LO3: Manipulation of Audio + Adding Audio and Effects

 

 Here is the audio files I started out with. My first editing choice was to reduce the volume of each of the audio clips. This was due to them all being much louder than required, though I could do this later in Premiere If need be it made sense to change the volume alongside the other editing whilst in Audition. 

Next for my metallic sound effect I added a delay effect which extended the section of the clip that had the sound effect in it. The extended effect creates more of an impact for the audience. 

In this clip I added the distortion effect to my metal sound in order to make it sound like a heavier piece of metal than it actually is. This helps the sound effect appear more realistic to the audience. 

Here you can see me modifying the different elements of the echo effect such as how long the echo lasts with the delay, how strong the echo is with the feedback and how loud it is with the echo level. 

Here you can see me modifying the volume of the sound effect by manually modifying it. In order to listen to how loud the effect was and match it to what I wanted it to sound like as best as I could I used the loop tool. The loop tool allowed me to listen to the sound effect on repeat and match what I wanted exactly. 

In this screenshot I had moved onto another sound effect of 'clearing throat.' In this sound effect I was using the Stretch and Pitch tool to extend how long the sound effect was. I also increased the audio gain alongside the stretch and pitch to make it sound more realistic and for it to better match my documentaries volume as well as the volume from the rest of my sound effects.. 

In this screenshot I had selected my audio-clip and was decreasing the audio gain to better fit the diegesis and volume of my documentary and other foley sound effects. 

 Evidence of creating sound effects:

When recording the Foley for my documentary, I used my room at home as it is dampened to the rest of the house. I set up my microphone and mic stand and connected it up to my laptop. Next I opened my Audacity application and got my materials/props I was going to use to make the Foley ready. In Audacity I was able to replay the sound effects as much as I wanted in order to chop and change the clips I used. I could also adjust the audio gain of my clips if they were too loud or too quiet. I opened up the draft of my film Astralite: A History (that I had uploaded to YouTube) to give me inspiration as to what sound effects to create and where to put them in my documentary. I also connected headphones to my computer so I could check the audio quality of my clips more easily and make sure they sounded dietetically accurate.

Equipment used to record creating Sound Effects:

Once I had recorded my first sound effect I rewatched my documentary back through and played my sound effect at the same time to see if they did match up with the existing diegesis. Once I was satisfied that they did, I saved and exported my sound effects in MP3 format and emailed them to my UTC Sheffield account to be edited there. I used my microphone with a cover on for my paper sound effects and for my coughing sound effect, this was to make it sound more muffled and subtle. For my metal effects I took my guard off to get a clearer sound effect.  

Evidence of recording sound effects:

Props used to create sound effects:

After filming the 'easier' sound effects of shuffling paper and coughing both of which were made naturally (paper with paper coughing with actually coughing) I had to think of objects to make metallic sound effects. I followed the same technique as I had earlier where I rewatched my documentary and thought of a place where a metallic sound effect could go and what it could sound like to match the diegesis. Eventually I recorded to different metallic sound effects. The first Foley effect was created by dropping a metal spoon from different angles and different heights next to my microphone. I replayed the effect each time in Audacity to check if it was the sound I wanted. I needed a sharp first hit followed by another softer hit so that I could later edit to sound like a heavier metal object being dropped. 

My second Foley technique took more inspiration still. For this effect I wanted a lighter or duller metal sound. I first tested a metal sharpener but it didn't match what I was looking for. Eventually I chose my metal chain that carries The One Ring. As the heavier ring hit my desk and was followed by the duller thud of the chain soon after. In post - I edited the audio gain and added a sharper pitch. 

LO2: Demonstrate the Creation of Meaning in Film

 The genre of my film is a documentary with the sub-genres of history/historical and motorsport. I decided to choose these sub-genres because the documentary revolves around the creation of a wheel used for motorbikes which relates to motorsport, and the invention was created in the past and therefore matches the historical genre of being set in the past. This is to engage the audiences of three separate genres history, motorsport and documentaries. It also helps my film bring in the already existing audience for the Astralite wheel based off its presence in two other programmes. This includes Silver Dream Racer and Tomorrow's World (which Tony featured on three times.) This targets the idea of global village proposed by Marshall McLuhan (1964) as the audience will span countries and generations as it is on YouTube this should hopefully promote word of mouth about my documentary and its focus the Astralite wheel and create Electric Agora online. As my film is a historical motorsport documentary the only pleasure it can target is really the intellectual puzzle (Rick Altman 1999) This is because the documentary is thought provoking by nature and should lead to people researching about the company, the wheel and Tony himself. The idea of 'intellectual puzzles' was expanded upon by adding b-roll footage and historical documentation into the film this was done to purposefully peak audience curiosity and to make them delve deeper. This is often done in other films in the genre to create further interest in the content. 

I took inspiration from two documentaries/short films one is The First Auto the other is Guy's First Triumph Ride. Both can be seen below. 

The First Auto:

In this now online YouTube documentary The First Auto the main themes are similar to those of my documentary Astralite: A History. This is because the documentary follows the course of a new invention being implemented, tested and found to be superior to other competition at the time. It is also similar as like my documentary it refers to the past throughout the majority leading up to the present day. The style of the documentary is different to mine as it uses actors and is only loosely based on the subject matter meaning it's information isn't fully factual. Meanwhile my documentary is Non-Fictional and all information and documents come from the inventor of the wheel and co-creator of the Astralite company.

Guy's First Triumph Jump:

Guy's First Triumph Ride is a factual but casual behind the scenes motorsport documentary. I want to mirror the casual atmosphere of the documentary by using natural key lighting and having the set in front of camera appear homely and warm. I also want to include footage of racing or biking in my documentary whether this is footage of the Sheffield Speedway or Isle of Man, or testing/racing with the Astralite Wheels. With the interviews with Guy Martin the camera angle is at a low angle which connotes Guy as being confident, knowledgeable and being in control; I want to use a low angle whilst filming Tony to create similar connotations. 

The genres of my film engages the audience via the subversion of expectations. Due to the genres I am following many audience members would likely speculate that like the majority of the other films in the genres they would follow the story of a racer or racing team. This is obviously not the case, instead my documentary focuses around the life of a part time racer part time business man and inventor who created a wheel for other bikers (and himself) to use. I  intend this subversion of expectations to fit into the idea of Long Tail Theory ( Chris Anderson 2006) as people will likely not view it straight away but when they do they will soon take to social media afterwards and talk about how this film isn't what you'd expect, which promotes a second later wave of viewership likely bigger than the first wave was. There is only one character presented in the film and he is Tony who is played and voiced by himself. This means that the character ideas of other genres such as those proposed by Vladimir Propp (1928) don't apply here because my story is non-fictional. 

My documentary follows a similar narrative structure to both The First Auto, and Guy's First Triumph Ride as the first thing the audience is presented with is the topic of the documentary, for The First Auto we see a picture of the motorcar, for Guy's First Triumph Ride we see the triumph bike and Guy Martin. In my documentary the audience sees the Astralite Wheels in the title card and then they see Tony appear soon after. This sets the narrative and genre for the rest of the documentary.. Tzvetan Todorov's theory of the five stages of a film are challenged in my documentary because there isn't the same simple five step structure followed. This is also the case in other slice of life or colloquial documentaries like Guy's First Triumph Ride. 

There is representation of age and of Alzheimer's in my documentary as Tony is an older man and unfortunately has Alzheimer's. Hopefully my documentary will help quash some of the negative stereotypes around people with Alzheimer's as well as raise awareness. I wanted to not address Tony's Alzheimer's on purpose to see if anyone could actually tell without being told, if not then this reinforces a effect of people only noticing a difference when told there is a difference. In terms of other varieties of diversity (such as race and gender) I made up for diversity in my stock footage by using footage of diverse crowds.  

Final Film + Final Feedback

 Final Film:

https://youtu.be/EEuVlG0HcO0

 

Final Feedback:

https://forms.gle/qpjghYdTH4X93DN46

Evaluation of Audience Feedback: 

I sent out an email through outlook containing a google form with my final film with all editing and sound effects added, this was in order to obtain audience feedback. I sent it to a mix of demographics in order to get opinions from a range of demographics including my target audience of 30+. From the responses, I can  tell that the sound effects created were satisfactory and worked alongside my background music, and my b-roll footage and matched my film's genre and narrative. A strength of my film, specifically is the B-roll footage I used and edited as it matches my films genre and aesthetic and fits the time period that the documentary is in. The fuzzy low-quality of some of the film helps build intrigue and atmosphere in the documentary and allows for better escapism and audience enjoyment. The transitions I used, such as the dip to black tool, helped to make the film feel more conjoined with the historical documents and b-roll footage and therefore flow better. The feedback also showed that the graphics (intro and outro) worked in the documentary despite my own reservations about the outro being too basic. 

One thing I edited on is the audio/video error at 1:10 seconds due to multiple pieces of feedback mentioning how it suddenly cut off and didn't match the rest of the documentary. I also decreased the audio gain of my sound effects and moved one of them around in order to better match the footage on screen at the time. This response to feedback should hopefully make my documentary appear better put together and more professional. The codes and conventions of the documentary and history genres were easy to adhere to as it included relating to historic events, having factual information, and including footage and documentation relating to the subject matter. The use of B-roll footage makes my documentary longer and gives far more diversity in shot types and locations, this caused me to have less diversity in shot types and locations in my filmed footage which appears poorly devised. However, in my audience feedback people don't seem to notice and like the amount of extra footage and documents I spliced into my documentary, despite my own concerns. 

LO3: Audience Feedback

From this feedback I understood that my editing had to be improved to a much higher standard. As the majority of the audience noted that the editing was 'somewhat' adequate/up to scratch meaning their was room for improvement. 

From this feedback I learned what about my film's editing needed to be changed or what else needed to be added. This included making my title stay on screen longer, the audio needed to be looked through and changed due to an issue. The volume also dipped at the end which needed to be modified to be the same volume as the rest. I needed to add more variations as well as more transitions between clips opposed to a simple cut which was the case for some parts of my documentary. I also added more cutaways and b-roll footage as it fits the codes and conventions of my genre as a racing and a historical documentary to have historical footage of racing, crowds etc. 

From this feedback I understood that my dialogue and photos were mostly engaging to the audience but there was some (if small) room for improvement. 

My film didn't have any subtitles which means that people who are hard of hearing or deaf would be unable to enjoy my documentary. I also added a transition after the title screen to help the documentary flow better and appear more well edited. I added more archival footage and B-ROLL film to create more variety of shots. 

From this feedback I saw that the music does fit the codes and conventions of my film and its genres and therefore doesn't need to be changed. 

From this feedback I concluded that the music I used inside my documentary is fine as it is as the pace, tempo and genre all fit/mirror the pace and genre of my film. However, the music was too loud in places and muddled the dialogue. In order to solve this issue, I decreased the volume throughout, by around 4-5 decibels.