battle” video I wanted a challenge and it was the only video that stood out to me. This also gave me an opportunity to develop and experiment my skills in sound. I thought that, experimenting with different sound effects would benefit me. This is because I have a small understanding in audio recording and how to do it probably before starting this unit. So having a look at some different sound effects could help me develop my initial idea on what sounds to but in for my Last Battle clip. As well as that, I only knew limited knowledge on how to operate audio recording software like Adobe Audition. The skills I only knew on Audition was how to import audio files, increase/decrease audio and how to fade in and fade out audio recordings.

Before I started recording my audio recordings though, I needed to do some audio recording experiments. So I went out to rent a Zoom Microphone and a Marantz kit to compare the differences in the audio. What I found out was that, the Zoom Microphone was good at recording audio at a close range and did provide a large echo sound which would have been good for creating footsteps for my clip. However, the Zoom Microphone when recording audio is of not as good quality as the Marantz kit. The Zoom Microphone at a good range away from the audio you want to record is not good. It provides too much of a tinny sound when listening back to your audio. Which would make your audio product look bad. As well as that, the microphone itself is small and does not provide the quality that I wanted. On the other hand, the Marantz kit is very good. It has the quality that I wanted from recording audio. You can use it at any range and it still picks up the audio recording which is good. There is hardly no background noise because the Marantz kit microphone comes with a very good background noise muffle, which reduces the background noise a lot. This gives more of a clear and crisp audio recording than the Zoom Microphone. In conclusion, I decided on using the Marantz kit because it provided a much better sound than the Zoom Microphone and would work much better for my audio product.

For my research, I started off looking into how to set up a Marantz kit. There was a document that my tutor made for me which described all the instructions in setting up a Marantz kit. I found this useful because, although I have used a Marantz kit before I sometimes can’t remember how to set it up. This document explained all the necessary instructions in how to set the Marantz kit up but also how to delete unwanted audio recordings off the Marantz kit. I found this very useful because, it gave me more of an understanding in how to operate the Marantz kit when recording my audio product. Another good piece of research was comparing the different types of microphones. This helped me choose the correct microphone for my audio product. However, though in more detail knowing the difference between a directional and omnidirectional microphone was quite hard. This was because I couldn’t find the right piece of research that would be good for my research. In the end, I needed to ask my tutor about the differences in the microphones because my internet research was coming up with long descriptive answers which I didn’t want. I wanted a short brief explanation about the differences in the microphone. However, though I did add in a table from my internet research explaining the differences in the two microphones but my tutor gave me a short and descriptive answer for my research. In the end, I used a directional microphone to record my audio product on. This was because the directional microphone picked up the direct sound from the object I recorded. This is unlike the omnidirectional microphone where it picks up multi able sounds from different places which I didn’t want.

Another section of research I looked at was different editing effects and how foley artists perform sounds. What I found out in my editing effects piece of research is that, EQ is to change the audio frequency to either a high or low frequency. Reverb though changes the environment of the room and what the audio sounds like. These two editing effects helped me to develop my audio product to how it sounds like now. One other I learned about editing effects in my research was that, I needed to know how to change the EQ frequency or change the reverb. However, though my tutor showed us how to change both of these editing effects which made it a lot easily to operate when editing my audio product. What I found out about foley artists is that, they perform the sound whiles watching the video with non audio. This helps them to know where the sound goes and what objects to use for that sound. This helped me because I needed a good and effective way of recording my audio product and learning from the experts helped me plan and record my audio product. As well as that, the foley artists piece of research told me, what objects to use. The foley artists were using some household and non household objects that were accessible to me. Some of these objects were, metal poles, utensils and marbles. So when I got home, I found these household objects and tested with them for my audio product. What I found out is that, some of the sounds were similar to the sounds that the foley artists used. This would help make my audio product have the similar sounds that the foley artists used.

How I planned my audio product was through by doing a Risk Assessment, Sound Schedule, Spotting Sheet and Cue Sheet. My audio planning helped me give a strong structure in how and what to do when recording my audio product. My risk assessment explained the dangerous of what could happen when am recording. One for example what that, I could trip over the wires connecting the other equipment together. How I solved this was by moving the wires in a safe and secure place so I didn’t trip over them. The risk assessment helped me make sure there were no dangerous when recording my audio product. The schedule made me sure that, I knew what time I was recording my audio product and what materials I would be using. This made me sure that I had a clear idea in what to do and what partially time. My spotting sheet helped me gather the time code the sound happened on, the sound effects and sound types I would use. The time code made me sure that, I had the sound of the action at the correct time so when I do my editing I could definitely make sure that the sound was in the correct place. The sound effects showed me what different sounds I could use to recreate the sounds on screen and sound types told me which type of sound it could be which I could recreate. This could either be from foley, SFX or dialogue to make sure I knew what type of sound types fits the right sound effect in my audio product. The last of my planning was the cue sheet. This explained the track number, sound effect and materials used. This was similar to my spotting sheet but it a track number section to make sure which track it is in the editing stage and a materials used section to know what I used when recording my audio product and in which track to make sure it is all in order. The one thing I did do on my cue sheet is put the numbers one and two on it. This was for my own benefit to make sure which character is in the scene. The sound effect was roughly the same as on my spotting sheet.

The software I used to edit my audio product was Adobe Audition. I found Audition very good to work with. This is because all the editing tools and effects are in a very easy place to find them and are very easy to use. Some of the editing tools on Audition are the razor tool where you can cut,drag and drop pieces of audio into the place where you want it. One other feature is, that you can highlight all of the audio in Audition and then either increase or decrease the volume on it. This is good because I had control in how loud or quite my audio was and I could make it up to the correct listening level. The only problem was that, you have to click down on the volume dial on your mouse and move it around. The problem with this is that, the dial is very sensitive and I lost control sometimes in operating the volume dial. Another problem with Audition was that, it was very hard to lay different tracks together. This was because the tracks wouldn’t either sync next to each other when the tracks have been cut or not fade in or out together. The problem with this that, my audio product didn’t sound as smooth and clear as I wanted it to. So I looked at online tutorial videos to overcome this problem and eventually managed to sync and fade in and out the audio on Audition for my audio product.

When creating my product, in Adobe Audition. I used editing effects like reverb, EQ and track laying. This really helped me develop my audio product in it being effective and smooth when listening to it. Some of the problems though was that, it was hard to master the EQ. This was because on the EQ there are a number of settings and dials you can change. However, if you do change one of the dials for example and you didn’t like that effect it is really hard to get the sound back to how it was. The other thing is that the EQ shows you the audio frequency at the top of the screen and it is hard to balance EQ to what setting you want it to be. The audio frequency as well, have little square dots that you can change. When I changed that the sound either had too much bass or made a very high pitch noise that didn’t sound good. So in the end, I only used the EQ to change parts of the bass and pitch to my audio product. As well as that, reverb helped me change the environment of the room. This could be from a small room being big or a big room being small. I used reverb in a test and found it easy to use. The only thing is that, the reverb did create sometimes the room environment too big and did make the audio not sound as good. One other thing when editing my editing effects was that, I found out how to layering two different tracks together was hard. This became useful to me because I didn’t know how to lay different tracks together to create a multi track. The only downside with this section was that when I layered tracks together they sometimes overlapped each over which made the audio sound not as good as I like it to be. In the end, I did manage to split the audio up but does sometimes create a bad sound in my audio product when I don’t want it to.

(Comments) One problem I had when recording my audio product was trying to sync in the audio at the correct time. This was difficult because I needed to make sure that the action on screen and audio matched up at the same time. I had to re position the audio a lot of times to eventually get it sunk in with the visual video. This made me sure that the audio was in sync with the video. The hardest piece of audio to sync in was the footsteps. This was because that the character on screen kept on stopping and starting when walking and also ran as well. This made it very tough to get my audio in sync with the video. When recording the audio I did record the effect of footsteps and watch the video muted on a computer to make sure that I could accurately gt the audio in sync with the video. I still tough struggled with sinking the footsteps in so I asked my tutor and he recommended me to look at the characters shoulders. This was to show which foot the character was walking on and know how fast the character was going in the video. This really helped me to make sure that my footsteps were sunk in well. When recording my audio product I used a variety of household objects such as metal poles utensils and boots and gravel. These objects helped me recreate the sound for my audio product. For example the boots and gravel recreated the footsteps for my audio product. The objects made sure that my audio product sounded as close as possible to the real video or how the foley artists would have done it.

Person 1- A very good audio product with good sound effects but could have the sound effect sunk in better.

Person 2- A good audio product which has been sunk in well and having very good sound effects in it.

Person 3- A good audio product with good sound effects but could have done better on the sound effects for footsteps and to sync in the footsteps better.

All of these comments from the people above are all related in the paragraph that has comments in bracts.

I will take all of these comments and make sure I will improve on what people have said about my audio product for next time.