Author Archives: Daniel Marnie

Final Project Evaluation

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For this project Sam Jenkins, Rob Wynne and myself were contracted by Viewfinder Productions, a group of talented third year Media Production students, to record and deliver Location Sound during the shooting of the film, and also to complete the Post-Production Audio process in its entirety. We actually began speaking to the Media Production group late on in Year 2, around June time, and the project they pitched sounded really interesting, so we all agreed to work with them when Year 3 began.

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Post-Production Sound (6th – 16th Dec)

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Post production work on Cognition began on 6th December. We had received an AAF from the Tom, the films editor, on Monday, and had already spent some time going through the film with him to see if he had any thoughts. We watched the film through, each making notes on possible audio to put in, and what sort of tone we wanted the film to have overall. We had already discussed who would tackle the various sections of the film: Sam would edit and mix the dialogue, Rob would record, edit and mix the foley, and I would assist in recording foley and edit and mix the SFX and Ambience. Barney Oram was composing the music, so we were confident that little would need to be done on that side of things.

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Meeting with David (16th Dec)

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Our final meeting with David was relatively straightforward. We talked about the Viva Voce, and David recommended we take a look at the marking sheet before we return in January, and we told him a few of the issues we’d had with the Sound Theatre and audio de-sync. We also spoke a little about the evaluation, how it should be structured, and why we write it, which will help me when I come to write my own.

Director and DoP Masterclass with Jack Shelbourne – (12th Dec)

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In this masterclass, Jack Shelbourne showed us some of the equipment that the media students are able to book out, spoke about the role of a boom op/sound recordist on location, and also told us a little about his working relationship with sound recordists. He has worked extensively with Paul Fairey, a freelance sound recordist that Jack praises for his work ethic and professionalism on location. When on set, Jack and Paul work exceptionally well together, as Jack understands the importance sound has in film. The rivalry that can occur between visual and audio teams only hinders progress; we should instead aim to befriend camera operators and aim to work closely with them. If a shot doesn’t work because of boom shadow, and other ways of recording the scene would provide inferior audio, would it not be better to change the shot slightly to accommodate the sound recordists wishes? I fully support this idea, and the us-versus-them mentality is a useless, unhelpful thing that should no longer be a part of filmmaking.

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Meeting with David (9th Dec)

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We had a short tutorial this week, mainly talking about the viva voce that will take place in January. We also spoke about the importance of defining our learning outcomes, and also referring back to them throughout the blog to show where and how we are meeting them. This is where we can pick up a lot of marks, so I will need to firm up my learning outcomes and make sure to address areas where I’ve contributed to them, like during the film shoot for instance. There is one more tutorial on the final day of the semester, which we’ll attend as well, just in case we have any further questions.