Hello There,
Welcome to my Research and Development blog for my various sound Projects.
Here I will update either weekly or whenever possible with new notes or developments of projects I am working on.
For those who have ended up here from my website, I hope you find this a useful tool
Here I will transcribe the notes I took based on the meeting I had with the animators for The Real Pirate on the 26th of March, 2024, where they were shown the WIP2 version of the film, without any scored music. I will also include screenshots of the email exchanges we had beforehand.
I will insert examples of my workflow for The real Pirate via screenshots of the project below.
Workflow is an incredibly important aspect of professional post-production sound and so a lot of effort went into managing and updating my workflow as I worked on The Real Pirate. from the ground-up, I organised the project to have the optimal organisation, putting anything involving ADR/Dialogue into a track folder labelled VX (Later renamed to DX to match industry standards for project organisation), Sound effects into a track folder called SFX, Ambience into a folder called Amb and any Music, including scoring I wrote, into a folder called Score. This allowed me to mute each category separately to check the mix for each group to make sure everything had it’s own place.
Before recording anything however, I ran a quick spotting session, with an example of some of this spotting in this post, which is a key aspect of correct audio post-production workflow (Cheung, 2023)
Cheung, R. (2023) Audio Post-Production Workflow Guide. Ottawa: MASV. available from https://massive.io/workflow/audio-post-production-workflow/
For this learning outcome, I will be focussing on my work for The Real Pirate as that is the project I have scored and sourced music for.
To start, I had to narrow down what kind of theme this project had. To do this I first watched the animatic the team had sent me, with their sound suggestions/outline on the film, and made notes on what kind of music I felt on first watch could fit the tone of the film. From this, I made mind maps on possible directions for the scoring.
In exploring scoring for a pirate feature, that wasn’t too serious and embraced the more slapstick tone of cartoons, I took notes from Morningdew Media (Holmgren, 2023) as well as suggestions from forums (Stack Exchange, 2011) on the kind of instruments present in pirate-related media. From this, I selected the accordion and the mandolin, as they are generally light-hearted and omnipresent in pirate-related media. While the fiddle and the harpsichord also made it to the shortlist due to their common presence in shanties and other music from the era or pirating on the high-seas, I felt they gave a too serious nautical tone as opposed to a piratey one.
To do this, I arranged a meeting with the animation team, the details of which can be seen in the Animation Team Meeting post. When exploring the tone the score should be written in, based on what the team and I discussed in our meeting, I went for a more clichéd take on pirate music as it lends itself better to an unserious and cartoony atmosphere. According to Holmgren (2023), Pirate Music is usually written in the key of C minor and using a mixolydian scale, meaning it would have a diminished 7th, however after a while of tinkering with the versions of these instruments in XPand!2, I chose to stick with C minor but move to a combination of Mixolydian and Dorian scales, meaning starting with the diminished 7th in the introductory piece and the title screen music. This helped to support the tone of the main characters dismay at being an unsuccessful pirate who isn’t taken seriously. by the end of the short, he is successful and feared as a pirate and so the music moves to a Dorian scale, C minor with a raised 6th, to signify his success.
To support the visuals I didn’t just score main pieces for the intro, title and end of the film but also several monophonic instrumental pieces sprinkled to certain visual elements to give the animation more life and to support the events happening on screen. for example, when the main character is laughed off by the man at the dock, a chromatic set of C minor chords are played on the mandolin to accentuate the characters sadness at being denied the feared role he wants to embody, followed immediately by some light-hearted accordion notes as the camera switches to the mischievous monkey that follows him on board, to signify his future role as a light-hearted character.
Holmgren, M. (2023) Composing Pirate Music: Tips and Techniques. Holmsund: Morningdew Media. available from https://www.morningdewmedia.com/composing-pirate-music-tips-and-techniques/
H. T. (2011) What are the characteristic scales, keys, intervals, progressions, etc. of pirate / sailing / nautical music? New York City: Stack Exchange. Available from https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/3840/what-are-the-characteristic-scales-keys-intervals-progressions-etc-of-pirat
In order to fulfil the requirements for this Learning Outcome, I collaborated very closely with the people who created the works I was conducting my sound work on. Below I will detail examples of this.
I have been in contact with the animation team behind this short regularly throughout production to make sure I was meeting expectations and producing audio they were pleased with, both through email and through meetings, and responding to feedback. For example, on a meeting I held with the animation team on the 20th of March, I screened them the WIP3 version of the film with the freshly recorded voice acting and took notes on suggestions they made, as well as discussing possible changes to the animation. I will attach below a scan of the page I took the notes on. While they didn’t have a lot of feedback to give me, the feedback was still extremely helpful and thanks to this we have maintained regular, friendly, contact and I send them new versions regularly to keep them updated. I, most recently, sent them the WIP4, in which I had scored a main theme and some other pieces of music for the film, getting a very enthusiastic response from George (the liaison for the team), as well as having discussed deadlines and promising to continue work past deadlines, as my deadline is before theirs, meaning their film will be completed, sound-wise, regardless.
Having been brought on so close to the deadline it was more essential than ever to have close collaboration with the editor and director, Thomas Klos, and sound supervisor, Carolina Costa. In the many sessions we did in the sound theatre, Carolina was constantly there to give feedback and ideas, as well as Thomas regularly sitting in to give ideas to have the sound balance differently and to direct the audio production to better fit the theme and tone of the film, as well as finding and licensing the music for the film, giving suggestions for levels and fading for the final product. Whenever he watched a new version he would send notes to the Sound Supervisor, Carolina Costa, with suggestions for slight changes or alterations he would like to be better tailored to the film, which we would jump on and happily do for him, with him often sitting in on those sessions too. The fast-paced experience of working on this film, with only 6 days to work on the audio from start to finish, meant collaboration was key, and we nailed it.
For this film we went into the sound theatre over the weekend to do foley and ADR work. Unfortunately large portions of the sound recorded in the outside scenes were unusable due to a combination of weather conditions and technical issues, some of the sound was missing due to a corrupted SD card, however the film also had a lot of good opportunities for really expressive sound design and foley choices, such as the director inserting an Edgar Wright style shot, for which I swung a hollow metal pole past a RODE mic for ‘whooshing’ sounds, something I learned when working on my post-production project last year (Everything Everywhere All At Once), for both the camera and the actor and, using a mixture of the on-set recording sounds and foley, put together the fast-paced sound effects necessary for the scene. We also put a bit of gravel on the stone tile in the foley room to recreate the ‘walking on a path’ effect for the characters walking outside. Some of the effects recorded on-set for certain actions needed to be re-recorded using objects from the foley room as the director felt they were too harsh or distracting, such as the moving and opening/closing of the toolbox. The sound from set was a very loud, metallic, scraping against the wooden floor, which we replaced with the sound of the foley room suitcase dragging across the floor.
All of the work I did on the sound for this film was conducted in roughly 5 days, all the way up to the night before the deadline, due to delays in the video editing process. Overall, I’m proud of what we managed to do in that time, conducting extensive sound design for the scenes and completely replacing the sound for both outdoor scenes, a total combined time of about 2 minutes, as well as working closely with the director to manage effects like the machine sound constantly playing for the first 2/3 of the film, and arranging the music, including levels and timing. I only wish we could’ve had more time to properly polish the film.
I was pleasantly surprised to find myself working on sound design for this animated short film with the very talented pair, Ellie Nielson and Cody Nichols. Ellie had prepared a spotting list from the animatic and, after a few quick watch-throughs, we had some great ideas. Some of the sounds were simple solutions, like using one of the bells in the foley room for the bell ‘Ding’ when the elevator arrives in heaven, and pulling the chair on a wooden board and sitting on it (though I have called this one simple, it took a good bit of co-ordination and trust between Cody and myself).
Thanks to the fact we were working with an animatic, some of the sounds took a bit of intuition, creativity and contextual assumptions to piece together, such as using the ‘clicks’ of the dial on a board in the foley room to emulate the number counter ticking over when a new character arrives in hell.
Action Object Surface
Originating point/concept – Picking up a bowl from the fridge
We tried a few things for this. We immediately made the connection we should use a ceramic dish, considering that there might be a bowl in the Alfred Tennyson Buildings kitchen, but settled for one of the ceramic plates in the foley room. Having done some foley before, I knew that you could recreate the sound of picking something up just by moving the object slightly on a surface or another object, which would essentially function as a surface, similar to scraping your shoes on a surface by a microphone to mimic jumping. but finding a surface to move it on to create the sound we wanted was more troubling. We initially tried using the windowsill in the foley room but found it to be too solid sounding. We experimented with using another plate as a surface, which didn’t quite give us the sound we were looking for, so we then tried using the bottom of some plastic tubs in the foley room, starting with an ice cream tub, which sounded too hollow, then one of the large yellow tubs, which still sounded too hollow, then the bottom of one yellow tub with another yellow tub inside, which still wasn’t quite right. We knew we wanted something more glass-like, but in the absence of a plate of glass anywhere we were stumped for a moment, before I decided to use the actual window of the foley room as our surface. After a few takes we got the sound we were looking for.
Picking up a bowl from the fridge was recreated by pulling a ceramic plate from the window.
Similarly, we needed to create the sound of some money suddenly lighting on fire.
Originating point/concept – Money combusting (fire)
considering the basics of what sudden flames sound like, we knew we needed I kind of ‘whooshing’ sound. For this I removed my hoodie and flapped it by the microphone with a wind cover on.
Not every sound recreation required a lot of experimentation, but it did require a bit of intuition regarding how some materials interact with others, such as with the plate and the window, and how a listener would interpret different sounds we create with these intuitive solutions, such as the hoodie flapping by the microphone.
I Love You Dad / Father’s Day
There was a lot of dialogue required for ADR. All outdoors shots needed to be redubbed as the weather conditions ruined any and all sound recordings, which hugely impacted the dialogue beyond anything. The first ADR we recorded was for Thomas Klos, who played a construction worker in the film. He required very little direction in terms of his ADR performance, besides reminding him to shout and getting extra takes for different inflections. Next we had to focus on the main actor, Alex Morningstar, who was great to meet and work with, and whose lines were the most important to get right as his availability was quite limited. Directing Alex was a great exercise in learning which words to use to get the right performance, such as suggesting he yell rather than shout, as “shout” was getting us rather timid results, whereas “yell” got us just the right sound on the first attempt. our final ADR performance was from Danny, who played the 2nd construction worker. Having him ADR was an interesting experience as his character had to respond to some ad-libbed lines from Tom as his first line, rather than scripted interaction. This meant having him run through some test responses to set levels and check inflection and volume before giving him the go ahead, which worked like a dream.
In technical terms, I adjusted the height of the microphone for each actor and reset the levels for each actors performance, as well as giving regular directions in terms of distance from microphone to prevent popping and proximity effect, such as suggesting that Alex be 3 feet from the microphone during his yell both to prevent popping and proximity. The microphone we used was an SE Electronics X1 as it had a cardioid pickup meaning we could avoid bleed from the sound theatre.
The Real Pirate
For this project, I am planning on taking on the animation team to have them perform some fun voice acting work for their film, as I feel that it would help with fostering that collaborative atmosphere and relationship I wanted with the team, as well as making sure the performance they have for these characters is as accurate as possible to their intentions with the film. However, for the project as it’s being submitted, the voice acting for the main character was done by myself and the scream from the man on the dock at the end was performed by Finn Thomas, whose setup choices were similar to that of the ADR done by Alex for ‘Fathers Day’.
Being the sound designer for an animated film, the vast majority of sounds not involving waves and seagulls had to be performed by either myself or another student, and some of these sounds proved harder to pin down than others.
One I am particularly happy with, in terms of figuring out a more creative method for creating the sound, was the creaking of the ship.
Creative Process
Action Object Surface
initial sound – Wooden Ship Creaking
My first thought for this sound was to attempt to bend a wooden board or a plastic pole to make a creaking noise however I didn’t want to break anything and I found my attempts were causing too much handling noise, so I went back to the basics.
I thought about what creaking itself sound like, rather than what sounds like creaking.
I determined that, at it’s core, a wooden ship creaking sounds like a light, hollow, tapping of two pieces of wood. I started by grabbing a small drumstick-style stick from the shelf and tapping it on the table in the foley room, however the metallic sound of the table legs proved to be too loud, so I eventually, created this sound by tapping the small drumstick on a wooden board kept in the foley room. After some initial listening and lining up, I realised it felt too close, too clean and too high, so, in pro tools, I applied a pitch changer to down pitch the sound about an octave, on a 50/50 split for the wet/dry, and a low pass filter to make the creaking sound feel deeper, as well as automating a reverb on/off for when a scene would take place inside a ship as opposed to on the ships deck.
One of the ways I intended to improve my abilities in game sound design was to familiarise myself with the game sound tool WWIse. Below you will see a screenshot of what WWISE looks like, open, with an empty project.
I met with the students behind ‘The Real Pirate’ on the 26th of March to get a better idea of what they were looking for as well as to discuss establishing a future timeline with them and to gather feedback on my work, meeting some of them for the first time and creating a more collaborative working relationship with the group.
There is a newly updated version of the project which I will embed below, showing marked improvements in terms of the chosen and recorded sound FX as well as some voice acting performances from myself.
We also discussed having them come in to record some of the voice work and they seemed to be receptive to that idea, including performing the VA for the monkey character, further driving the collaborative aspect. Despite some minor notes that essentially came together into pieces that weren’t there visually yet, they enjoyed the version they saw and the work is going ahead as planned. However, the teams submission date for the animation is the 26th of May, meaning the version I submit with my sound design will be incomplete visually, which is rather unfortunate, however I have resolved to finish the sound design afterwards regardless, as it’s something I’m enjoying doing and I want to continue our collaborative relationship in good faith.
I have also started some light scoring as an extra addition to the projects sound.
My post-production sound editing and recording will begin for ‘I love you, dad’ this coming Tuesday (16.04.24), and I have remained in contact with the films director and sound recordist so I can best prepare my ideas for post-production sound.
On this film I have been both the boom operator and sound recordist on various occasions, including during both reshoot sessions and during 2 of the 3 standard shoot days. The crew were great fun to work with and I look forward to a continued positive working relationship with them. I am not sure when the film will be out but I look forward to its release.