Production log -Music in film

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Technical terms used in my composition- 

Week 2- 06.02.23 –

I found week 2 interesting I enjoyed making my own Foley sounds around and outside of the university and uploading them and sharing them with the class. Watching where Foley sounds were created was good. It helped me create a visual of what was to come. Sampling into Foley although I practised making my sounds I wanted to leave the Foley part of my music-making until last. 

Week 6- 06.03.23- 

I feel as if my project started quite late in the term because a lot was going on with my other modules and the collaboration with the film students was not always straight ward. Once I was given a soundtrack composition and the contact details of the film students I tried to reach out and make a connection and open up communication however, it took the film students a week to respond to me. This delayed my creative process and felt me feeling a bit confused. 

Week 7- 13.03.23-

Thankfully in week 7 I was able to communicate with the film students and immediately was added to their group chat and set up a teams meeting. The meeting went well they explained the theme of the film and I got a great understanding of the overall project and direction. After the practical analysis, I started experimenting with different sounds after being shown different examples of how to use music in class. 

Week 8- 20.03.23- 

Most of week 8 was me researching to find different ideas to help influence me with my project I hadn’t started anything practical just yet. 

Week 9- 27.03.23- 

Week 9 I started to book sessions with the actors to re-record the dialogue and audio in the films. This week I managed to book two out of the three actors so I felt content that things were moving in a good direction and starting to take shape.

Week 12 – 17.04.23-

In terms of my music-making process, I was given instructions from the filmmakers to build on the characters that were dressed in black. The characters dressed in black were how they displayed the characters' inner thoughts and worries. I wanted to go with a sinister feel and vibe that showed when a person came into the shoot. Where the film itself was over 7mins long and had 4 different scenes I wanted to break the music into 4 different compositions t show a change in dynamics and keep the audience interested and engaged. 

This week I started to feel overwhelmed with the workload because one of the actors was not answering or communicating with me and she had a lot of audio to record where she had a main role. Thankfully my lecturer was able to communicate where her lecturer was and get them to prompt her to communicate and find a day to collaborate with me, Once I booked a slot and was able to get her dialogue down I was able to draw a line under the audio section. 

Week 13- 24.04.23 – 

Once I found a good reference track I started to work on my lite motif- I wanted to have something repetitive and memorable that was the structured base of the soundtrack. Some of the films I watched to help me get a better understanding of how to portray this in my film were Beverly Hills Cop, The Terminator (in class) and 8 Mile. Once I played around with different notes on the keyboard, I was able to play a sequence that I thought would fit into the film accordingly. I also wanted to make sure the sequence evoked feelings of sadness as well as curiosity, which was based on what was shown in particular scenes where the Leit Motif appeared. This was demonstrated by using the keyboard with added effects and playing in a minor key, along with different tempos depending on the scene. As I had finished adding the simple melody, I then added the rest of the instrumentation and I separated my logic files into different sections to make it easier to read and work with. I incorporated the following sounds:

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• Classic piano

• Inst1

• Neo soul kit

• Roots rock

• Reflect strings

• Aurora Pad

• Yamaha piano

• Megaphone Eq

• Latin

• luna strings

• hunted castle 

• infinity strings

• Roman strings

• Dialogue 

• Foley sounds

• Instruments 

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Week 14- 01.05.23- 

In terms of mixing and mastering, these are some of the things I did;

When I put the Foley train noises into the logic file I used alternation to make the noise sound more realistic. When the trains appeared, I lifted the line to change the dynamics of the train and more prominent and When the train was leaving I gradually turned the line down to show the train was coming out of shot. I made sure that when the close-ups of the actors appeared I made the sound lower in volume, so the actors were the main focus. Compressor- we use compression to sure the levels are right and to make the vocals louder/ backing track 

 Noise Gate- gets rid of background noise. EQ- makes the sound, sound clear by sweeping it for any bad frequencies like low-end sounds. I made a high pass filter and boasted the high-end by 3DB to make sure the vocals are clearer. To make the sound cleaner and enhance the clarity. DeEsser- to remove any pop sounds and esses, this sound I had to focus on when it came to the dialogue. I also added addictive EQ to add more air High (end treble) Made one bus- called VC vocal bus reverb FX lastly I did Alternation- I used alternation to level down the background sound volume.