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[moemang]

Chunky Move Final

LOVE

Arc: I feel that the change in energy at the end leaves a sense of resolve, however abstract it may be.

Stimulating: Sonically and visually abrasive.

Novel: Material made this easy

DISLIKE

Dips in intensity throughout the build up: There are a couple of points during the buildup that drop the ball a bit in terms of intensity. This is largely a matter of me putting more time into the project and spending more time analysing the edit on a micro-functional level.

Mixing: I feel like with some better mixing i could have made certain moments of the edit stand out more. For example, dipping the music volume to make more room for certain sound effects. This is something I’ll be taking on board for future projects. 

Overall I’m happy with this project though. It’s been fun working with abstract material and has taught me a lot about alternative approaches to materialising visual material.

[moemang]

Desires Final

This is the final version of the Desires edit. I filled out certain sections with diegetic sound effects to make the mix a bit more full in the hope of keeping the project engaging. Also added another pad towards the end of the soundtrack to give the ending a bit more body as it trailed off into its psychedelic mess.

These final touches to the project has definitely made for a tighter audiovisual relation, but i still feel it hasn’t reached its full potential. Being a rather ambiguous compilation of imagery, my role as a sound designer is to convince the audience that there is some motif or message underlying the work (even if there isn’t). I just feel like its not quite there.

This scene for instance was a chance to bring something interesting into the soundtrack, something that would grab the audience and potentially throw the edit in a new direction. But instead it had a fairly lacklustre mix of insect noises and laboratory ambiences that didn't go anywhere after the scene ended. This being said, Enoch was always happy with the soundtrack. It was during the peer reviews that the flaws in project really came to surface. 

There are however some points i’m quite happy with, particularly the coke scene at the start. The mix of the 80s percussion and diegetic sounds make for a fun intro to the edit, it’s just a shame we couldnt keep that going throughout the whole work.

[moemang]

Approaching the end here. With other projects on the go I’ve got to start considering wrapping the project up. Some notes on this iteration were

22-33  Up the volume of the whomp a little. You're coming off the back of activity, so perceptually you need to match that energy with presence.. 42/43 kick in harder. Feels like the image comes in in silence and then ramps up. We need to be in the new world from the outset. (These edits up attention and arousal  - make sure that sound is there with image from the outset to maximise the dopamine (or cortisol). Not even sure if you need the body splashing out of the water at the end. The hand alone might be a more poignant end....

Now it’s all about keeping the pace up the whole way up to the release and keeping the arousal up

[moemang]

Feedback + Development

Fine tuning the Chunky Move edit

I’ve been emphasising the cuts between scenes and trying to give them more of an edge. A lot of this has been achieved by micro-analysing scenes and identifying components that can be brought to life through materialisation. 

Some notes from Darrin:

Opening into green is awesome! Now feels like the shift into :15 is too much of a drop in energy. (As Shaun was saying - this often happens: adjustments in one section can lead to follow on consequences in another...) Materialise the projection energy at that point....  :43-45 - bigger articulation of the projection expansion/contraction. Love the drop down in energy - you've offset the dissolution of the groove with a strong presence in your ambience. And don't listen to &$%& today - I love the dematerialised contrast with some of the visual detail. Only thing I'm not sold on is the end figure emerging from the water for some reason. Could it be as simple as just slowing the visual footage down? So close....

more to come...

[moemang]

Work Development

Today I’ve discussed the most recent iterations of both the chunky move and desire projects with Darrin and Enoch.

Chunky Move

The main points for this project were to:

Introduce more sonic activity at 17 seconds to materialise the scene

Give the scene at 49 seconds a greater sense of impact. At this point in the edit we are approaching a moment of climax so its a good moment to bring in more chaos.

Desire

A bit of work to do here. Darrin pointed out that when the slowed down segment at 45 seconds begins the edit loses all of its energy and just spirals off into nothing.

Im going to have to play around with the sturcture of the soundtrack here. Perhaps holding off on the half speed for a bit longer will prevent the edit from feeling boring twards the end.

[moemang]

Week 12

[moemang]

Meeting with Enoch

A lot of my time this week has been spent on projects in other subjects. While i’m still waiting on feedback from anthony hamilton about the chunky move project i had a chat with enoch. We discussed how to move forward with both of our collaborative works.

DESIRES

This is where the edit is currently at. Enoch feels that the project is largely finished visually, leaving me to fill out the soundscape a bit. 

I raised the point with Enoch that the meaning behind the video feels to get a bit lost towards the end (Darrin and i have discussed this in our meetings) however he assured me that he doesn’t mind this and that shaun has given him his tick of approval. However, we have both agreed that some additional sound design could drive the videos downward spiral home in a more clear and concise way. I suggested using a soundbite similar to this video (starting at 1 minute)

Chunky Move

As said, i’m still waiting on feedback for the chunky move video. But during this week I plan to spend my time:

Finessing diegetic sound effects. For the opening scene i was pretty meticulous with my use of sound effects (notice the lasers). This segment still feels the strongest and i feel that this level of precision could really bring other scenes up to par.

Mixing. At some points the frequency spectrum feels a bit crowded and messy, this ok to a degree but i feel that it sometimes drowns out any recognisable sounds that could potentially enhance the audiovisual. Additionally, creative mixing techniques could emphasise changes in energy between different scenes (eg. dipping music volume to bring attention to dancers movement).

Enoch is also working on a final scene to wrap up the video nicely. This segment will have a more relaxing and ambient approach to give a nice comedown from the intensity of the edit.

[moemang]

Class Reflection

Richard Grant

Designers who have left Foxtel have moved to online work.

Moving to online work has caused some chaos as people find a new way to make a living and keep the industry going.

Viral campaigns and trends are good ways of getting noticed. 

Creating something that stands out, meaning:

Authentic communications (not following trends).

Clearly communicates an idea.

TIP: Pick something that you’re really passionate about and make something about it. Something you’re really proud of and stick it online. Generate 

Don’t be afraid of doing a job outside of your desired area of work.

Frank

Every project is different. They all have their own demand.

Look at core themes of film, textures of the landscape:

Whats beyond the immediate environment? Be completely open with your level of engagement with the brief. Add your flavour to it “behind the sand dunes is a donkey dildo”. Wolf creek director didn’t know what they wanted musically. It took him 4 weeks to figure out his sound pallette.

Pitching crazy ideas to clients

No one trusts you when you first work for them. You have to prove to them that you’re going to bring their film to life.

Composer vs producer

Composers are asked to bring your sense of creativity and internal processes into their visual world.

Producers work for someone else. Figuring out what they want to say. You have be able to go into other peoples belief systems and aesthetics

Multiple discipline advice

It’s important to be very good at SOMETHING. Really good at one particular thing, this takes sacrifice.

I may be slow but at least I’m expensive.

Dealing with Pressure

Know how much you should be charging.

Understand if it’s possible.

What am I good at? What am I passionate about? What can I get paid for?

If I work on it, it will be done. Don’t judge things til they’re done.

APRA song hubs SONG WRITING PROGRAM

Register with apra. Get royalties

[moemang]

WEEK 11

[moemang]

My latest iteration of the Chunky Move Project. I’ve made some big moves this weekend and i think it’s going well.

Cleaned up Audio

When i had to transfer the music from Ableton to protools there were some timing issues with the polyrhythms. I’ve fixed that now and its made the project sound much more professional.

I’ve also added another percussive layer at around the 40 second mark. I added some pretty heavy distortion  to give it a really glitchy sound whilst the use of panning creates a sense of pace - maybe i could sync up this panning with the dancer on screen?

PROJECTION SWELL

I wanted to ad sound to this scene at 23 seconds that would give the projectio an ethereal feel, as if it was some type of otherworldly force. To do this i made a low end sub bass on serum which i added volume automation to in order to sync up with the movement of the projection. It hasn't quite worked though as the low end doesn't really punch through the mix. Maybe by adding some noise or something to the synthesis i could give the sound a bit more body.

THIS SCENE

I feel like this scene at 8 seconds is lacking something. It goes for almost 10 seconds so if it’s going to need some extra sound work to keep it interesting.

[moemang]

CHAT WITH DARRIN: CHUNKY MOVE

During this chat we focused on how to drive a stronger sense of energy into the edit some ideas were:

Shift drums in earlier. This will compensate for the dip in energy at the 13 second mark and still give me room to go hard with the sound effects. Perhaps bringing the kick that drops at 23 seconds here could work. If not we discussed even bringing in a 4X4 kick.

Greater sense of boldness. Again, i need to stop aiming to create a musical piece. I lot of the sounds i’ve brought in to increase energy have been too polite (e.g. shimmering textures in the background) due to my fear of the soundtrack not sounding ‘nice’. 

I’ve got a strong musical grounds here and i don’t need to keep working on that. My project for this weekend is to focus on bold editing with brutal cuts. I’ll be emphasising changes in the vision with rude sonic changes with the aim of creating a build in intensity and energy.

This the latest version of the Chunky Move video.

Footages: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7305251/vi…

Editing：Enoch（YINUO OU） 

 Sound: @moemang

[moemang]

This is the latest edit of the Desire’s project. Using my effects rack plugin i gradually applied some panning, distortion, phasing and delay to a fully wet signal in attempt to drown out the musical component and leaving only the distorted remains,

EDIT: meeting with Darrin

Just spoke to darrin about this work and he’s given me some advice moving forward.

Similar to the chunky move edit, the soundtrack starts off strong but fizzles out into nothing towards the end. The drum’s change in tempo at the lucky strike scene is an opportunity to really drive home the shift in energy and say something through the music. Rather than let the soundtrack fall apart at this point i’ll try introducing a melodic motif or some other surreal overlay to compliment the psychedelic imagery.

This latest version of the ‘DESIRE’ video. I did QC (Quality control）work and color grading for the video as well.

Footages: PRELINGER  ARCHIVE COLLECTION https://archive.org/details/prelinger 

Editing：Enoch（YINUO OU） 

 Sound: @moemang

[moemang]

Wednesday Class Reflection

This sunday we have the opportunity to submit our WIPS to Anthony Hamilton and ACMI for a review. This is going to be really informative so I’ll be putting a lot of time into the projects until then.

Class Notes

Feel free to give my opinion on how the vision should look.

Use my sensitivity towards mood, pace, tone, structure, form etc to help direct collaborative projects.

SHAUN

The world is fucked and unless I start slaving away I will never get a job in it (his words not mine).

Hunt down work. Come up with a project. Assemble a team and then realise something.

[moemang]

Meeting with Enoch

Met up with Enoch to discuss where we want to go with the projects.

ACMI

The war segment got scrapped in the latest iteration which means we’ll be making some pretty big changes. Enoch wants to explore how hedonistic pursuits can result in suffering and pain. He’s exploring montage editing as a technique for realising the footage so i suggested that we look into a ‘requiem for a dreamesque’ approach to the task.

Structurally he wants the video to build up into a state of intensity, bringing with it a sense of psychosis and mental derailment.

I’ll start with slapping in some sound effects into the new edit (won’t spend too long on this) and then try and bring a druggy psychotic vibe into the music.

CHUNKY MOVE

I talked to enoch about bringing in some more brutal cuts to the start of the video and he agreed that it would help realise the concept better. He’s going to have an new edit for my by thursday which i’m keen to work with. For now I’ll just add more sound effects to the current video

[moemang]

Monday Class Reflection

Today we broke off into our specialisation groups and did some peer reviews. It was a really constructive class for me and I got some good advice for the progression of the edit.

The syncretic work with the lasers at the beginning were received well which has encouraged me to really go hard with the SFX. The ethereal vibe of the projections is really emphasised when they have sound to go with them. However, I feel like I should add more sounds to the dancer to bring more focus onto her movement.

Judging by the comments from the class the first 30 seconds will be pretty strong if I just continue adding sound effects. After this section however the edit it gets a bit boring as the audiovisual composition remains much the same. The scene below is played twice and matched with the same sound effect which really detracts from the experience of novelty that i’m after. If we are to consistently build upon and develop energy throughout the piece it is important for one component to pick up the slack when the other can’t deliver.

NEW VIDEO COMPONENT

This new sequence at the end of the video cuts through quite brutally and really changes up the edit. I feel like bringing this kind of editing into the sequence earlier will help build up the intensity to a point where i can have a nice sense of release around the 45 - 60 second mark. Im going to discuss this with enoch.

[moemang]

Week 10

[moemang]

Did a run of SFX for the projections during the opening sequence. My intention was to fill the audio space out to see how it worked with the visuals. I like how it’s worked but i think i want the sounds to fall into the background. The laser noises steer attention away from the dancer which i feel is the opposite of what i want to do. Once i do the SFX for the dancing woman i think ill mix the work so that the lazers fall into the background and function more as an atmospheric component.

Some things that will improve the laser sound effects:

Pitch and volume variation will make the noises seem less repetitive and therefor feel feel more realistic.

Use of reverb and echo with help actualise the environment. Panning will also do this in an engaging matter.

@enochaw​