Filming in the City Centre

On Wednesday the 7th of December I met Baily on West Street to film the city and train station shots. We were using the same equipment we used in the Peak District so all the shots would look similar. We decided to shoot in West Street as it offers vast views across the city towards the countryside from side streets leading off it. These would work as almost teasing shots before the Peak District Footage to show what was to come. West Street was also a good location as it is a very busy street with trams, cars, buses and pedestrians which we could use to frame up busy and claustrophobic shots. 

We also ventured down towards the canal as it is quite a gritty location that could act as some in-between shots as the video progresses from the busy city towards the countryside. 

We then went to the train station to film. As the audio ends with sounds of the train station we wanted to begin the video with footage from the train station. We took the camera off the tripod to get more handheld zoomed in footage to convey the claustrophobic feel of it. As we were filming a member of staff came up to us and asked if we had permission to film as it was private property owned by East Midlands. We were honest and told him we didn't at which point he told us to go to the managers office to ask. We went to the managers office and he gave us permission as long as we didn't cross the yellow lines, go down the platform ramps or film members of staff. After this we got a few last shots and then the filming was complete.

Baily filming in the train station

The Finished Product and Presentation

Links:

Video: https://vimeo.com/194732596

Audio: https://soundcloud.com/peter-simison/baily-pete-sound-project



We formally presented the finished film on Monday the 12th of December. We watched the video and then did a short 5 minute power point presentation on the creative process behind it.

The presentation slide show we used
All in all I was quite pleased with the overall film. However in hindsight I think it would have been better to put a bit more time in to actually coming up with the idea as I think our idea was quite generic and unoriginal. Especially after viewing other people's films and presentations I realised the true scope we had with this project.

Editing the Video & Feedback.

We edited the video on Avid Media Composer as this is the industry standard editing software so it is important for us to get used to cutting on it. As both me and Baily are used to using Adobe's Premiere Pro it took a bit longer than we anticipated to edit the video as we were still quite unfamiliar with Media Composer's layout.

We were both present at all times during the edit. We felt this was important as we wanted to share our opinions on how it should flow as we edited. The whole process was a fairly smooth procedure as it was just a case of cutting up the clips. We didn't really want to use any special effects or transitions as we didn't want to distract the audience from the images and sounds. 

We started by editing the first and last parts of the video first. Although this is not a very conventional way of doing it we wanted to focus on these parts most as they show the real juxtaposition against the audio track. They are also the most defining parts that convey the sense of space in the countryside scenes and also the lack of sense of space for the city shots. After we had successfully edited these shots we then went through the process of filling in the middle. I felt this was where our film lacked a bit as we were starting to run out of footage slightly here so the footage we did use was not our best.

After the video was edited we had an informal feedback session where we showed the film to our seminar group and everyone gave one piece of feedback. The feedback was generally positive. People noted how they liked the way we displayed footage of fountains over the sounds of water. Some people told us how they liked the contrast of shots from the beginning and the end. Others said they liked the variety of different locations. One person noted how they liked the use of a pull focus from a distant bridge to a close up of a dead rat by the canal. The most overwhelming feedback though was the appreciation of the contrast of the sounds and the image being shown over the top. 

Filming in the Peak District

I met with Baily on Monday the 28th to start shooting the footage for the countryside section. 

For equipment, we used:

Canon XF305

This films in HD and has an impressive zoom which would give us a lot of lee-way in terms of what shots we could get. It has 3 sensors which means it picks up colours very well.

Manfrotto Tripod

A standard reliable tripod with a fluid head for smooth pans. 

Zoom H5

A small and compact audio recorder capable of recording in 48Khz and 24bit for good sound quality. A very handy and reliable tool.

AT835ST Microphone

A highly directional stereo mic. This helped capture high quality stereo audio. Having this meant I could pick out sounds and minimise background noise.

I booked out the equipment for that morning and then travelled on tram with it to meet Baily in Hillsborough. From there we travelled in Baily's car to the peak district. Once we arrived, we pulled into numerous lay-bys, as we saw shots that stuck out to us, to film landscape and wildlife footage. It was a clear bright day with blue skies which was perfect to convey the sense of space we were looking for.

I drew inspiration for a few shots from Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) in which he will zoom out from what is a close up to a vast wide angle composition. I thought I would try this but zoom in instead. So for instance there is a shot that starts as a wide angle shot with a few sheep in the distance near a lake, the camera then slowly zoom in until the sheep are composed in the foreground with the lake in the background. To do this I picked out the shot in the distance, zoomed in fully and then positioned the camera so the shot was composed how i wanted it. Then I would zoom back out, leaving the camera in the same position and then finally record the camera zooming back in with the target shot positioned in the middle.

Baily operating the camera

Starting the Video Project

After presenting the sound project it was time to start the experimental 3 minute video that the sound project was a basis for. I met with Baily to discuss how we could use the video to incorporate a sense of space and relate to the audio. As the audio piece projected sounds of the countryside slowly transitioning towards the noisy city centre we decided to do the same with the video but reverse the sequence. So instead of starting with footage of the countryside we would start with shots of the city centre and train station which would then progress throughout the video towards shots of the countryside.

We were also careful to decide on the style of the filming and how it would provide the desired effect. As we would start with shots of the train station and the city we wanted to try and convey the noisiness of the setting through the video. To do this we would use some handheld shots to give it a shaky, almost jarring nature. We would also use a lot of telephoto shots just to emphasise how hectic and claustrophobic it was. As the video goes on the footage would progress to locked down, wide angle shots of the countryside. This would would convey the bigger sense of space you get there and the calmness and serenity of it all. All of this would be juxtapositioned against the audio which would be flowing in the opposite way.

We presented these ideas to the group on Monday the 21st. I presented a series of images that conveyed, in the right order, the look I was going for with the video.

A screengrab of our presentation showing the type of imagery we would use

Presenting and Feeding Back on Experimental Audio Projects

On Thursday the 3rd of November we presented out projects to the rest of the seminar class. Each pair went up and played their piece twice while everyone else made feedback notes. Then people would ask questions and comment. I found it interesting listening back to other peoples work and comparing it to ours. I was very impressed by Aaron and Shaun's in particular. They had produced a disturbing soundtrack of a slaughter house. What impressed me most however was the creativity and resourcefulness of it. They had access to a relative's farm where they recorded the sounds of pigs. They used the sounds of wet cloths splattering on the floor and wet mops wiping to floor to very convincingly replicate the sounds of blood splattering and being mopped up. They also recorded a chainsaw which, when combined with the sounds of pigs squealing and blood splattering sounded extremely disturbing. 

When we received feedback for ours someone had thought that that sounds of birds at the beginning was someone dreaming before they woke up. We had actually put it in as a kind of establishing shot before they woke up. However I quite like the idea of it being in the characters dream. We were told our recordings were of a high quality. Someone also pointed out that the quick cuts in between sounds as they were getting ready to leave the house was similar to the films of Edgar Wright. 

In hindsight after listening to everyone elses projects I think that ours is a bit generic and I wish we had done something more original and creative. I was however pleased with the quality of the recordings. 

Producing Our Experimental Audio Project

I met Baily on Tuesday the 1st to record our sounds. Baily had been away the previous weekend and got some very clear recordings of birdsong and his dog panting. In terms of equipment, we were using Audio Technica AT8015 Rifle Microphone and a Zoom H5 with the X-Y stereo microphone attachment. The stereo mic would be useful for recording low key atmospheric sounds while the shotgun with its very narrow pick up pattern would prove useful for recording specific sounds with little background noise. We walked around town picking up lots of different sounds such as footsteps, cars and the Peace Gardens. We went to my accommodation to record the sounds of getting out of bed and getting ready. We finally went to the train station to record lots of train audio. We were slightly concerned about this as the station is private property and owned by East Midlands Trains, so we thought we might be asked to leave as we did not have permission. However no one seemed to mind, we just got a few funny looks when using the rifle mic. 

A photo of Baily recording a tree

We edited our audio the next day using Pro Tools in one of the Mac suites at the Harmer building. This was my first time using Pro Tools since a brief introduction to it a few weeks ago so I found it quite challenging. Compared to other audio sequencing software available I found this slightly tricky to use. For instance I've used Adobe Audition and Cubase before and they've both seemed a lot more user-friendly. Anyway after an hour or two of playing around with it we managed to get the hang of it. There was some low frequency wind noise in the recordings of footsteps. So I used the EQ editor the reduce the gain on frequencies below 100Hz. This managed to get rid of the wind noise. After exporting it we uploaded it to Soundcloud.

Here's the finished product: https://soundcloud.com/peter-simison/baily-pete-sound-project

Planning Our Experimental Audio Project

We have been assigned an experimental audio project. It has the be 3 minutes long and revolve around the idea of "Sense of Space". This seems like quite a general topic but a good way of guiding our thoughts into an idea. For this topic we were told to imagine different environments such as a busy street or a shopping centre and then focus in on particular sounds as if you had some kind of sound microphone. I am working in a pair with Baily.

I had an idea of someone walking from the countryside to the city centre. As the recording would go on you would hear their footsteps stepping over terrain as it changed through the different areas. I thought it would be a good way to express sense of space as the countryside would sound very open whereas the city would feel much more claustrophobic and loud. When I met Baily to exchange ideas he had come up with the idea of someone waking up and being late for something. He thought of them perhaps walking towards the train station and progressively getting faster throughout the piece.

We decided to tie our ideas together and come up with a fusion of the two. Someone would wake up late and start walking towards the train station while going through different types of environments as they went. Their footsteps would get faster as they became more panicked. They would reach the train station at the end and it would sound very loud and claustrophobic. 

We decided to meet up on Tuesday the 1st to record the sounds.

In last week's seminar (13/10/16) we explored the idea of sound as an art form in itself. For the first half of the lecture we went to different spaces around Sheffield town centre with the aim of just listening to and focusing on the sounds. 

We started in Sheffield Cathedral, where sounds tended to reverberate gently due to the lack of soft surfaces to absorb the sound. Footsteps and low murmurings were the predominant sounds to hear as well as the occasional door closing which would echo for longer than any other sounds. Next we went to the Peace Gardens stopping off at the fountains on the way and finally we finished at the train station. We were encouraged by lee to think imaginatively about how we could use the sounds. For instance, using the sound of the fountain splashing as the sound of waves crashing. 

After this we headed back to the university where we listened to a couple of experimental sound projects. I was particularly interested in "4 Rooms" by Jacob Kirkegaard.

Jacob Kirkegaard is an Artist from Denmark who specialises in sound, often using a scientific approach. In his album "4 Rooms" he records the ambient sounds from 4 different spaces in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The church, auditorium, swimming pool and the gymnasium. These were all rooms that Kirkegaard chose for their history as being meeting points for people when Chernobyl was an active town. For each room Kirkegaard would record 10 minutes of audio and would then play it back into the room and record another 10 minutes. He would do this for up to 10 times in each room. Each time he would leave the room and let the sounds unfold on their own. 

The audio tracks that was produced all had an eerie drone sound to it. When I first heard it I didn't know that the tracks were recorded in Chernobyl. I didn't personally find it enjoyable or indeed relaxing. But now I know that I was actually listening to sounds of Chernobyl. A place where one of the worst man made disasters happened and over 33 people died with many long lasting effects still being felt. My response now seems very reasonable and actually appropriate.

In an interview with Jacob Kirkegaard he says "I think we all prefer our emotions to grow from within ourselves rather than having them created for us. If we feel we’ve figured it all out, the emotions won’t be free or have the right effect. In order for emotion to grow freely from that unknown mysterious place deep within ourselves the sound must refrain from too much deliberate emotion and be devoid too many known references. What makes sound unique as a storytelling tool is that it can speak to us on a subconscious level, and thereby create magic". I think that this is exactly what I felt when I first heard "4 Rooms". Even with no idea of what I was listening too, the emotions that I think Kirkegaard was trying to express with this piece grew within me. 

4 Rooms is not something I will be listening too much but it is a great example of how emotions can be expressed in sound without it being obvious as to what I should feel.

(Chernobyl's Swimming Pool where Kirkegaard set one of his tracks)

In our seminar last week (6/10/16), we watched a number of short films and picked 1 film each, from the categories of Drama and Documentary, to write an analysis on.

The film I picked in the category of drama was a 2002 film called Salaryman by Jake Knight. It is a portrayal of a business man in Japan who works long hours. The main focus of the film was on the repetitiveness and how mundane the salaryman's day to day life was. Knight used powerful techniques such as wide angle locked down camera shots down long corridors and across vast repetitive blocks of flats. This emphasized endlessness and gives the impression that all these workers are simply numbers in a much larger system. The worker who features in this film says in his narration that his life is like a circle, it just repeats and he struggles to remember what he did yesterday. Knight takes this and veers away from the usual Hollywood narrative format by showing the end scene at the very beginning, thus showing visually this idea that his life is going round in a circle. I very much enjoyed this film as I think the director very successfully uses filming techniques to tell the story with very little actual narration. By using the above techniques and others, such as showing only mundane colours and a lack of vibrancy, he creatively introduces us the depressing world of a salaryman.

The next film I picked was a 2010 documentary film called Strange Lights by Joe King & Rosie Pedlow. It tells the tale of unexplained lights seen in the sky in 1980 in Rendlesham Forest by American service men at an RAF base. The main theme of the piece appears to be the replication of the events witnessed using modern day film and sound techniques and old radio recordings taken from the original night. The directors must have taken the idea of confusion and spookiness when the servicemen saw the lights and attempted to replicate it in a more abstract form with this piece. There is heavy use of timelapses throughout the film which show quite stunning images of stars moving in the night sky and bright illuminated campsites contrasting with the dark forest. I was not fully convinced however with the purpose of the timelapses as, while it did a good job of showing time moving fast and transitioning, it was not necessarily contributing to the story it was trying to tell. It made successful use of its sound design however using a multilayered design of distorted radio sounds and the actual recordings of the servicemen describing the lights they were seeing over their radio. There would be intermittent flashes of light shown on the screen that were synced with sudden loud bursts of radio distortion. This helped add weight to the flashes and showed that these resembled the lights the servicemen may have seen on the original light. While i believe the film did successfully show a good replication of what was seen and felt on that night, it did seem that film went on a bit too long for its on good especially when it was long abstract shots that could quickly lose the attention of an audience.

Hello. Welcome to my blog created for my course, Film and Media Production at Sheffield Hallam University. I will be using this blog to document and archive my creative development throughout my time here.

We kicked off our Creative Project Development and Realisation seminar last Thursday (29/09/16) with Lee Pearse. As a getting to know each other exercise we split into groups of 4 or 5 and wrote down our names, hometowns, the last film we saw and the last project we worked on. Here was the result:

Please ignore the bad drawing done by James. 

After this we compiled a list, in our groups, of websites that we often use for inspiration. The six main sites we came up with were:

• Netflix   (Great for instantly streaming movies and TV programmes)
• IMDB   (A useful database for films and TV with such info as all cast and crew, budgets, technical specs., reviews etc.)  
• Wikipedia   (An online encyclopedia that is a good starting point for reasearching films, people and ideas)
• The Guardian   ( A source of intelligent reviews and information about film releases)
• The Smalls   (Enables members to showcase work, network and discover creative opportunities)
• TV Tropes   (Another online encyclopedia for pop culture with catalogs of tropes in all media)

This seminar was a useful introduction and guide to the year ahead.