Introduction:

I have decided that I am going to do a lot of projects specifically on sound recording and using recording equipment. I will be giving my additional time as volunteer work to help record other film directors by recording specific scenes and capturing dialogue sound. The reason why I have chosen to go in to the field of sound recording is just to explore a new field of film making. My main interest in film making, is film directing and cinematography and I have been doing that for years. I would like to try something completely different, something I have done before. As well as doing sound recording I would be interested into sound editing and exploring that field as well.

The first sound recording project – Inspired 90 second film.

The first sound recording assistant, was for a student who was shooting a 90 second film titled ‘Inspired’. The sound recording footage I had to capture was the dialogue in terms of what the cast was saying in the story-line. Doing the sound recording was a huge factor not for myself but for the film director Kathyrn as well, the reason been was the black magic camera as great at capturing the visuals, but when it comes to the sound of the content you couldn’t hear it really clearly.

The sound recording equipment I was using to record the sound and the dialogue was a H6 recorder. Before recording, the entire production team was well aware of what was happening in the moment and manage to communicate well with each other and managed to produce the content with confidence. Me and Tejpal was working on sound together, his task was very similar to mine but he was using a boom microphone to record the dialogue sound. To ensure that me and Tejpal was able to capture the most content for Kathryn to use in her 90 second film we had to work extra hard not just on our own separate communication but also checking if our own equipment was recording properly. We would move to aside from the group and went through our recording equipment to test the sound to see if it was working. Then went straight back into production with the group.

To save the content, I needed to use a separate SD Card to gather enough sound as possible. During the sound recording I did find that it was important to use a different SD card to use, only because while filming the visual content, I needed to be able to save a the sound content on a different format.  This actually makes it a lot more easier to use in Adobe Premiere Pro, when you find your files, you can actually unlink the sound from the footage you have and replace it with the sound you have recorded with your H6 recorder.

Quote from Kathryn:

” Elijah was the second sound operator who worked on my 90 second film, Inspired. He was part of the sound crew, mainly on day one of filming and was very helpful on set, even offering to help with the camera, especially when trying to film some of the challenging shots.

Unfortunately, I lose the audio for the first filming day, so I don’t believe I have any of the audio Elijah recorded the final version of the film. Nevertheless, I am grateful for his help on the project and would work with him again on future projects,

Kathryn 2019

What Went well:

What did go well in the production of making the 90 second film inspired, was how well organised everyone was on the day of production. The whole production showed up to the shoot on time, we had a meeting a week before working out the date and the time and the location we was going to meet. We had this discussion with Kathryn and then Theo who we was going to go into production with a week later. What also went well, was how we communicate well with each other, Kathryn was very clear on what me and Tejpal had to record for the sound content. Me, Tejpal, Kathryn and the rest of the production team was very aware of when we was going to start recording and to make sure we all was recording our content in sync.

What didn’t go well:

At the end of production, Kathryn had written me a quote to describe input interns of sound recording, and how it benefit her 90 second film project. She explained in her quote that I was very helpful and was willing to help record some cinematography shots when it was tricky at times. However in terms of the audio footage she lost some of the content. She isn’t quite sure if my sound recorded content was captured properly. She was grateful for my help and would be willing to work with me in the near future. What didn’t go well, was actually finding the sound recording content on SD Card, I am not too 100% sure if the sound was recorded properly.

How can I improve next time:

How I can improve next time when sound recording would be to find a short space of time to do some research on using a H6 recorder, By doing more research on a H6 recorder, I can gain a more in depth idea of what features are and how I can use it to the best of its ability. Another way on how I can improve my skills on sound recording would be just to record any natural sounds I can think of. When I started off doing photography I would spend my  time going around different locations taking pictures of planets, trees, wildlife and buildings. The more I researched, editing and practise photography I was able to work with clients on different challenging projects. If I was to use the same work ethic on practising photography with practising sound recording, I can hit a level where I  can progress on working on projects like Kathryn’s 90 second film.

Research:

The research I have done in terms of using a H6 sound recorder is by watching a tutorial on YouTube on how to use one. The video is called “Zoom H6 Complete setup tutorial for podcasting, podcast recording”. The video is 13:32 minutes long which features an in depth demonstration on how to use a H6 sound recorder properly. The present explains what each feature is used for and the importance of this feature.

The only problem I would say on this video, it doesn’t really give you a strong demonstration on how to use the H6 for outdoor projects in terms of recording a 90 second film. While having experience on working on a project outside, I know that the H6 sound recorder is capable of not only capturing the dialogue sound in terms of the cast, but at the same time it is able to capture the background noises as well. This would be a problem for me in the near future, I wouldn’t feel confident working on a sounding recording project with a client and capturing the dialogue sound as well as the wind, or trees in the background. I would find it challenge to separate the sounds apart when it comes to editing the content later on after production.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, working on Kathryn’s 90 second film project didn’t really go quite to plan which was all to do with lack of experience on using a H6 sound recorder. Due to my lack of experience I was not aware of the H6 not been able to record Kathryn’s dialogue sound  for her 90 second film which resulted in her not been able to use in editing. I feel for next time I would need to do more research on how to use a H6 sound recording properly to avoid this situation.

I am looking forward to work with her and the rest of the production team again in the near future. For now, I need to use this short space of free time that I have to do more research on using a H6 sound recorder and to find small projects I can work on to build up my confidence more.

The Second sound recording project

The second sound recording project, I had to work on was another 90 second film and the director was Theo Jones. My role in this project was to capture the dialogue sound and also additional sound effects such as walking on leaves (the sound of leaves crunching on the grass) as well. I felt a lot more confident working on this project doing sound recording, mainly because I had learned how to use the H6 sound recorder and had experience using it from Kathryn’s 90 second film.

The direction on Theo’s 90 second film was very clear and straight forward for me to follow. Me and the rest of the production team would organise the date and time of what particular location we need to meet up to film, then a week later we would go. In terms of the practically side, Theo would gather the production team together and explain to us what we had to do and how it would benefit the film. He would give us each specific task to each member of the production crew and would make us go through at least three practise shoots before we began the actual work. I found this to be very easy and useful to do, it was mainly to ensure that we would make mistakes at the very beginning before making any mistakes in the live shots. The person I was working with again, was Tejpal who was recording sound on a Boom Microphone. We communicate really well in this project and helped each other to work out ways on how to record specific sounds, such as capturing feet walking on leaves and dialogue sound as well.

Quote from Theo Jones:

“Elijah helped me to fix my my audio issues in my 90 second film. He was enthusiastic to help me to re-record my work and was able to solve the problem that was in the film. I am glad to have worked with him on this project as he greatly improved on the original recording and I will also look forward to working with him again in the future.”

– Theo Jones 2019

What went well:

After reading the quote from Theo, he explained that there was a an issue with the audio for his 90 second film and helped him to re-record some content for his film. He adds on that I have improved on the original recording and would look forward to work with again in the near future. The problem Theo had with audio was the sound of the dialogue which was very low quality. What I needed to do was to re-record the sounds again but with the H6 microphone amide more closely to the cast. What also went well in this production of the film was how organised every one was and how easy it was to follow directions from Theo. We had to do three practise shots in sound recording and the visuals, once Theo was happy to see the practice shoots and help us correct them angles and the sound, it was easy to go straight into the live recording.

What didn’t go well:

What didn’t go well during production was the equipment we were shooting to hear the captured dialogue sound. After using the H6 to record the sound it wasn’t the problem, the main issue was to work out what headphones was suitable to hear the content back. I tried to use my DR-DRE beats headphones but the H6 recorder didn’t have a blue-tooth feature. I had to use Alex’s headphones to plug into the H6 recorder, what fitted in properly and I was able to hear the content been recorded. It did take use a while to work out how to fix this issue, but I think for future projects, we should research more properly on what headphones to use while recording sound.

How can I improve for next time?

In order for me to improve for next time on sound recording, to ensure that I can over come these adversities I faced in Theo’s 90 second film would be to do more research on sound recording equipment. The main issue I had faced while recording Theo’s 90 second film was not been able to hear what was been recorded. I didn’t really understand what type of headphones the H6 was able to use while recording sound. Which resulted in me not been able to hear properly on what was recorded. The best way to improve my own understanding on what would be the best pieces of sound recording equipment would be to look on YouTube for sound recording specialist who recommend the viewers the best headphones to use while recording practical sounds. Another way to do research on what would be the best pieces of sound recording equipment would be, I can just find a local sound recording stores in town and ask them for the best recommendations and explain to them my situation and how do I can improve for next time.

Research

This is a 11 minute video on YouTube called “Best Studio Headphones in 2018- Which are the Best studio Headphones?. The video is based on research on which is the best studio headphones to use while recording sound. The narrates of the video goes into depth and detail to explain in comparison what they would recommend on using and why they appear to be more useful then the next headphones.

Out of all of these headphones in the video, I would probably go for number 3 which is a Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro. The reason why I have chosen these headphones is based on the amount of detail of sound you are able to hear while content is been played back. The earpieces are especially well balanced between the two and useful while been played in editing.

Conclusion:

I felt very much more confident working with the production team with Theo, we was able to work out a correct scheduled to record Theo’s 90 second film which wouldn’t of clashed with Kathryn’s timetable which was great. The only areas where I would need to improve more on, is to understand sound recording equipment. I had issues on hearing the sound been played back on the H6 recorder, for future references I would need to do more research on what is the best Headphones to use while hearing back sounds in production.

Since I am going to have some free time, I am going to do research on the best Headphones to use while recording sound. I would like to work with Theo again in future projects to test my own ability’s to see what I have improved on. This could give me a chance to look at more pieces of equipment to use while recording sound, so then I can work with more confidence.

This portfolio covers the analysis of work produced by other people, my experiences traveling on trips, my culture interests, passions, my own experiences as well as the current events I am in.

Analysis of other peoples work

My research involves watching other short films as part of secondary research  to generate some brand new ideas to create this 90 seconds film. I feel like this is important to analysis other peoples work to see how they direct and film their content and keep it interesting at the same time.

This short film is called ‘The A-Z of Aliyah’ this documentary is about the culture impact what has happened in todays society after the late Hip Hop artist Aliyah.  I have  choice this short film as an example of research because it captures artistic culture and expresses it in a meaningful way. You can see it through the dancers clothes, the setting of the film and matches to Aliyah’s interview.

The next film I have decided to analyse was called ‘Practice makes perfect’, a short film about a group of guys on the break of doing something incredible but have one problem

The reason why I had to make an analysis on this and will use it for inspiration was for the cinematography. The director manage to capture some amazing close up shots and paid a lot attention to detail. In one image you can see medium/wide shot what captures all characters in one frame.

Passions

I have been doing photography from an young age which allows me to escape the world of stress and can be an open window to explore my creativity. I run a photography business which allows me to improve consistently as a photographer. My short film will feature a storyline focusing on photography, the challenge would involve helping the audiences to see the worlds perspective through the photographers mind. Why have they captured that image? how does it make them feel?

My own experiences

In previous experiences in terms of film making, some of my success was the level of exposure I managed to express in creating a storyline and cinematography. My first 90 seconds film ‘Jumpers’ was a film that focus on identity. The success was found in the cinematography, I had capture the actor from every angle and position I could think off.

My failures were discovered through d the final product of my title sequence. I had watched the television program N.C.I.S and wanted to make a title sequence with the same theme. My failure was the footage, cameras shaken, lack of light exposure and I had rarely shown signs of creativity for cinematography.

Reflections on trips

The benefits of been a photographer allows me to explore different locations whether it is close to home or far away.  I travelled to London over the holidays and have seen some interesting buildings a landscape shots. Those small memories will be a huge factor for making this film. I believe this because my 90 seconds film will show the photographers curiosity in different locations to see what they can capture.

Current events 

The current events in photography will link to capturing an atmosphere of people engaging within each other. This very important to me and can  be a learning curve for the 90 seconds film. I can practice close up shots of individuals in excite moments, I can practise landscape shots through wide lens. The most important would be, how does it make me feel and why I am taking pictures of those moments? The more I become self aware, the more I can translate that into this 90 seconds film.

 

The scene I am going to analyse is a 10 minute fight sequence which was from action packed, revenge thriller Kill Bill Vol 1.  This final confrontation is by the main lead actress Uma Thruman as “The Bride” as she concludes and important chapter in her tactical plan to get back at Bill for murdering her family, the only person who stands in front for her is Lucy liu “O-Ren Ishii”. I have seen this movie and know it is filled with different Micro themes to talk about and the 10 minute time allows me to go into detail.

The Mise en scene 

The setting

The first interesting part of the Mise en scene I had noticed straight away was the scenes setting where the fight sequence was taken place. The bride is battling an army of foes in a blood shed battle held in a restaurant? Restaurants are supposed to be a nice, quite and pleasant place where families can get together and enjoy each others company. That idea for Kill Bill Vol 1 for that event change the whole concept of “Peace, comforting and family unity”. It was almost as if the film director did this on purpose based on the fact that “The bride” and “O-Ren Ishii” used to be part of a family as the trained together, fight together and conquered together. So to put these two characters together one final time, that itself was the reunion of two long lost family relatives setting the score.

The décor was found within the colours of the characters clothing and also where each character was position within the scene. O-Ren Ishii is the main villain who is wearing peaceful, bright, robes for this event. She stands at the top main floor looking down at The bride, the hench men who O-Ren sends after to kill the bride are wearing black outfits as they rush towards the bride with weaponry. O-Ren Ishii wearing the bright white clothing looks as if she is the hope for Bill to make sure that the bride wont make it to him in the end. She looks more powerful and dominating without even moving a muscle as she is placed at the top of the stairs. The bride is wearing bright yellow warm colours which could represent her emotion of been angry and frustrated of all things she has had to deal with.

The costume

The costume choice for this movie has to be one of the most iconic colours ever to be shown in a mixed martial arts movie. The bright yellow and black line design. Audiences who are fascinated by Martial arts would automatically recognise whom warn this colours in the past, it was non other then Bruce lee himself. Audiences will feel a slight sense of hope for The bride as she battles an army in this traditional clothing because of the guy whom worn this first so happened to be the best mixed marital artist ever to be known. Even though its been years since Bruce lee has passed, to see the bride wear yellow and black gear design makes audiences feel as if she represents us as we are fans of old mixed martial artist. It makes relate to the character and can complete relate to her level of been inspired and then becoming an inspiration for others.

The cinematography 

The cinematography was used really well within this scene to create express different meanings from each camera angle been shot of every character. This shows the audiences that the film director know exactly where to position each camera and completely understood what type of emotion and a level of intensity he was going to pour out. The close up shots were used to capture detail within the scene as well as the emotion been shown on each characters face.

When on of the main villains (NOT O-REN) threw a chain with a mace on the end hit the wooden stand, the close up shot captured the splitters of the wood exploding out of the stand. You could see the amount of damage been show in this close up shot which made me feel anxious enough to imagine how dangerous it would be if it hit the bride.

The brides face expression told it all, it summed up the whole film through the exhaustion and pain she had to go through in this one movie. The close up shot capture the detail of the cuts going cross her face as well as her facial expression of her looking warned out. We feel as the audience begin to feel the warn down feeling as if we are the bride.

Another good use of cinematography was when the bride was in the centre and she was surrounded and isolate in a box fully of Hench men. The camera angle was a tilt shot from her feet to the ceiling but as the camera was facing down you see the Hench men gathering around her in a square shape. The camera angle shot gives us a Ghost view on the scene, it makes it look like we are looking down on the characters without been noticed. This goes back to Mise en scene when it talks about expressionism, for her to be in a box shaped showed isolation in an obvious way. However for her to find away to over come the box shaped Hench men showed her of thinking outside of the box.

The sound

The sound for within this scene was very important and was also unusually but fun to listen to what confused myself and perhaps other audiences. This movie had a massive funky  60’s theme what collaborated with mixed martial arts east Asia culture and it actually worked well. There is a scene where the bride is trying to avoid been hit by a mace, she drives herself up and dodges with a backflip, but you hear a funky 60’s siren. The sound effects appears to be nostalgia to the previous Bruce lee movies which back then did use funky sound effects which made the scenes look more dramatic.

The diegetic sound for this fight sequence was the main key for this entire fight scene more then the 60’s theme. Here’s why. What I had noticed was majority of the fight scene didn’t have music been played, the only noise you could hear was what was producing the sound which could be the characters talking, weapons moving, people breathing and so on. The first part of the fight scene, you didn’t hear music at all only the sound of moving objects been overly dramatically used for the film.

One villain picked up chain and dragged it, you would hear a loud giggle sound of the metal chains rubbing against each other. When the villain began to swing the chain  in circles, the sound of the chains moving in motion sounded like a heavy wind flying effect. This attention to detail made audiences feel highly aware of how dangerous this fight seen was supposed to be. The villain wrapped the chains around the brides neck and began to pull, the sound which was used was a rope been tighten as a sound effect. It made you understand how tight the chains were and how much stronger they were getting, to the point you could see the character begin to struggle.

The editing

The editing was used mainly for sound and placing each clip together to bring the story to life but in more depth and detail. The sound was edited in a way where once you would see the bride finder herself getting ready to fight the next opposition, a cool hippy music will begin to play in the background. However, as soon as the fight starts, the music would cut out completely and the fight is take more seriously.

The clips been placed together perfectly showed a different perspective of the trouble the bride found herself in. You would see one camera shot of the bride in a Box shape from a camera angle above ground, then the next clip would show a panning shot of the bride patiently looking around which was in sync with the camera movement as well.

The performances

The performance of each cast member really did create the character been explored in different parts of the fight sequence. The actresses performances needed to be spot on based on what type of style this movie is, which is an action martial arts film. Lucy Liu acted her role very well and was more humble as the villain then the main character. She made her villain look patient, gentle and relaxed in a demanding way.

Uma Thruman as the bride performed her character as an emotional individual which made completely sense. After following the storyline from start to finish, the main lead actress needed to show different signs of emotion and distress. At the same time in the fight sequence her character shown a high level of determination and focus to get the job done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I had how to capture a few scenes in the first few lessons at Uni where me and Tejpel had to walk around the college capture different scenes. The camera we had use was a black magic camera and filmed a lot of close up scenes. I felt that it was really hard to capture these scenes based on not understanding how to use a black magic camera. The settings were programmed in the system in a way, where you could only change them by a less amount of options on the side. I found this very hard to do based on the buttons been up, down, play, stop and pause. I will have to learn how to use the black Magic camera for future projects.

In 2016 I had started our level 3 exteneded diploma course studying media at Solihull college blossomfield. During the first year we soon discovered that we had to make a 90 second film to end the whole course for the next year. However, before we even reached that part of the course we had to work togther in different filming practically projects both in groups and individually.

Within the first year we were learing how to shoot our first music video, which gave us an open opportunity to discover our own skills and asets to bring them togther to produce the music video. In my group, I was working with four different people who had four different roles for the project. One was the film director who mangage to capture many cinematography camera angles for the video. Another role was acting, the actor’s objective was to demonstrate different parts of character to create realisim as possible. The third role which was similar to the actor role was been an extra. That objective is to be a unknown character in the background. This is really important for films and television shows because it makes scenes more relaisitc. The last role was mine which was being a producer, which was something I wasnt 100% used to. due to the fact that I am more skilled and intresed in the filming directing  part of each project I do. My role invovled gathering paperwork and keeping the project organized as possible. That meant gathering the information such as the risk assessment etc.

The last year was where I had to shoot a 90 second film for the end of the year, this was very intresting to do for me. I had to create a story and really bring it into reality, the challeging side was to do it within 90 seconds. This helped me to relise the concpet of durintation time for film directors as each film they produce has a limit. Some scenes had to be erased in the end, but the story made sense. The film project was displayed on a website which shows all of the previous films I had seen and analysied to explain my film in more detail. I managed to explain why I had chosen to shoot certain camera angles, change the colour tone etc.

Within the first year we were learing how to shoot our first music video, which gave us an open opportunity to discover our own skills and asets to bring them togther to produce the music video. In my group, I was working with four different people who had four different roles for the project. One was the film director who mangage to capture many cinematography camera angles for the video. Another role was acting, the actor’s objective was to demonstrate different parts of character to create realisim as possible. The third role which was similar to the actor role was been an extra. That objective is to be a unknown character in the background. This is really important for films and television shows because it makes scenes more relaisitc. The last role was mine which was being a producer, which was something I wasnt 100% used to. due to the fact that I am more skilled and intresed in the filming directing part of each project I do. My role invovled gathering paperwork and keeping the project organized as possible. That meant gathering the information such as the risk assessment etc.