Sound Entry #10 - Project: Interview

Project #1 Interview

Aim/Objective

You are required to submit a three-minute edited interview with a single individual of your choice for presentation on local radio. You must choose someone who you feel has something to say to the Brighton & Hove community.

I have chosen to interview a friend who lives opposite to me, Suzy. Since she was 16 (currently 20), she has been working as a receptionist in a doctor's surgery. I think she'd provide an interesting insight as she deals with the public everyday and she will definitely have something to say about and to the Brighton & Hove community. 

Securing the interview

Once I had decided who I was going to interview, it was quite simple to just walk round next door and ask her personally if she would be able to do it and when she was free. She gave me her timetable and then I proceeded to book equipment out for when she was free. 

Pre-production

I did not know much about what it was like to work as a receptionist in an assumed quite stressful environment. So a lot of my questions were to enquire and let the listeners know what life is like for them. I then enquired about funny or interesting stories to keep the interview fairly informal and provide a light hearted piece to it. I then asked about bad things to do with the job which would hopefully provide something to say that would hit home for the Brighton community. 

Interview

We recorded the interview in her room as her flat is very quiet compared to mine. Upon hindsight, I should have asked her to accompany me to a sound booth and done the recording there, however I don't think she would have acted natural in that kind of environment. I asked what questions I needed and the interview went well. I feel she felt more natural than other people I could have interviewed as I was a friend.

After I interviewed her, I went back to my room and created sounds to use for the background noise. These noises included doors slamming, babies crying, coughing and so on. This was okay for me, although I felt a bit odd making crying baby noises in my room. I chose to record the sound effects myself rather than going to the surgery and recording her there because it was impractical as she is constantly busy and finding a spare couple of minutes would of been hard. And recording the surgery would of raised ethical concerns, as would people want to be recorded when they're feeling their worst. 

Post-production

Once I had recorded the interview, I then had to import it Adobe Audition and edit it. First off, was cutting the interview down to just under 3 minutes so I could include intro/outro music. This proved to be quite difficult as the interview went on for just over 15 minutes and I felt there were important parts but they needed to be left out for timing. 

Once I had gotten a rough cut of what the interview would be like, I found music that would fit appropriately. I had recorded ambient sound from her room and proceeded to add that in. I then would mix in all the sound effects I have recorded to add to the sound. I then polished it by adding effects to her voice to make it more radiogenic. I then continued polishing until I was happy. I then exported it.

Conclusion

Overall, I am happy with the mix and feel it was interesting to make my own sounds and would be able to do it in the future if I needed to.

Sound Entry #9 - Recorded projects

I have recently gone and recorded the arcade for my soundscape and a receptionist for my interview. Both are uploaded here:

https://soundcloud.com/benjamin-martin-eagle/arcade-noise

https://soundcloud.com/benjamin-martin-eagle/interview-to-suzy

I think they both went okay, the arcade in parts I feel, the levels are a bit way too high which was me holding the sounds too close to the mic. However I can just learn from my mistakes and not do it again. The interview I feel went better, it was in an environment where I could control the sound a lot more. It's a little bit annoying that I think I got too much interview sound as it has been hard to narrow it down to just 3 minutes but I have done that and will add the final touches to it soon.

The arcade is taking a while to process as it is especially long and there's not only that one file, there is about 3 or 4 more that need to be split up and put it onto their own tracks. I have also recorded me and my flat mate playing a racing game as there weren't anyone playing the racing game in the arcade so I needed the sounds for that. I'm also going to record a skype call with my friends so that it seems we're talking in the arcade to act as background noise. 

I'm also going to record individual sounds like lonely gamblers, gambling their money away.

Sound Entry #8 - Experience with travelling sound interview

This week in class, we had to again do an interview to get more practice. I was again the subject that was talking, although I felt more comfortable this time than last week. The interview was based on your experiences with travelling. In the interview, I talked a little bit about how I came to recently get travel sick. 

Link to the interview: https://soundcloud.com/benjamin-martin-eagle/travelling-experience-interview

Our homework for this week was to just crack on with our 2 major projects and bring back something for our lecturer, Lee, to listen to. I don't think I can get my interview sorted this week, so I'm going to go to arcade and see if I can record some sounds or even attempt to do all of it. I would like to complete the sound module as soon as possible. So I can focus on the documentary in my video module as I feel that needs more of my attention as the sound module is something I'm confident with and can go at it solo. No need to get a group together and other such things. 

Video Entry #13 - Editing Reading Notes

Editing

- "Editing is where you take all the different pictures that have been filmed on the cameras, which is called footage and join them all together on an edit suite. Editor’s chop up the footage that they want to keep into smaller pieces, called shots and put them back together again in a different order using cuts. They also use fades to make cuts look nice and smooth, which makes the film look better."

- "Editing

• Spot all the material and make a logging list, on which you not only identify the takes that are not usable, but also identify the best takes.

• Write down the length of the shots. Try to identify the natural life span of the shot: the moment it becomes interesting until the moment you lose interest.

• Identify continuity problems and possible solutions.

• Make a paper edit and make notes as preparation for the commentary.

• Write down the duration of the film."

We will have to follow similar guidelines when editing and use the techniques outlined. 

Sixteen Basic Editing Considerations

- "Avoid having to cut between shots on the same camera angle especially if the shot is of a single person. You will have to match the action so perfectly that your alternatives will be severely limited. However, if the material is shot to take advantage of this 'shock' effect, it can heighten a dramatic moment"

- "Watch the pace of the action which has to be matched in cutting. Movement from the finger flicking ash into an ashtray to Indians attacking a wagon train must retain continuity of pace if scope in cutting is to be preserved."

- Don't use a shot for its own sake. Some shot may, within themselves, be superb, but may not for reasons of style, shape or just original intention, fit into the overall films.

- "Remember you can only cut the material you possess. If you are cutting your own film the editor in you must control the director you thought you might be -- if you haven't shot the right footage you can't make the film you originally intended."

- "Do treat your print and track with respect. Both are replaceable but only if you can afford it and are in a position to start again with the inevitable loss of impetus and enthusiasm. The machinery has its limitations but will serve you well if you use it properly. Remember, a badly scratched or damaged cutting copy reduces your ability to judge its quality."

If we do choose to cut different shots, we will have to bear this in mind, so it does not take the audience out of the documentary and we do not want to create a dramatic movement. Although our action should be slow paced, it may be with the cutaways that we will have match the speed. Again, not to take the viewer out of the documentary. We will then have to find appropriate cutaways for each scene. I will treat my print and track with the utmost respect. 

Video Entry #12 - Editing and Using the Vocal Booth

Our task in class was to record a voice over in the vocal booth to get to grips with software, just in case we wanted to use the "voice of God" in our documentaries. We would then save that audio file and then edit it in Adobe Premiere Pro with images, music and videos provided by Peter. We then had to edit it to reflect a narrative piece that told a chronologically sound package whilst implementing techniques from Ken Burns such as panning over photos to give them movement. The result of our group working together has been posted above

Sound Entry #7 - Radio News Segment

This week in class, Lee was away so we had a PhD student in, he was cool, he wore cowboy boots. In the lesson, we discussed the reading, I enjoyed this reading so there was a lot to discuss in class even though there was only 4 in it. We were asked to record a 1-3 minute snippet for a radio show. We were split into pairs and off we went.

I was with my classmate, Salman, we thought we'd do ours on stories in the news that didn't seem real and were funny. We used www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion as a reference. We had a bit of trouble at first as there were not enough vocal booths available even though the PhD student had booked them. So we had to go back and ask him to go kick someone out, which kinda felt like telling our mum that our brother was using something and we wanted a go.

Nonetheless, we cracked on with the project in the time we had left. We used myself as the narrator and put on an exaggerated news reading voice. We also used my voice as intro and outro music as we didn't have enough time to source any or create anything really worthwhile. The track can be heard below:

https://soundcloud.com/benjamin-martin-eagle/radio-news-segment

Video Entry #11 - Pre-production

After sitting down and talking with my group, we can up with a brain storm surrounding the mouth and the ideas that could go into it. We also then made a list of possible people to interview. We decided it would be best to keep in contact via Facebook as we had each other as friends on there. The images below document this.

After looking through and finding suitable people to email from our list, I received a couple responses. Although it's a lot less than I expected. I thought I sent out between 20-30 emails. But I've received 6. It's okay though, as most who responded were willing to help. I have screen-shotted the responses and put them below: 

Our group met up during reading week and we've talked about and narrowed it down to who we're going to interview. I've taken the piercing company, Punktured Piercing, in the Brighton. Other members of the group are going for the dentist and we're going to find a singer and someone who's in the linguistics profession. We will email professors on campus for the last two. We also talked about what cutaways were needed. Again, image below shows this.

At the moment, we do have a list of questions we're going to ask our interviewees, however I've been dwelling on something Peter said. He mentioned that our documentary just focusing on what the mouth is could get boring and dull. And I agree with him. We came up with the questions quickly but whilst interviewing people out in Brighton for my sound, people say a lot of the same things. So people watching the documentary will know the mouth is used for communication and eating, so why would we discuss the topic you know? Peter mentioned about throat singing, people using clicking to communicate and helping stroke victims by bringing their hand to their mouth. These are all interesting, so I will mention to the group that we need to know where we're focusing. 

I like the idea of exploring that the mouth can be used to decorate and make peoples personalities flourish. For example, a woman wearing black lipstick could be seen as being of the gothic crowd and she decorates her mouth that way. I think it would be interesting to follow this up, especially with the piercing company I've got as they could say a lot of alternate thinking people get lip piercings or maybe it's become more mainstream and that it used to more for the people who were classed as alternative. But again, I think we need a session where we just brainstorm where we're going and storyboard on how we're going to do it.