Project POA's (Plans of Action)
Week 1, 2 and 3
Week 1 and 2's tasks were focussing on compiling clips and our initial ideas for them to see which ins would benefit us both more to go forward with. I tried to think differing genres. Also during this time we got a short lesson from a production studio and asked him to show us the basics of setting up and using the studio equipment so we would go in there without the need for assistance. This was some extremely useful primary research which i took notes for to use when we will need to go into the studios. I found this a really good exercise because we haven't really had anyone outline, in a while for example, which order you should turn on the desk and speakers as to not break equipment. Referring to my initial plan for this project, i can see that we are a week behind plans. This has me slightly anxious for The upcoming week as we will be staring composition on week 3 instead of week 2.
Week 3
I used my research looking into the romance genre and music to start helping compose for Clip one. I will be writing up this research shortly. Also i suggested ideas for the accompanying guitar parts which will be in the background and serve to enhance the swelling phrases in the music.
Week 4
This is our First week of the Easter holidays, starting work on foley effects for the shape of water.
Part 1
Part 2
Week 5
This is our second week of the easter holidays, continuing the work on foley effects for the shape of water.
Week 6
I have realised that my weekly logs have, like a habit from past units, been just written rather than the proposed videos. Evaluating my method for logging progress on this project, i can see that i am quite uncomfortable on camera and even with a script set out for my logs, i find myself extremely nervous and stumbling over sentences. I have therefore decided that I will be keeping my logs written up on my website. I also discovered that fortunately, i am less uncomfortable and awkward when on camera with my project partner present as it feels like a natural conversation or discussion.This has lead to the creation of a few joint logs/ explanation videos and has produced more detailed work.
Week 6 has been working in college recording on both Thursday and friday just like previously planned in my project proposal. In the studio, my project partner and I recorded a real piano and decided to not go with the logic piano preset. We created a few joint logs explaining the set up and how we worked into the DAW during out time in the studio as well as the process of synching up the music to the movie clip imported in the file. I realise that again, we are out of sync with our original timetable. We were supposed to have been recording both clip one and two compositions this week but instead we haven't even started on clip two's music. My project collaborator and i have had a short discussion about moving forward with the project and the possibility of needing to abandon the ideas for a third clip has been suggested. AT the moment i am personally still unsure, but do agree that its looking like producing a finished 3rd composition would be near impossible at the stage we are at currently.
Week 7
On Thursday, my project partner and I in college had our first composing session together in a while and discussed ideas for clip two. I had used my critical listening and research into the bond films to enhance our talk and suggest the idea of using notes and elements from the classic James bond theme, to keep the music sounding coherent with the film's iconic main character. On top of this, I also suggested utilising instrumentation to our advantage and have the more bond-Esque melody lines played majorly on guitar. I will be playing the accompaniment or bad guy motifs and hinting at a Victory/loss, switching between domination and submission of those themes and musical ideas to keep tension rising and falling during the action. I hope to match the scene with some sections I composed yesterday with my partner's suggestions and input. After this, I worked alone on logic: editing and matching up some of The Shape of Water foley. I managed to do a lot of work without my partner's help which most likely is thanks to me paying attention, observing and learning from others how to use the software. The sizzling bacon takes which were attempts at getting a realistic rain sound at home were cut to their best bits and overlaid with the scene. I also singled out the best "bloop" bubble sound out of the audio clips and isolated it, placing it at the right frame and locking its SMPTE position. Later, when my collaborator joined in, we both listened back to the file and agreed upon my choice of plug-ins and positioning of sounds. Together we then discussed the missing atmospheric sounds (thunder and background city noise) and I think that we should be able to get those from the BBC sound effect library which has many free-to-download audio files of the exact sounds we need. I don't believe we would realistically be able to get our hands on the equipment or objects needed to record them ourselves so, although I dislike that idea, that seems to be our last option and the reasonable approach. We will still need to choose the right clips, import them, edit them and insert them to fit correctly into the scene. Similar to last week, it seems we will be unlike to produce the three finished clips to show in performance week, though now it is even more apparent. Deciding to cut off that goal from the timetable has eased the pressure a bit for this project and instead, the focus has shifted towards adding details we were going to skip over and really perfecting these two scenes.
Week 8
This week, my project collaborator and I have been working in and out of the rehearsal spaces, organising our material and playing it to the scene and cleaning up some timing issues. Though, most of the work produced has been on Logic. I tasked myself to find some usable preset synths/drones in our composition whilst my project partner focused on getting his guitar parts recorded. I eventually shared and copied over the sounds I had found and joined my collaborator. A lot of recordings were deleted as we were unable to get the guitar to be in time. As mentioned in my FMP problem-solving section of this website, there seemed to be a delay from the scarlet box which lead to any parts being played and recorded in Logic being synced out of time. It was either that or the software curring out the silence before the first note/notes played, which shifted it out of time. This meant that despite playing perfectly to the metronome, we would have to align each recording by hand again. This was tedious but worked out well when done in sections. But this turned into a bit of a wasted week as we had to delete the recordings and almost completely start clean again. Neither of us own Logic or the equipment at home in order to complete the project outside of college hours which has really limited us and lead us to work into our personal lunchtimes and breaks which isn't ideal and can become quite stressful.
Week 9
So far, we have been on track since our decision to change and only do two movie scenes but the stress is piling on.. We have planned for next week ahead of time in relation to our plans of action but also meeting up on Monday to do some work outside of college.
Our plans for this week inside college were to get the guitar parts for Clip 2 recorded into the DAW and serve as a guide to the piano/other instruments and then use the midi keyboard to play those in the afternoon. This was the same for both Thursday and Friday as the next day was just finishing off the previous work. I felt like I was unable to get the correct timings and the metronome was putting me off which is why we did the guitar parts first as they were easier to implement. We have quite a few gaps in the scene including one at the start that we had just skipped over because we have had no idea of what to play there. I think we will probably just snip the first few minutes off the scene so it's in line with the material we have composed.