Task 8: Evaluation

The clips that we recorded matched the cartoon very well i think because they sounded as if they were the actual noises from the audio clip before we dubbed them over. I think that both the audio clips and the visuals all worked well together and made it seem just like an episode from the television series. The SFX that we recorded were talking, pen hitting pot, snoring and sucking, we chose to do these ones because we thought that they were the only ones that were possible for us to record for example it would have been impossible for us to make a zooming sound when Tom and Jerry are running so we decided to get that audio file from the internet. Other clips that we got from the internet include the backing music (Morning song and regular music) the hits from the pipe and the bat, pots breaking and flying noises. The overall video itself came out pretty good i think, it feels as if it runs smoothly and looks like a legit episode of Tom and Jerry. If i was assigned this again, i think i would try and record some more effects myself to make it more personal otherwise i think it's good the way it is.

Production schedule

Date	What SFX’s	Equipment	Props
7th March	Today we recorded all of the sound effects that we will be using I.e.: Talking, panting, pen writing, walking.	For the recording we used a Sony IC recorder (Dictaphone) to record all the sounds. We used Adobe premiere pro cs3 to edit it.	We used a table for the walking sounds and a pen for the writing sounds.
14th March	We have started editing the cartoon.	Adobe premiere cs3 for editing	Macbook Pro
21st March	Today I carried on downloading sound effects that are stored online and took one of the backing tracks from a Tom and Jerry video game to put as the background music.	Mostly the internet as there as some sounds that I couldn’t create myself. Adobe premiere to edit and to export the final product.	Same as above.

Sound effects i will use

Alarm clock
Suck
smashing
pipe
panting
music
talking
scribbling
zooming

My chosen cartoon

I have chosen to use Tom and Jerry as they are the pioners of the cartoon world, the cartoon is called 'Truce Hurts' I will replace the SFX used in this animation.

Recording SFX's

Footsteps are recorded by putting a newspaper in a plastic bag and record someone tapping the bag or they actually recorded footsteps.

Rain is recorded by shaking salt in tin foil, this prevents any equipment getting wet if they tried recording real rain.

People punching each other is recorded by using a heavy phone book being dropped onto the ground.

Horse being ridden effects are filmed by recording a horse walking but other times they use coconuts together.

Decapitation is filmed by cutting a cabbage in half with a meat cleaver

Preparing to work with sound effects

Why do you think we use SFX's in TV and Film production?
Sound effects are used in film because it provides a sound to make the scene more believable and realistic, with most shots if you didn't have any sound effects it wouldn't look very good as sound is just as important as the visual. For example If i were to shoot a scene where Harry is shooting Casey without a sound effect it wouldn't look believable, but with the sound effect it completes the clip.

What are the advantages of using SFX's in TV and Film productions? What do they add to the overall production?
Sound effects make the whole production, without them there wouldn't be a program. Every program uses sound effects because if they didn't even something like opening a door wouldn't look right because it wouldn't have the appropriate noise.

What are the disadvantages of using SFX's in TV and film production?
Sometimes the effects are not right for the scene so a disadvantage would be that sometimes the right effect isn't used. Also on some Sci-Fi shows use a ridiculous amount of sound effects and that makes them look cheesy and non realistic.

What is the job description of a foley artist?
A Foley Artist creates and performs replacement sound effects in sync to picture in a recording studio, such as footsteps, clothing and properties’ noises, paper movement, doors creaking, dogs scratching etc. They work under the direction of a Sound Editor and often use their own extensive collection of small props. They are the unseen actors who reproduce sounds, required when the original track is either unusable or completely replaced as in the case of foreign versions.

Evaluation

My group consisted of me (Edd Headen),Harry Plunkett, Casey Brown and Jack Neale. For this task we had to record me and jack do a fake news report from a script. This was all to analyse the sound, we had to film in three different locations, the first was an empty classroom, then outside in the car park and the last was in a busy corridor. In the classroom we found one of the main problems this was that the computers where on and left a slight buzzing while filming, we also had this problem with the lights as they are fluorescent and left another buzz on the recording. In the car park there was multiple problems we discovered, the most prominent of these problems was the wind, as it constantly kept blowing the microphone so we had some audio distortion. Other problems that we found was that cars kept driving around us and making a ridiculous amount of background music, there was also buzzing here as well, we think that this was the generators near by. The last location was the busy corridor, there was so many audio problems with this take as there was people walking past it was almost impossible to hear us talking as people where walking around almost shouting.

The second time we went out filming we tried to improve every shot we did in the first place. First of all we tried making the corridor shit better, we still used to personal microphone because it was best suited for this location, this time we where lucky because the corridor wasn't busy at all and there was only a few people in there including us. The overall sound difference was much better as there wasn't a ridiculous amount of background noise so it was much better than our first try. Next we filmed the outdoor scene in the car park again, we used a shotgun mic again because the personal microphone wouldn't work outside, with all the wind.  This time it was much better because there was nobody around and cars were not interrupting us, like they did in the last take. the all round quality of the footage i far superior to the last one we shot. And finally we shot the classroom scene, this was the only audio that we thought was fine the first time, but we recorded it again to get any improvements possible, we still used the personal mic's because there was nothing wrong with the first shot.

We worked well as a team because we see each other everyday and are abe to talk about the work, we also all had assigned roles for example me and jack were presenters, Harry was sound man, and Casey was the cameraman. we are all good friends so we are accustomed to talking to each other so we said what we wanted. Overall i'd say the second set of filming was better as it had improvements from the first recording.