Cereal Offenders: Final Evaluation

Here is my final evaluation of our Major Project: Cereal Offenders Comedy Drama.

After reading the script, I honestly didn't now how we were going to translate some of the outlandish ideas onto film. The script contained sequences were there would be a giant penguin and people transforming into plants, conversing with other sunflowers. However, thanks to some great planning, we were able to successfully convey this script and its ideas in ways which felt achievable and din't push the barriers of imagination over achievable goals and the strict budget.

The filming process was thankfully mostly stress free. Our actors, while professional, were also able to communicate well with us and shared ideas and different interpretations between the crew in order to get the best performances out of them. I've mentioned in earlier posts that I had some difficulty concerning how the sound should be recorded (as sound operator and editor this was my primary concern) with some of crew repeatedly insisting that I should use the Tascam recording equipment, instead of recording the sound with the boom microphone directly connected to the camera. After some research I had eventually given in and used the Tascam, though this did cause several problems for the edit like I had predicted. despite these problems, most of the crew were very professional and there was good communication between all of our roles, often meaning we were finished shooting early than expected on most of the shoot days due to efficiency. This did perhaps come at a cost as I will explain.

It was during the editing process that I started to notice a few problems with the recorded footage. First of all, feedback from our Tutor indicated that the footage itself was shot more like a serious drama than a comedy meaning that, beyond reshooting the entire production, we had to try and bring some more energy into a blandly shot edit. However, this did admittedly give me more of a chance to try and experiment with the sound and show that my sound editing could elevate an otherwise boring production. 

There was also some criticism given to my recorded sound however, with comments that I might have been too far away from the actors when recording the sound, causing an echo. This was mostly down to trying to stay out of the way of the cameraman within relatively cramped space. Perhaps we should have filmed in a location that had larger space. Despite this, I could have still found some way to bring the microphone closer to the actors.

The next problem arose when editing the sound into the project itself. More often than not, every time a small edit was made, the sound would either be taken completely out of sync with the footage or deleted entirely. This meant that there were many editing sessions where I was re-doing a lot of what I had already completed before, effectively consuming more time which I could have been using to concentrate on something else. I felt that if I had been allowed to record with the boom microphone connected directly to the camera (which as sound operator should have ultimately been my decision anyway) this problem could have been avoided. Another minor problem I found was the editing of the footage itself. Sometimes matching the sound to the footage became difficult because of the way the footage had been edited, cutting off a character's speech or breaking continuity between shots. This wasn't helped by the fact that Will, our Director, always said cut far too early, not letting the shot continue long enough without hearing his voice suddenly come in for ease of editing and continuity. However, due to successful communication with the Aimee and I, were were mostly able to work around this issue.

One thing I'd also like to note is the rather noticeable absence of our Producer during the entire editing process. While i appreciate the work they had put in when preparing the shoot and the monetary management (which unfortunately did have some noticeable inconsistencies within the budget), it would have been better to the Producer be more involved in the edit. On the very few times they were there, their contributions were very little if there were any at all.

Here is the final exported version of Cereal Offenders uploaded onto YouTube by Aimee, our editor:

I am mostly happy with this final edit, though I do still think there are a few problems sound-wise:

Positives:

- The edit itself is of a good level and was energetic which shows we were able to overcome the stale and boring way in which the footage was shot. Some very minor reshoots also helped with this.

- My sound editing with aspects such as the sound effects and the music helped to contribute towards the more energetic elements of the edit and also helped to elevate the production to a more professional level.

- We were able to move past the usual conventional techniques of film editing and chose to be more experimental which suited the script and hopefully makes our production stand out from others.

- I was able to incorporate my research into shows such as The Mighty Boosh for the overall tone of the sound, sound effects and music that I had created and used for this edit. My research into music producers such as Trevor Horn also helped me to professionally produce the music for this project. 

Improvements:

- Despite being able to bring more energy into this edit, the remnants of the rather boringly shot footage still remain and it seems quite obvious that we were trying to force the edit into making the footage much more interesting. Therefore, the pacing is sometimes a bit uneven.

- The actors did not give the most energetic of performances. We did do some reshoots of certain scenes but they are sometimes inconsistent which does hurt the pacing slightly.

- Due to not properly starting the creation of the music until later on in the editing process, I do feel that the soundtrack itself does sound a bit rushed. I feel it could have used much more development had I given myself more time. This also counts for some of the sound effects as well, particularly when the characters have taken drugs and lead into their hallucinations.

- I never got around to fixing certain parts of the recorded audio from the shoot days. I had planned on taking all of the sound into a program such as Audacity or Adobe Audition in order to get rid of some of the echo and white noise. My original plan for this was to do this right at the very end of the edit once all of the sound was in place. However, I did not get the time to do this as the final edit was not finished until the last minute. I feel I should have instead done this at the very start of the editing process before editing the sound into the project. Therefore, the audio does have some inconsistencies with the level of white noise between certain parts of audio

Here is also the final poster Aimee created for our project, which I also did happen to give some advise and help with the creation of:

Overall I am happy with this final version of the project despite some of the problems which I have outlined. It was somewhat difficult try to help improve on footage that was not very good in the first place but I feel that the rest of the production crew and I were able to surpass this and make something which stands out. I feel we could have even taken it further in order to create an een more memorable production.

Cereal Offenders: Annotated Script For Sound

Here are parts of the annotated script I used for the sound design. I made these annotations to give me a clear idea on where I should place certain sound effects and pieces of music. I haven't included the entire script due to space but picked out certain key scenes which had more annotations on the page.

Doing this helped quite a lot as I could slowly work through the edit and follow what I had written on the script. Some parts are crossed out due to not being used for the final edit such as cut scenes.

Cereal Offenders Music

Here is all the music that I had created for the Cereal Offenders Project. Sound Effects are not included:

I am overall happy with the music that has been made and I feel that work well within the edit itself. The style of music was very much inspired from different types of media such as 'The Mighty Boosh' with the title sequence. The opening music is purposely reminiscent of the opening of 'The Breakfast Club' which starts with a similar compressed drum beat which I wanted to emulate as I felt it automatically grabs the viewer's attention.

My improvement for these would be that they could have been more developed. Due to not creating the music until a much later stage in the edit, I did not give myself as much time as I perhaps needed to create a wider range and be much more experimental to suit the script which Cereal Offenders is based on. Therefore I've ended up re-using some pieces of music throughout the edit.

However, I am happy overall with this and think it works well in the project edit.

Cereal Offenders: Fine Cut 3

Here is yet another version of the fine cut which includes some of the amendment I had made to the sound.

Unfortunately, due to some small edits, the sound has gone out of sync with the footage again in certain areas of the edit. This will be an easy fix. I did also notice that some of the music had been moved again and some unnecessary sound effects been added in once more. I will make amendments to these again. I feel I might have to ask that no-one else touches the audio edit from now despite their good intentions as I keep having to fix things again, wasting time that I could be using concentrating on other aspects of the sound edit.

Some of the dialogue still has some echo parts of it have some issues with the consistency of the sound quality. I shall need to take the dialogue track directly from the edit and edit it in a separate audio editing software such as such as Adobe Audition or Audacity (the latter of which I am more familiar).

Cereal Offenders: Fine Cut 2 & Group Screening Feedback

Here is the second fine cut of our Cereal Offenders project:

I have now managed to put all of the Tascam audio into the edit. I have also added rough ideas as to the music and sound effects that would be included. I was thankfully given an entire day with the edit to independently work on the music, sound effects and also changing the audio levels so that the dialogue is louder and the music and sound effects are quieter and better suit the scenes. I am happy with what I was able to achieve in regards to the sound for this edit and personally feel that it helps to bring some energy into a project which desperately needs it. I did take some personal creative liberties with this, to later see if the rest of the group would agree with these and see if they worked for a wider audience. These included instances such as the music that plays at the start and in various other parts of the edits and sound effects such as an alarm clock going off just before the drugs take effect.

There are a few sound effects present in this particular version of the edit which have been added in by Aimee after I had worked on it as there were one or two sound effects which I had forgotten to include. These were the sound of a phone ringing and a glass lamp smashing. However, she did also add some sound effects which weren't needed as they were already present in the Tascam audio. These extra sound effects are also quite loud in this version as I had not got around to tweaking the sound levels for them. I also noticed that some of the music I'd put into the edit had been moved out of place. Her contributions overall were helpful, however.

I have made some amendment to these, putting some of the music back were it was after some discussion with Aimee whilst tweaking the sound effects audio levels and removing the unnecessary ones that had been added.


We were given the chance to show the entire year group the current state of our edit to see what works and what improvements can be made. However, due to some rendering problems, we were unable to use the very latest version where I had made the amendments to the sound. Therefore we ended up showing this previous version without the sound fixes.

The feedback from the year group were as follows:

Positives:
- The addition of sound, sound effects and the soundtrack, brings more energy to the edit than previously.
- Some of the visual jokes and humour presented through the audio were met with the right reaction from our peers that we had hoped for.

What To Improve:
- The edit is still being treated like a drama and is not experimental enough for the type of script that had been presented before. We need to break a few standard conventions and rules of film editing in order to better show this.
- There needs to be more added in terms of the soundtrack to further bring some energy into the edit.
- The latter third of the edit was still a little bit hard to follow ( I found that, where some of the dialogue had been cut out for pacing reasons, we had lost some explanation as to what was actually happening within these scenes that had been in the script ).

Another piece of feedback that was given by the Tutor was that the project was far too quiet and they'd had to turn the sound up to almost maximum to hear the edit properly. However, it later turned out that Aimee's laptop (which the edit had been playing from) was actually turned down so this became a non-issue.

Upon taking this feedback, I am hoping to act on it as soon as possible. This will include working on a more finalised version of the soundtrack and adding more pieces of audio to help bring more energy into the scenes that need them.

Sixth Sound Editing Update:

Before breaking up for Easter Break, I found that some of the new footage from the reshoots sound had not been recorded properly. This was due to no boom microphone being booked out along with the rest of the equipment, meaning that sound was being recorded straight from the Tascam with all of the raw sound included. Due to attending a funeral, I was not at the shoot to record the sound with Aimee taking my place for that day. The poor quality of the sound is not Aimee's fault however, but the fault of whoever failed to book any sort of microphone out along with the rest of the equipment. As sound operator it is technically my responsibility to make sure equipment like microphones are taken out but the equipment had already been taken out before I'd even had knowledge of the reshoots taking place. I should have made sure the microphone had been put on the list when whoever it was booked the equipment, though it should have been obvious to them to put a microphone on the list regardless.

However, after coming in during the Easter Break, we found that we could take the sound captured from the camera's in-built microphone and quickly eliminate some of the background noise within the audio, clearing the sound quality. I had done this previously for one of the scenes where the Tascam audio had been lost through a long process using the Audacity software, but this was a quick way of doing the same thing via a simple command in Premiere Pro. This has save me a lot of time and I wish I had found out about this trick sooner for some of the other footage I was having trouble with.

It came to a point where there was only a small 15 second segment where there was no audio at all from one of the pieces of footage that was not labelled but thankfully Aimee and I were able to finally find the right piece of audio. So now at least the entire run-time has the clearer audio, I just need to fix certain parts of it and then add in all of the other sound effects, sound beds and music which I am currently starting work on.

Cereal Offenders: Fine Cut 1

Here is the first fine cut which has been uploaded onto Youtube:

As shown here, I have now put the majority of the Tascam sound into the project edit. I feel that the edit is now much easier to watch and follow now that the quality of the sound is more consistent throughout. However, I have noticed that, due to having to remain out of the way of the camera, the distance the microphone sometimes ends up being from the actors sometimes has an effect on the sound. This produces some echoes which makes the voices not sound as clear as I would like. I will need to take the audio track directly from the edit and try to tweak parts of the sound to help clear the sound to its best possible quality.

I have also added in a few basic sound effects which will need to be edited further. Tweaks made to the audio levels will also be required from me as the actors often sound too quiet and the sound effects are unnaturally loud for the scenes.

I also noticed that some of the audio has gone out of sync with the footage again. However, After looking at the actual edit in the editing software, the sound did appear to be in sync. This has led me to think this might be to do with problems during the rendering process which I will have to look into the cause and try to fix.

Planned Reshoots and Green Screen Filming- Cereal Offenders

Some minor reshoots have been planned, mostly involving close-ups on the actor's hands, certain specific lines of dialogue and more cutaways. These are in order to get a more lively performance on certain lines of dialogue from the actors after the somewhat stale delivery of certain parts of the script.

Plans were also made to capture some green-screen shots in order to better present the idea that the characters have taken drugs and are hallucinating. I helped to set up the green screen in preparation for the shoot days.We tested out certain shots that would be used, including a dolly shot zooming in on each character's face (though we used a chair in place of our lack of equipment). From what we saw, the shots should work and some examples were edited to see what they could potentially look like. I personally feel that they work well.

I will unfortunately not be able to attend the filming of these as I will be attending a funeral on the planned day of the shoot. However, Aimee has thankfully stepped in and offered to take over as sound operator for that day. Aimee has a large amount of knowledge of sound operating as well so the sound is in safe hands. I will then proceed to edit this into the project afterwards.

Fifth Sound Edit Update- Cereal Offenders

After a full week of editing the sound, including adding certain sound effects and sound beds, I feel that I have successfully edited two-thirds of the total run-time of the project with certain exceptions such as the scenes that were not labelled.

There has been some good communication between the group and everyone appears to know what position the current edit is in. The only real problems involved certain parts where I had to fix some syncing issues where very minor changes had been made to the edited footage. These were easy enough to fix however, if a little time consuming.

Cereal Offenders Rough Cut 1

Here is the first rough cut to contain sound which Aimee has uploaded onto Youtube:

At this stage you can tell this is still in a very rough state. The proper audio from the Tascam has only been partially integrated into the edit at this point, therefore the audio keep switching between the rough sound and the Tascam audio. This version of the edit was also shown to the Tutor who felt that the lack of consistency with the audio at this point makes for a difficult watch which I agree with. However this is a very rough version anyway so we expected it not to represent the finished project.

A lot of the sound is also out of sync with the footage, even in the parts where I have edited the sound in. This is due to parts of the footage being edited slightly, meaning the the audio has been taken out of its place.

I feel the edit of the footage itself is good for this rough state but needs much more tightening in order to help with pacing and also to give more energy to the scenes where the three characters are hallucinating. A piece of feedback that was given to us in regards to the footage itself was that the lack of energy can be attributed the fact that the whole thing was shot and directed ore like a serious drama which does not suit the kind of story presented in the script. I have to agree with this as the edit seems to struggle to keep the energy going with such stilted shots. The edit needs to be more experimental and perhaps try to break some of the conventional rules of editing film in oder to make the edit much more interesting.

I think my priority now is to make sure that all of the Tascam audio has been put into the edit, then the sound quality should have improved and will be consistent. Then I will be able to focus on the sound effects and music which should help in order to add more energy to the project which at the moment is still looking admittedly dull.

Fourth Sound Editing Update- Cereal Offenders

After my previous suggestions, it was agreed that we would work on the edit exclusively via Aimee's laptop to avoid the loss of any of our work when transferring from one device to another. We would then take it in turns to complete our respective tasks.

I was able to work via Aimee's laptop straight away seeing as the fine cut for the footage itself had been completed. I was able to get much more of the sound edited into the project while also fixing some of the deleted sound from previous versions of the edit. I had trouble finding the files required to add into the edit at first due to the different layout used for this project but I was able to find my way around it.

By the end of the day, I feel that I had been able to edit the sound for at least half of the overall run-time which I was happy with. Hopefully this kind of progress can continue over the rest of the editing process.

Sound Editing Suggestion- Cereal Offenders

Due to the problems mentioned in the previous post, I felt like I should try and make some suggestions in order to alleviate the problems we have been experiencing. I suggested to the group that I should wait until there is a solid edit that we know would not need to be changed dramatically and would only have minor tweaks. That way there would be less chance of my own work and the work of the colour grading to be lost in the process. I also suggested we work via Aimee's laptop only seeing as it is the only device that can actually run the editing software properly and has the full edit project on it, meaning we wont have to keep transferring the scenes between different systems and not potentially lose parts of the edit in the process. Work on the edit would also be completed a lot faster via Aimee's laptop.

After suggesting this to the group, it was met with agreement and, as luck would have it, the fine edit itself was in its final stages (for the footage anyway) meaning that I can get to work completing the sound much sooner than expected.

Third Sound Editing Update- Cereal Offenders

Again, I did much the same as before when editing a few more of the scenes that I had now given. However, I started to become annoyed as I found some of my sound editing had been shifted way out of sync or completely wiped due to the changing of the edit itself. I knew that this may have been a possibility when editing the audio but this was more than I had expected. It just meant that I was then wasting time re-editing the sound for those scenes when I could have been getting on with other parts.

We also had more feedback from the tutor who felt that the audio as it was at this stage was detrimental to the edit due to the lack of consistency created by the problems stated above. This put much more pressure on me as I am trying desperately to get as much done as I can with the given circumstances but there are plenty of barriers such as I've already outlined that have made it much harder for me to deliver the work needed at this point in the editing process.

By the end of the day, I had fixed what had been previously taken out of sync or deleted plus editing the sound into some new scenes. I just feel there is a better way of doing the sound edit, particularly as the computers at the television studios cause problems of their own with the lag slowing the entire process down.

Cereal Offenders Music Production Research: Trevor Horn

Trevor Horn was born 15th July 1949 and is a singer, song writer, composer and music producer. He is known for various different works, though probably best known for producing various chart topping songs from the early 1980s up until the 2010s.

Trevor Horn (with fellow 'Buggles' member, Geoff Downes) in the late 1970s.

Trevor Horn was originally one of a duo (previously a trio) known as The Buggles a band that were thematically supposed to resemble an alternative version of The Beatles. The Buggles came to fame after the ground-breaking creation of the music for their hit single 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. This was the first music video to be shown on MTV and popularised music videos, effectively 'killing the radio star' as the song had appeared to have predicted. Their album 'The Age Of Plastic' gained a few more less successful hits.

The Buggles then teamed up with the progressive rock band, Yes, in 1980 who had lost their lead vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. The duo filled in these rolls with Horn taking vocals and the band released the album 'Drama' which was a moderate success. After some backlash from Yes fans, Horn left the band and The Buggles made one more album which did not perform well.

After disbanding The Buggles, Trevor Horn turned to producing music. This started a successful career in producing hit records for various artists, some of which include:

-'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' by Yes (1983)
-'Relax' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood (1984)
-'Kiss From A Rose' by Seal (1995)

I felt is was important to look at a music producer such as Trevor Horn in order to gain a better understanding as to how to create a professional soundtrack for a production that we are trying to make as professional as possible. As many of my ideas for the soundtrack involve rock orientated instrumentals, I wanted to look at how these were produced by someone in the music industry in the hopes of emulating them and integrating this into the production itself.

Trevor Horn's music production involves much experimentation with sound, something which our own production can do with to a great degree. Here is a video of Trevor Horn explaining the art of sound production, his techniques and his incorporation of experimentation (with some history as to how it was done several years ago):

The instrumentation always feels clean and in rhythm. He uses compression on the drums in many of the songs he has produced, with a gated reverb that had become popular during the 1980s. This reverberated sound makes the production of the music sound much bigger. Ive already spoken in a previous research post how the opening to The Breakfast Club features instrumentation which automatically lifts the scale of the entire production from the very start which also happens to use a gated reverb. This is the kind of production I want to include the soundtrack along with the experimentation used in order to help lift our production from its current state and also make it stand out from other projects to help give the production its own identity.

Second Sound Edit Update- Cereal Offenders

I was able to continue more sound editing as I was given the rest of the scenes to work with for now. I did very much the same as previously when editing the sound, doing my best to work around some of the minor problems found during the still rough edit. I did make some amendments to the actual edit of the footage in order to help the continuity slightly, though i didn't do this too much as not to compromise the edit altogether. By the end of the day, I had successfully edited the audio into the individual scenes. Unfortunately there were a few clips that hadn't been properly labelled. These were the ones that were captured on the first day of the shoot week where the camera had not recorded any sound, making it much more difficult for us to work out and match the audio and footage for those scenes. I left these for now in order to concentrate on the scenes where I could match the audio and will come back to those scenes at a later date.

The only problem I can foresee with this way of working is the projects might get confused when transferring from them from one system to another, making me worry that some of my work might get lost. We just need to take care to clearly communicate which projects contains the latest version of the edited scenes.

On another note, I was able to successfully match the ADR that had been previously captured for Ralph's hallucination with the footage, editing the entire scene myself from scratch. The ADR matched with the footage, particularly a close-up of Ralph, surprisingly well and worked well with the flower voices recorded by myself and the other fellow student. After showing this to Will, the director, he was happy with how it had turned out, meaning we no longer have to reshoot that scene.

First Sound Edit Update- Cereal Offenders

After being given some individual scenes from the rough cut, I was finally able to start editing the audio into the project. The first thing I noticed was that I had only been given half the scenes due to a mix up when transferring the projects onto a hard drive. We also had to change the settings on Premiere Pro, the editing software, so save the project on an older version of the software as the computers in the TV Studios are out of date and the projects would not open otherwise.

I found that the footage still lagged but I was able to still match up the actor's mouth movements with the Tascam audio, even if it was more tedious than it would have been. The process of matching the Tascam audio involved temporarily taking the footage out of the edit, finding the part where Will, our director, used the clapperboard and then synced the clap of the clapperboard in the audio with the footage on screen. I'd then restore the footage back into the edit along with the now matched audio. The labelling of the footage and audio carried out by Aimee and I paid off as the audio and footage were made easier to match.

I was able to successfully to sync all of the audio to the footage I was given, with the end result producing much clearer audio than the camera's in-built microphone that was previously in its place. The only real problem I had here was some minor problems with the edit itself such as some jumps in the footage or breaks in continuity that sometimes meant characters saying the same thing twice but I was able to partly overcome these. I also understand the edit is still in a rough state so I didn't see it as too much of a problem at this point.

Problems with the Edit- Cereal Offenders

While looking over the editing process, we noticed how the computers we were using seemed to struggle with editing software and the edit project itself. Whenever I tried opening it up on my own laptop, it would immediately crash and the computers at the university and television studios would also either freeze or lag to such an extent that we could no make any progress.

The only computer that could run the edit progress relatively smoothly was Aimee's laptop which was a more up to date model. After enquiring with others as to what might be wrong, it turns out that Jason, our cameraman, had accidentally filmed the entire production in 4K, though it was only intended to be filmed in standard HD as we knew filming in 4K would cause many problems during the edit such as those we have been experiencing. This was apparently because choosing to the option to film in V-log automatically set the camera to record in 4K (something I thought the cameraman should have been aware of). The use of 4K footage also means that anything that sues this footage takes up much more space than HD footage would have, which will cause problems in terms of memory space.

A temporary solution we have thought of was to export each scene individually so that I can try and edit the sound on another computer for each individual scene without the computer crashing or lagging too much. This still makes me wish that the sound wasn't recorded via the Tascam as the process of the editing the sound appears to have become a lot more challenging and tedious than it should have been.

Cereal Offenders Sound/ Music Research: Composer- Julian Barratt

Julian Barratt is an actor, writer and composer born 4th May 1968 and is best known for his multiple comedy collaborations with fellow actor and comedy writer, Noel Fielding. Their best known collaboration was the creation of The Mighty Boosh which starred both of the actors.

Along with multiple writing credits for comedies, Julian Barratt has also obtained several music composing credits for series such as Unnatural Acts (1998) as well as the The Mighty Boosh (2004-2007) of which the latter had his compositions compiled into a short film titled Boosh Music (2005). 

Barratt's music for The Mighty Boosh is greatly reminiscent of the type of music found throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, to reflect the often mystical and whimsical themes of the show itself, the music features a psychedelic feel with distortion on certain instruments such as synthesizers and and guitars reminiscent of that found on later albums by The Beatles such as 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. This kind of music helps to give the show its own kind of identity amongst the other comedy drama shows at the time.

I've already talked about the music found in The Mighty Boosh in my research on the show itself (where an example of the opening sequence is featured) but I do feel this kind of direction I want to take the sound overall. I feel that the intended style of our script for Cereal Offenders greatly reflects the style of this show and I personally think it will work well.

I've already created music for the title sequence which had taken some inspiration from The Mighty Boosh and I feel I need to keep this consistent throughout the rest of the soundtrack. However, I shall try and include the more experimental elements with instrumentation that reflects a more hallucinatory state which would be suitable for our production.

Recording Voice Overs and ADR for Cereal Offenders

In order to make up for the lost sound, it was decided that we would bring the actors into the tv studios in order to record ADR for their in the scenes with missing audio. We used the sound booth and I was in charge of setting up the sound equipment. This was relatively easy as I had already researched how to use the equipment in preparation for this. I simply had to connect the microphone to my own laptop and make sure the microphone was being picked up via the switchboard. I then used a program called audacity to record the audio itself. I oversaw the recording with Will. Callum was also supposedly 'supervising' us, which I found impressive considering he was in a completely different room not doing much at all. He then left anyway to no-one's surprise.

We first recorded the ADR for Ralph's hallucination. The actor watched the footage previously captured during the shoot week and attempted to perform the lines in sync with the footage. After a few attempts we got the audio we were happy with and we proceeded to get voice over work for when the characters are having conversations in their head.

The last voice overs we captured were for the voices of the flowers that appear to talk to Ralph during his hallucination. We had already got these but they were lost along with the other audio. Therefore we got one of our fellow students to be provide the voice for one of the two flowers. As there were not many people around, I ended up filling the role of the second flower. Both of us but on over the top accents which will hopefully add to the comedy of the scene.

Now it will be a case of trying to match the ADR to the scenes with the missing audio to see if we can avoid having to reshoot the scenes. This will be my responsibility when I am eventually given the opportunity to work on the audio overall once there is a rough edit available.

Cereal Offenders Titles Music and First Feedback:

Before getting some initial feedback of the footage captured during the shoot week from the tutor, I decided that I should also provide an example of the type of music would be present within the production.

I immediately got to work using the software, GarageBand, which I have become quite proficient in using and is a surprisingly good tool for producing good quality music. All of the instruments are previously synthesized versions made to sound like their respective instruments such as guitars and drums. This is helpful seeing as I cannot actually play drums or guitar but can play piano which is all is really needed as the software responds using a keyboard as the input instrument. I can then apply certain filters and mess around with various settings to make the other instruments sound more convincing such as reverb and playing a bass through a selection of amplifiers to make it sound like a distorted guitar.

Going through a phase of listening to the band 'Simple Minds' at the time (after researching music used in other comedy dramas such as The Breakfast Club), I made a tune based off the opening of their song, 'The American' with a similar riff. I then sped it up, changed the drum pattern and added more distorted guitars. This worked surprisingly well when I played it alongside the title sequence which had already been created by Aimee. Reaction to it from the other members of the group were positive. I'm not sure if this will be the final version of this piece of music due to my worries this might get a copyright claim though I feel it sounds different enough, taking more of an inspiration from music reminiscent of bands like Blur and the subsequent style of music found in The Mighty Boosh . Response from the tutor to this was also positive. This is the sort of style I'd want to use throughout the production after some discussion with the rest of the group except for scenes such as when the characters have taken drugs. I'd like to be more experimental in terms of the overall sound for those types of scenes.

The title sequence and this music will be seen in later blogs where I will talk about various stages of the edit that will have been uploaded to YouTube.

Responses from the tutor towards some examples of footage that we had shown were also mostly positive. However, it was noted that the handling cinematography caused some of the footage to look a bit flat, almost like a serious drama, rather than a comedy drama. This might be something we'll have to try and rectify through possible reshoots to inject more energy into the camera work or through my own sound design.

Cereal Offenders Sound Research: The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is a film from 1985 and is a comedy-drama about a group of students caught in Saturday detention. The film stars Judd Nelson, Holly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy among others and follows the exploits of the individual students, building upon their various differing wild personalities working together to survive under a power-hungry head teacher.

I chose to look at this film primarily due to the choice of music prevalent throughout the film as well as the comedy drama conventions young adult target audience used which our project would hope to emulate.

The music, of which was my primary focus, is very much a product of the time in which the film was made. The style consists of synthesizer heavy rock-pop which reached high popularity during the 1980s and is often considered nostalgic for modern audiences. However, the main song that is often remembered from this film is the opening and ending track 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' written and performed by Simple Minds.

The film opens and the drum beat of this song suddenly starts. This immediately grabs the attention of the viewer as the song eventually leads into the opening instrumental over the film titles.

Here is the opening to The Breakfast Club for reference (from 0:00 to 0:30):

It is this in particular that I feel I want to try and emulate for the opening of Cereal Offenders. This kind of opening makes the production feel much bigger and makes it stand out from other films of the same genre. A drum beat such as this would also help in initially grabbing the attention of our viewers, though this will need to remain consistent throughout the production. This style would also help to immediately let audiences know the intended genre that our project is trying to create due to familiarity of this kind of style of opening.

The nostalgic elements from this can also be found in other productions that share the genre of comedy drama such as Pitch Perfect which specifically references The Breakfast Club and how it uses this kind of music as a theme within the film itself.

Cereal Offenders: Lost Sound

After reviewing the footage and sound taken from the last shoot day, I found that unfortunately something had gone wrong during the digitising of the footage and sound on the last day. Thus the footage survived but the sound did not.

I do have a few plans on how to tackle these problems. Luckily, the SWAT raid scene didn't contain too much dialogue so I might be able to use the sound taken from the camera's in-built microphone and clean it up to make it sound better quality as if recorded with a boom microphone.

Another idea would be to record ADR with the actors, particularly for the flower scene and match it up with the footage. This working would depend on how accurately the ADR footage would match the footage presented. I feel that this option could work and would be easy for me to do in order to fix the problem.

The other option would be to completely re-film the scenes which none of us would particularly want to do due to budgetary constraints. I'm sure I can hopefully fix the sound for these scenes without resorting to filming the scenes again. 

Shoot Day 5- Saturday 23/2/2019

Today was the final and longest shoot day, due to filming having enough time to film what we had originally planned to film tomorrow after having already shot what was planned today.

The scene planned for today involved a group of SWAT police breaking into the house where the production is set and apprehending our three main characters for accidentally revealing government secret via webcam whilst still in a hungover state. Aimee's brother and his two friends were brought in as the SWAT team. Their equipment consisted of paintball guns that looked very much like the real thing and multiple sets of combat armour which suited the Swat team look that we were looking for.

This scene was filmed from various different cameras, including go-pros attached to the SWAT members showing them approaching the house with the main character's inside. The main camera was used for inside the house, taken from multiple angles. I used the boom microphone as usual to record these through multiple takes. The first few takes produced a rather distorted sound due to the chaotic nature of the scene, therefore I had to turn the recording level down in order to capture clear sound. This scene was successful and ran relatively smoothly, with the only problem being Callum needlessly complaining despite the filming process going well.

It was after this that we realised that we had plenty of time to film the field scenes that we were planning to film tomorrow. The field scene involves the character, Ralph's, hallucination where he has turned into a sunflower and two other sunflowers are berating him. After reaching the field, I immediately set up before everyone else and recording a sound bed for the setting. This captured the light wind and the birds chirping which suited the scene perfectly. The actor portraying Ralph wore a sunflower costume while two fake sunflowers were put into the ground. A voice over will be recorded for their lines at a later date. The sound quality taken from the boom microphone was of good quality despite the outdoor setting. The only real problem was that it was starting to get late in the afternoon and the sun was starting to go down, so filming had to progress more quickly in order to catch up.

Overall, the filming of these scenes today were very successful considering the scale of the events with these scenes and I am happy with the quality of the sound that I was able to capture. That can be said of the filming progress overall with only the slight problems with disagreements between members of the production crew. Hopefully the use of the Tascam wont prove too much trouble during the editing process though I still have some doubts. As long as communication between all of the production crew members is good, the editing process should hopefully go relatively smooth.

Shoot Day 4- Friday 22/2/2019

Today we filmed some of the more interesting scenes involving the character's individual hallucinations after taking drugs. The first that was filmed was a hallucination from the character, Danny, who believes that he has become a  chef and has his own cooking show. The scene involves him talking to the camera directly and showing the 'viewers' how to boil and egg. After doing this, a mysterious dark figure appears behind him and the scene cuts before Danny is taken away.

Filming went relatively smoothly for this scene. The only real problems sound-wise was the noticeable buzz coming from the fridge in the kitchen area. This area also caused more of an echo, however, I was stuck either behind or beside Jason as the Kitchen area was quite small and I would be seen if I stood anywhere else (again making the argument of use a Tascam redundant) so I couldn't get much closer to nullify the echo as much as I'd have liked. I feel I will need to fix the sound for this scene during post production.

Some more smaller scenes that take place in the dining room of the house were filmed before we moved upstairs to which serves as a supposed separate setting as the character, Sam's, bedroom.

This scene involves Sam's own hallucination where he wakes up from bed, opens the curtains and goes to exit the room, only to be met by the same mysterious dark figure that had captured Danny. While the scene was simple enough to film and capture the sound for without no real problems except for some crew members talking downstairs, I started to think about the sound that I would incorporate during post production. I imagined a jovial soundtrack, such as those found in certain comedies or even in some type of anime.

Here is an example of the type of music I would have imagined to go with this scene:

Also the various sounds within the scene could also have a strange reverb or echo in oder to enforce the fact that everything present in the scene is all just in the character's mind. 

Shoot Day 3- Thursday 21/2/2019

This shoot day has proved to be the most stressful so far. The first shoot location was inside a pub with the owner's permission having been acquired by the Producer, Callum. The sound for this area that was picked up by the microphone was of a good quality, with only the slight sound of traffic going past.
However, after we set up the first shot, two workmen started drilling on the road, delaying us for approximately ten minutes as I did not feel comfortable recording the dialogue with that noise in the background. The rest of the shoot for the pub scene went relatively smoothly and I was able to get a few different sound beds set within the pub in order to create a convincing sound bed for the setting. Some extra establishing shots of drinks being served and darts being thrown were also captured, giving me some ideas for sound effects such as the clinking of glass bottles and the thud of a dart as it hits a dartboard.

Filming resumed inside the house location. However, a found a problem started to occur as there were many more people present during the filming of these scenes, some of whom were not even relevant to what we were doing and had no business being there. This caused quite a lot of disruption which meant delays and the filming processes took much longer than it probably should have.

This started to show as some of us, myself included, started to feel fatigued during the later half of the day's filming. While we were able to successfully get the shots that we wanted for the scenes we were filming, the distractions and lack of focus meant that we ended up doing numerous retakes which in turn caused more stress for the actors and crew. I personally would have asked the people who weren't art of the crew or cast to leave but felt that wasn't down to me.

I noted that our Producer, Callum, wasn't helping our progress as he seemed content in sitting in the other room and talking randomly through some of our takes and later speaking as if he was having some large input into the filming process. This was something I noticed on the previous shoot days but it became more noticeable here. Towards the end of the day's filming, he even disappeared for a driving lesson without any of us knowing, though I found it ultimately meant we could just get on with the filming process.

Overall, I still felt the day was successful, especially as we managed to film the longest and perhaps the most complicated scene in the entire production involving multiple hallucinations, the largest number of cast on screen and one of the cast members dressed as a penguin.

At the end, as always, Aimee and I started to sort out all of the footage, with her digitising the footage and then passing it all onto me so I can label the video and sound for matching purposes during the edit.

Shoot Day 2- Wednesday 20/2/2019

Todays filming was mainly similar to that of the previous shoot day. All of the actors were still very professional, with most of the scenes taking place in the dining room area. This meant that the shoot was simple to accomplish overall and we had finished earlier than expected again.

The day before, however, we decided to get some cutaway shots. This gave me the chance to get some sound beds for the following locations:

- The Garden- birds/ dogs barking

- The Bedroom- faint sound of cars going by

- Exterior of the House- louder traffic

- Exterior of the Pub- traffic from another area.

These were all successful and easy to record. This was one instance where the use of a Tascam did actually prove useful as I could go elsewhere and record without the need for the presence of a cameraman. I feel like the use of a Tascam should have just been used for this particular use only, rather than for the whole shoot.

We also reviewed how the footage taken from a laptop's webcam would look for the purposes of certain scenes.

Overall, I am happy with what was achieved these past two days.

Shoot Day 1- Monday 18/2/2019

Today was the first day of our proper shoot. We all arrive relatively early and introductions were made between the actors and crew. The scenes shot today were primarily set within the house locations, specifically a bedroom and the downstairs dining area.

I immediately noticed the set dressing in the dining room area. We had been asked to hand in spare cereal boxes for the set, though I had no idea how these were to be implemented. As it turns out, the cereal boxes were cut up and stuck to the walls like decorations. This wasn't quite as creative as I would have imagined, simply sticking the faces on the wall, but the rest seemed to be happy with it.

Despite my efforts, I was encouraged to still use the Tascam by Callum and Jason. It almost felt selfish on the cameraman's part, telling me that they didn't want to put up with the wires if I connected the microphone to the camera, despite it really being no problem at all. After some argument, I finally gave in and used the Tascam despite knowing the problems it will ultimately cause. Luckily I had done some research on how to use the Tascam the night before, though I still wasn't exactly proficient with it.

The filming of the bedroom scene went very smoothly. I was quite surprised at how professional the actors were, though I felt like some of the line delivery was quite flat in some places. The Director, Will, seemed happy, however, so I didn't question it. Thankfully, the sound quality was good, however I feel I might have been holding the camera a little too far away for some shots due to having to keep out of Jason's way. This meant that I was behind Jason a lot of the time due to the cramped space, making the argument for my having to use the Tascam invalid, which annoyed me even more. I thought the sound was good enough, however, and the only retakes we needed were for when a police siren could be heard from the passing traffic (which happened a worrying amount of times).

The dining room scenes produced more of an echo which I had already identified as a problem. However, I was able to nullify the echo by holding the boom microphone closer to the actors when they speak. The only other sound, which I was not able to do much about, was the creaking floor and chairs. To try and tackle this, I asked the actors to only make sudden movements when required. This worked to an extent, however I didn't want the actors to appear immobile.

Although these scenes took several hours, there were little to no retakes apart from when fixing some technical issues. We actually finished much earlier than expected, showing that we were efficient enough in our filming process. I did thankfully get the hang of the Tascam equipment and was able to use it more comfortably by the end of the day.

Once I'd got home, I immediately started labelling the camera footage and the sound which were given to me by Aimee, who had been digitising the footage throughout the day. This was done so that I could match up the camera shots to the sound files for editing purposes. However, the cameraman had chosen not to still record from the camera's internal microphone, meaning I could not hear the sound from the video files to match the sound files up with. This made the process much more difficult as I had to look at each individual video file and watch the actor's every single move, as well as mouth movements, in order to tell which sound file matched up to whichever video file. To avoid this in the future, I will ask the cameraman to record from the camera's internal microphone as well as my own recording to make this process much easier.

Here are screenshots taken of some of the video and sound files fully labelled:

This process will take place after every production day.

Saturday 16/2/2019 Test Shoot:

For this test shoot, we decided to block out a few more scenes. However, a decision was made by Jsson and Callum that I should not record the sound through use of the boom plugged directly into the camera. This would supposedly get in the cameraman's way though I personally didn't see it.

Instead I was asked by Callum to quickly learn how a Tascam works, something which I have had no prior knowledge of or experience with. The Tascam recorder allows the sound operator to record the sound separately from the camera with any type of microphone that is available and compatible. The sound would then have to be manually matched up with the footage during the edit.

I was very unsure of this decision, partly due to my lack of familiarity with the equipment as I felt that anything could go wrong because of this. I at least knew that the sound works perfectly when the microphone was hooked up to the camera from prior experience. Also, this recording process could prove difficult and make the editing process much more complicated and stressful, something that we would be avoiding if the sound was just recorded via microphone plugged into the camera.

I did try to assert these problems but these fell on deaf ears, despite trying to remind them that my role as sound operator and editor means that I should have the final say as to how I should record this sound. As sound is what I will be marked on, I want to make sure that I can record the sound in a way which I know works well and will make the editing process a lot less hassle.

Despite these arguments, the Tascam that we had taken out wasn't working properly and none of us had any knowledge as to how to fix it. This meant that we had to acquire some outside help from someone in another group who did have experience with the Tascam. However, they didn't arrive until the end of the day so my role for the blocking of the scenes became redundant as I was unable to use the equipment.

We left the test shoot slightly unsure of the shoot, yet still optimistic despite this. I was asked to research how to proficiently the new Tascam equipment in just one night. It might come to a point that I just use the microphone connected to the camera at the last minute because that is what I believe to be the way forward to achieve the sound that I would be happy with.

Cereal Offenders Shoot Schedule:

Here is a picture of the Shoot Schedule for our filming production:

Tuesday 5/2/2019 Test Shoot

Today marked our first test shoot for this project, filming 'Cereal Offenders'.

We met on location in the house which would be used for the majority of location filming and sorted out the equipment which I had picked up and signed off on earlier in the day. The purposes of this test shoot was to check the filming conditions, how the locations would effect certain aspects such as teh actors, crew and equipment and to have a more confident idea as to how the scenes will be blocked in preparation for official filming with the actors. This specifically gave me the chance to test the sound equipment and see how the sound is effected by the locations, enabling a better understanding and better planning on what sound equipment should be used in during the final shoot.

Our first location was a field not far from the house. In this scene one of the characters is dressed as a flowers in the middle of a field and is hallucinating that two sunflowers are speaking to him after taking drugs. The first thing we noticed is that, on this day, the ground was uneven and very muddy, so appropriate footwear will be required. It was also very cold so we will advise that thermal clothing should be worn by all cast and crew, especially the actor who will be wearing the flower costume. I decided that, due to the large open space, that use of the boom might not be as practical as I will have to stand far out of frame for some of the wider shots. For the purposes of this test shoot I decided to monitor the sound from the in-built microphone in the camera. This did a good enough job on some of the tighter shots but voices were slightly muffled. I will probably end up using the boom microphone, possibly with the use of a Tascam (a piece of sound equipment that allows me to record sound separately from the camera) so that I am not restrained by being connected to the camera. I did manage to obtain some effective background noise such as the birds and a soft wind which will help when creating the sound beds.

After this, we went back to the house where a scene would take place with three people in a dining room, sat around a laptop at a table. I used the boom microphone for this test scene. The first thing I noticed was very slight echo in the room whenever someone spoke. However, I found that if I half the boom closer to the person who will be speaking, it nullified the echo substantially. I also found that the wooden chairs, table and floor creaked which were all picked up by the microphone. I did ask whether there were alternative table and chairs available but this was not the case. If we are to be stuck with these tables and chairs, I feel I might have to ask the actors not to move around in their chairs too much once they have sat down.

Some background noises could also be heard. The house next door has several dogs which started barking in unison about every ten minutes which might cause a problem for the sound within the scene. We are planning to establish the fact that there are dogs next door through visual and sound in scenes beforehand to hopefully combat this problem.

Overall, however, I do think that this test shoot was a success. I am happy with the sound and have a better idea of the equipment that I will be using on the actual shoot. There are just a few things that we have to try and overcome in future test shoots. In between these, I will also start to try and familiarise myself with the Tascam to give myself more opportunities for sound recording, though I would not wish to use the Tascam to record the main bulk of the sound during the production due to problems it could cause during the editing.

Cereal Offenders Sound Research: The Mighty Boosh

As the script for Cereal Offenders contained various strange and required a lot of experimentation, especially in the sound department, I decided that I should try and research some shows and other media that have a similar style in order to gain a better understanding of how to implement and work with the more experimental aspects of this production.

'The Mighty Boosh' is a comedy television series which ran between 2004 and 2007 and was created by comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. The two also star as Howard Moon and Vincent Noir respectively. The show (during season 1) follows the everyday adventures of Howard and Vince as Zookeepers who find themselves in various strange situations.

The characters consistently break the fourth wall and appear to be aware that they are characters in a television show. Many conventions of television are broken such as the characters standing in front of the camera and personally addressing the audience, introducing them to the show. I feel that this is the kind of style that our script is trying to emulate to an extent, where certain conventions must be broken to create a more experimental experience, particularly in the scenes involving various hallucinations.

In terms of sound, the music is typical of popular music during the late 1990s and early 2000s. For example, the music for the title sequence is a slow-paced rock tune featuring heavily distorted guitars and layered synthesizers reminiscent of the style of bands such as Blur and other popular rock bands from that era as well as some psychedelic influences from bands such as The Beatles, later popularised again by Oasis. Already, this is the kind of style in which I feel I could try and emulate as the show does bear thematic similarity to our own project.

Here are the opening titles for 'The Mighty Boosh' for reference:

This style of music is common with comedy shows such as this, with a small rock or jazz instrumental that plays when transitioning into another scene. As our project is supposed to be a comedy, I feel that it is important to try and emulate this in order to show and understanding of the style and conventions of a comedy drama.

In terms of other areas of sound, the sound effects are usually over the top and often not representative of the practical diegetic sound that would usually be heard within the scenes. This use of sound effects creates comedy by almost taking the audience out of the program with a sound that really shouldn't belong within a scene. I want to emulate this in order to create more comedy through sound which would hopefully add to what should be already comedic scenes. I also noticed there appeared to be a theme of mysticism within the sound design due to the otherworldly nature of some of the characters present in the show. I feel this could work well for our project due to similar themes if I cant correctly emulate this consistently throughout the sound design.

Cereal Offenders: Story Summary

Here is a quick summary of the story of Cereal Offenders, from the script which we shall be filming our final project from:

Three boys Sam, Danny and Ralph are trying and failing to present a popular podcast focused around cereal found in popular entertainment mediums. They are contending with a girl called Graham whom has so far been much more successful than the three. After some berating from Graham, Sam has the idea to create a 24 hour livestream, watching several cereal-themed films in oder to gain more followers.

The three become tired and burnt out after several hours. Ralph messages his friend to drop off some illegal drugs in oder to try and liven things up. They end up each hallucinating. Danny hallucinates that he is presenting a cookery show, Sam finds himself in a idilic world and Ralph appears to have become a sunflower and enters conversation with two other sunflowers in a field. Each hallucination ends with a dark figure taking them away.

They eventually wake up from their individual hallucinations to see Graham in their house, who has come to shut their live-stream as they are stealing some of her ideas. The three can only see her as a giant penguin, still suffering the effects of the drugs. The dark figure eventually comes to take her away (though in reality Graham just walks out).

Later on, after recovering slightly, Ralph accidentally babbles out some Government secrets while the livestream is still running and are eventually detained by Government agents when the livestream cuts out.

Cereal Offenders Production Team:

Here is a quick run-down of the crew involved in the production of Cereal Offenders for reference in future blogs:

Director: Will Barker

Producer: Callum Mulholland

Camera Operator/ Cinematographer: Jason Efstathiou

Sound Operator/ Sound Editor: Andrew Ayres

Editor/ Media and Advertising: Aimee Kerr

Year 3 Final Project Start

We have now started our final project of the third year of the Television Production course.

As the previous project was only a high concept pre-production that was never actually going to be made, I had always planned to join one of the other groups in order to help them on their larger project that they had been previously planning.

As such, I have joined the group in the role of sound operator and sound engineer. This roles involves the operating of various sound equipment and editing the sound during post production. I chose to take this role due to being stronger in that area in previous projects, with some of these being focused exclusively on the sound. I also feel that this was also the strongest aspect of my high concept pre-production project despite my various issues with the final result.

The working title for our project is 'Cereal Offenders' and the script centres around a group of friends who are desperate the gain views on their internet livestream show and thus go to some extraordinary lengths to achieve this.

As we already had a rough script prepared, it was easy for us all to become familiar with the material we are working with. I decided that I would read and annotate the script. This means that, if I mark where I feel certain sound elements would be appropriate, I would be able to set to work on it and discuss these with the other members of the production team straight away. These annotations consisted of ideas for soundscapes and background noise, such as cars being heard in the distance from a bedroom. Others included effects within the audio feed itself such as when the characters are talking loudly through a laptop microphone, creating a distorted sound effect.

Here is an example of the annotations I made on the first page of the script (please excuse the language involved):

I have already started work on creating some of the soundscapes, mostly that of the bedroom. The sounds included are the faint sound of various traffic that has been muffled slightly to give the illusion of distance. A faint buzzing of a light has been included in oder to help add to the general atmosphere of the setting. I have done this in order to show the rest of the group these examples in order to gain feedback so there is a good feed from the group in order to help produce a clear vision for the project.