Author: Sidney Akhurst

Reflective summary of Petal Child Sound

Sidney Akhurst / / Reflective summary

 

 

This film production has been an overall educational experience. I have completed the main aim of this project by providing a contribution of my efforts to the sound group and making a good sounding soundtrack to the film Petal Child. This has been a long process with many problems and stresses along the way, in terms of miscommunications and errors in judgment when it came to the production and postproduction stages of the film’s production. The first set of problems came from when Jack, Yuan and I began shooting the film and recording live sound. We turned up at the shoot with radio microphones, inside the TV studio. There were issues with the signal, because of the signal interference with other signals coming from the studio. Also, the University hadn’t got the license from ofcom to broadcast signals on other frequencies. This is something we should’ve researched before, in terms of the usage of different microphones. It meant that we had to use the boom poles in some cases and the zooms, where the radio mics didn’t work. When they did work, there was a buzzing/ fuzzy sound coming out of them, and we changed all the positions of the mics and the batteries, but this was a recurring problem. By the second day of shooting that week (we were shooting all week) we decided to scrap the idea of using radio mics, purely to rely on the booming techniques and the zoom handheld mic. The sound would have been dramatically improved in my opinion, if we had a chance to learn about the mics in a more technical manner. With the practice that we got as a sound team, and on an individual level, I feel that I have achieved my learning outcome of learning how to use location sound recording equipment, to a level where I would be confident doing it again. The radio microphone issue was the only area where I feel the practice is still needed, and perhaps just a chat through with a professional about the recurring problems that had arisen before, such as the fuzzy sounds that were being made from them and how to get the best overall sound with all mics.

 

The music composition for the film went well in my opinion, but I believe that was partly on luck and partly the trust that Jane, the director, had developed in me from previous projects. I felt that I could have had more of a proactive approach to quizzing the film team about where they wanted the cues for music and the types of music they would have wanted, but in the same breath was left to my own device to do as I pleased with the music. In some ways that was good for my creative mind to produce something totally my own and original that suited it, but I suppose a little more communication with the Director about the actual music would have been useful in a sense that I would have been set more of a challenge to please the film group with my work, to their needs and not my own. However, the film group were happy with the work that I had done on the music, so I feel that I have achieved my learning outcome of producing a suitable soundtrack, applicable to the 1960’s psychedelic era.

 

The production of the foley went well for me, even though it was the first time I had done it. It took a while to get on a level with my group member Yuan that meant that we could successfully produce some sounds for our film that were audible and correct to what was going on in the picture. The communication between him and I at first was a bit slow, but we began to understand each other through practice. That rapport that was built earlier in the semester on the shoot ,I felt, became important in this phase of the production because otherwise it would have been an absolute nightmare and really stressful due to the language barriers etc. The evidence of the work with foley and how we’ve learnt it can be found in watching the artifact.

 

The communication with the rest of the film group has sometimes been very difficult, their use of Facebook messenger to contact one and other for me felt quite unprofessional. There has been, since the beginning of the planning stages to now, a Facebook chat with all group members in. This chat is constantly happening and it is extremely difficult to keep up. I know Jane, however, on a personal level, and so our communication has been ok, it’s just that the rest of the group has been asking questions about sound on the Facebook chat and it was something that became a bit of a nightmare to follow up with. This became an issue so much so at times where they had discussed meetings and we had missed out on them, because of the unseen messages on our part from them. This could have been massively improved although, it came together in the end with sound because of a determination not to let them down and keep them happy with us.

 

I feel as though I mostly captured the 1960’s esque vibe with my productions , but I feel this could have been improved a great deal with more time and a few more resources (ie budget). If we had the opportunity to have a full band that were well practiced and had enough skill to record them in a short space of time with a decent sound that was authentic to the genre, then this would have helped massively. Though, I feel like with the plugins I used on Logic 9, I still maintained some of the vibe to the best that I could. Its just that electrobic instruments are so hard to make sound like they are real, no matter how much you do with them.

The music I did make, I think the drum compression was too much, and I stayed in my comfort zone with the mixdowns on them, so this is something I feel should have been taken down a notch to really get that authenticity with it all.

 

I feel as though the sound group I worked with finally got there in the end after much deliberation, and therefore see this film production as a relative success, the way its all come together etc. In future though, I feel like I should have put way more time at the start into the planning stages of the sound and film making. With this being done the way it was, partly our fault, partly the film group and partly the circumstance (dissertation etc) I think that the sound mixing etc has been rushed a bit (after only being given a week and a bit to mix to the film)

Production post: Atmospheres

Sidney Akhurst / / Production Posts

 

 

The atmospheric sounds within the film are very obvious, and in my opinion, they set the scene really well. I used logic pro 9 to compile these sounds together. As with the Foley sound, I watched through each scene and noted down what was needed in terms of the background atmospheres.

 

So for the start, the Bar scene, I had a number of different audio files already saved into my computer that would be good to use as the atmospheres. The file I had was the sound of people talking in a bar, but lots of them so it gave the audience a perception of space. This worked well with having extras in the scene sat down and conversing, and simply added to the realism of the scene.

 

The outside scene where the main actress ‘Stephanie’ runs out to be sick, the atmosphere of the people in the bar talking filters out the cutoff, to give the impression that they are outside the same bar. The same happens with the music that is playing in the background and in that case, the music in essence becomes the atmosphere.

 

In the garage scene, the sounds of birds, chickens and crows at a low level add to the perception that they are outside. The involvement of the chicken sound gives the impression that it is a different era (1960’s) so sets the scene really well because more people had chickens in their garden back then.

 

The nighttime scenes within the film all have crickets in them. Although this may appear to be cheesy somewhat, the film has an apparent cheesiness to it, so it fits quite well. This is something that the director enjoyed upon contact with them and showcasing the work at that point.

 

All of the atmospheres in the end were bounced down to a 1 track WAV for Jack to mix down in the final session.

 

Production post: Foley

Sidney Akhurst / / Production Posts

 

 

The foley production role within the film petal child was assigned to me. I worked with Yuan to create the foley for the film and we had to wait for the final version of the visual edit to be able to begin our job. To start the process, we watched the entire visual edit, scene by scene and noted down each point in which foley sound was needed. This process took about two hours for the 40 min film.

 

Once we had the sounds written down on paper, we began to record them. My role for this was to be the recordist, whilst Yuan was the “walker”. Scene by scene, we went through and recorded the sounds. The first scene consisted of a bar, so we produced sounds that imitated the sounds of glasses being put down, drinking, change being given to the bar man, the actresses sitting down etc.

 

In doing this for our first time, it took a lot of takes and practice to get the right sounds and aesthetics for each recording that fit the film. It took Yuan and I about 5 or 6 hours to fully finish the foley for it ready for Jack to mix in the final session.

 

The areas in which we struggled most were the timings of the footsteps. For example, in the end scene where all the actresses walk outside, the footsteps were way to many to be able to make sound professional, with the equipment and time that we had been set to do the job, and also, the footsteps were in fact audible on the film itself, so adding more began to seem nonsensical. The actresses were also talking over the footstep noise, and so changing the sound too much would have a negative impact on the quality of the dialogue.

Research Post: Foley Production

Sidney Akhurst / / Research

 

 

Foley Sound was named after Jack Foley, who was a sound designer at universal studios. It is the process in which a sound recordist will create sounds that are diegetic within the film. These are sounds that relate to the movements of actors and sound effects that are visible as actions within the film. These differ from sound effects though. For example, cars and gunshots are sound effects but not foley. Foley ranges from footsteps to clothes rustling sounds.

 

The foley team usually consists of a ‘walker’ who is the creator of the foley sound, and then the recordist/ engineer who records these sounds in to the DAW (Namely pro Tools). This would take place inside a sound theatre or foley stage. Using a range of microphones to record these sounds, the engineer would talk back through a talkback mic, to communicate with the walker (foley creator). They would give instructions (Ie watch the screen and imitate the sound using these devices).

 

The foley stage (or studio) usually contains a plethora of unwanted items, or ‘junk’. These studios can hold all sorts of items, such as shoes, high heels, bottles, flasks, clocks, surfaces for walking on to create the footsteps, and much more.

 

Sound artists that are known as ‘Audiles’ are the most successful in foley production because they can think outside the box when it comes to the creation of the sounds.

 

Foley adds a certain ‘aural depth’ to the film. Without it, the actors would be talking in what would seem like an empty space, compared to as a vacuum. It brings about a realism that cannot fully be achieved with dialogue recording microphones. For example it brings the audio straight the front of the mix, instead of being in the shots from the start. The sound recordist has much more control over this because they can mix down and change each and every individual sound that is present in the foley mix.

 

http://filmsound.org/terminology/foley.htm

 

https://www.sound-ideas.com/Page/what-is-foley.aspx

 

Production Post: Music Composition for Petal Child

Sidney Akhurst / / Production Posts

 

 

My first job as the music composer was to make the track for the music video. I had begun by using the approach of using real instruments, as this is what would have been available at the time and the only way to make music. As a group, Jack and I booked out the multitrack recording studio, and through Jane, we had found a Sitar player called ‘Neil’ from Leicester. On this day, he came up to Lincoln and we had a jam with Jack and Josh Andrusiak, a bass player and student. We had recorded some of these jams; as there wasn’t much time to write something. We had also recorded a solo of the sitar being played.

 

After much experimentation with the sounds, and speaking to the director, I found it best to make the track myself on Logic. I felt that the music we had made in the studio was out of time and didn’t sound too much like it was from the 1960s, even though we had used similar techniques for recording the instruments as they would have back then.

 

I had used the sitar solo, chopped it up into about 50 equal sized sections using the scissor tool and placed them into a monophonic exs24 sampler, using the sounds as one shots. I placed an arrangement of the sampler notes over some drum productions. This creative process of arranging the track didn’t seem to take too long, and I sent the early mixdown to Jane, the director. She was happy with where I was going with the track, and this progressed to later in the year where the actresses were coming in for shoots. We recorded Stephanie (The main Actress, called Holly in real life) singing over the track. This took minimal mixing down, except for adding tape saturation and using some of the production techniques in the music that they would have done back in the 1960’s but instead in a digital music way. The authenticity of the film as being produced with modern filming techniques has meant that the electronic recreational aest

 

The music I had made in Logic , I had more creative control over, and feel like I could have done a better job of that in a sound way than with the real instruments. Because we were Jamming with real instruments and the time constraints, this too was another reason I had decided to make a fully structured track

 

As for the tracks in the rest of the film, I had created songs for each diegetic atmospheric part of the film. For example, there are a few scenes in the bar, so I had decided to make up music that sounded Jazzy and Bluesy, to convey the sound of being in a social atmosphere. This music had a slight filter on it and was layered with the atmos of people talking in a bar to add to the realism of the scene and boost its aesthetic.

The LSD trip scenes are the most interesting pieces of sound/music in my opinion. There is no dialogue in these scenes so the viewer is concentrating purely on just the visual and sound elements of the movie. For these scenes I used my Reaktor 6 instruments and Absynth 5, as well as FM8. The sequential movement of the journey through the trips are reflected in the sound, and the vibe of each trip is driven by the sound mainly. The sound follows the animations within the LSD trip one (The good trip). And Slowly gets more minimal as the characters come out of the trip. Having not experienced LSD first hand, I left this to interpretation and tried as best as I could to get sounds that would fit the animation and fit the overall feeling of the scene.

 

Similarly, the bad trip that Stephanie has portrays an amplification of the emotion that she is going through in the film. The sounds present in this trip aims to give the viewer an intense feeling of shock/ goose bumps. Having a sound that fits the trip should make up the minimal effect on screen; otherwise it would be empty in my opinion.

 

We had used a track by Barney and Jack Martin, (who are Jack Webber’s housemates) in the film also. The music present is cued in at the bar and is used as a piece of non-diegetic music, as opposed to the other music. This music is reminiscent of the emotion of a kind of melancholy and perhaps a bit of loneliness within the film. It only appears for a few seconds, as the scene begins, but is effective in my opinion for portraying the thoughts of the actresses, that are sat there at the bar with their heads in their hands. It almost is a window into their emotions, so the communication aspect here with the music is extremely important.

 

The ending music has a similar theme too, with the sad sounds of the aftermath of when the actresses had been shouting at each other and are crying. The music communicates this even further, and aims to help the viewer to empathize with the characters. This is a very relatable part of the film to a lot of people, based on the feedback given to the film group.

 

The music of the montage sequence is quite fast paced and a bit more rhythmic than the other music, and this reflects on the actress’ emotion of regret, in a sense. She is trying to get a hold of one of the actresses that previously in the film she kissed , and the reaction wasn’t great as she walked off.

 

“Jefferson Airplane- White Rabbit” was one of the main tracks that I was using reference wise for the mixdown and sound of the tracks I had been producing. I really enjoy its sound and I feel as though it is one of the main tracks of the psychedelic culture in England of that Era.