Ice Mountain

This exercise was designed to improve our editing skills, using footage gathered from a Mercedes dealership. It was some sort of promotional competition which had media coverage in the form of Star FM. The competition was to guess how long it would take for a ring to melt out of a huge ice sculpture shaped like a mountain. Remembering the first semester I started on editing the audio. This was more time consuming but I think you could really tell in the final finished edit. Most of the audio was really pore quality so finding material I could use was a challenge.
The final piece was about 4-5 minutes. The structure was pretty straight forward. The sculpture starts as blocks of ice which then transform into the mountain itself, cutting too and throw from the DJ of Star FM.
I don’t really enjoy editing, sitting down for long periods of time makes my mind wonder off task. The editing process in any project, for me, does get easier as the piece begins to take shape. This is when editing becomes semi-enjoyable, you can add different effect, filters, and maybe music. Due to copy write laws we were unable to use music without the writer’s permission. Instead, I used a continuous, light hearted, beat that I created in soundtrack pro. This was used in the background of my piece.
I didn’t have high hopes for this project and didn’t think it served any purpose. Even though I didn’t feel like I had achieved anything, just watching some sculpture being made, my editing improved a lot through the process.

listen to star fm on http://www.star1077.co.uk/

Maida Vale

At first I didn’t hold up much hope for the Maida vale trip, the studios are used for producing music and radio shows, both of which I had no interest in what so ever. The day started at a ridiculous time in the morning as we had to make to London for about 11am. When we arrived at the studios we were split into two groups, music students and our group of media students. We were told that we were going to be sitting in on the Mark Lamar show, watch the Zutons mix a couple tracks, and watch a radio drama being produced. Of all of these, the only one that really interested me was seeing Mark Lamar. My group, the media students, sat in on the radio drama to start with. It was actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, I had no idea of how many people it took for a radio drama to run smoothly. The actors themselves were brilliant. Next up was the Mark Lamar show. We were led into this room with a huge mixing deck, and through a window was Lamar. This, for me, was the best part of the tour and is the only aspect that could tempt me into working on any kind of radio production. I had obviously been aware of Lamar previous to this visit from such shows as ‘Shooting Stars’ and ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’, and was always a fan of his. I was really impressed with his ability to think off his feet, he is genuinely a funny, fast, and intelligent guy. He had a singer and her band in with him. They were from America and on tour playing some kind of country music. I was quite surprised with how well they took some of Lamar’s jibes, (after finishing a song) “that was Laura Cantrell and the testosterone underdogs”, they had obviously done their research on British humour. From there we went to see the Zutons which bored me quite a bit. I don’t really have much of an interest in music, so for me it was just a case of seeing a famous band. To be honest I can only remember two of their songs, Valerie, and the track that follows on that same album. To finish, our guide took us to his department where we were to learn a bit more about the unbelievably boring world of archiving. We were taken through the different stages and each one of us sat in on one of the professionals. I got to edit some of the material, but to honest anyone could have done. To me the job came across as one which requires you to sit in front of a computer logging times and numbers all day. I couldn’t think of anything worse to do. Apart from the boring end, I found the tour of the studios very interesting, however I don’t think the radio industry is right for me. The day was topped off with a glorious United win over Barcelona with a great goal by the ginger king himself….Paul ‘the carrot’ Scholes

On the set of saline

Being on the set of a film was, on the one hand, exciting but on the other, mind numbingly boring! The film was being shot near the peer on the beach of Weston-super-Mare. We only found out about the film a couple days before they were due to start recording. I think our presence on location also came as a surprise to the other members of the production team but they still made us feel welcome.
On the first day of shooting we arrived at the beach at mid day. With not much to do, we stood around observing the equipment that was going to be used for filming. After a while we were asked to carry out some of the duties that are required of the runners on set. These duties involved such things as running messages to the actors waiting in the near by hotel, moving huge polystyrene sheets from the equipment truck to where we were filming (they were to be used to reflect light from the sun), and those strong enough helped hurl a gigantic dolly across the beach to the tracks on which it was to run along to capture different panning shots. There were delays with filming due to the fact they didn’t have a camera on set that was operable so they were waiting for a replacement. However this replacement was coming from London and didn’t make to the set on time for us to see any of the action.
The next day started a bit more promisingly. We arrived at the location with all the cast and equipment already there. It was warmer than the day before, which was lucky for me as my job for the day was to patrol the peer answering the public’s questions about the production and also asking them, politely, if they could resist the urge to stop and stare at the filming (it wouldn’t look to professional if, in one of the shots, there were an elderly couple looking and pointing towards the camera). As important and responsible this job sounds, I really didn’t have much to do, plus the filming was going on to far away for me to see anything. I didn’t get to see how the director works with the actors, how the cameraman works with the director, or how that dolly that was such a pain to move even worked.
All in all I don’t think I gained anything from being involved in this production, apart the understanding of how time consuming and knit-picky filming a film is. It hasn’t put me off film altogether. I would love to see how different it is on higher budget productions….with more money involved precautions are taken to prevent hiccups that occurred in productions such as this one.

End of semester

At first I was a bit pessimistic about this semester. I had never worked on or studied the audio side of the industry so intensely. I thought I would hate it, I like working with cameras and images, but I found it very interesting working on things like our soundscape and radio production and gained many skills working with Pro Tools. I had never used this software before and would be lying if I said I picked it up straight away. However it has grown on me and I can now edit competently in the programme. This ability to use this software is, what I think, the best thing that has came out of this semester.
Some tasks that were set to us were a bit bittersweet, for example, every time we were asked to conduct a Vox Pop. It was good that we learnt how to use this important technique effectively but editing them were mind numbingly boring! Saying that, I find editing anything that wasn’t writ by myself boring. Not just the Vox Poop, the interviews weren’t the most exciting bits of material to edit. However the interview with Tom Cholmondeley was a different story!

Some of the subjects we were taught, health and safety, Ofcom, and roles and regulations were incredibly slow but at the end of the lesson I had learnt so much about this side of the media. I actually really enjoyed learning about something that few people outside the industry know about.

I think the equipment that is available to us is brilliant, the computer I’m writing this on, the software,the campus, everything. The problem is, this equipment is only free for us to use two days of the week and for the £3000+ that we are paying for this course, to say I’m not satisfied would be an understatement! This has been the reason why a lot of people haven’t been able to meet deadlines and rush their work. Considering how much we each pay a year, for our class to have a yearly budget of £400 is a joke!

I’m glad I’ve stayed on top of my work for this semester. It has enabled me to spend a bit more time on things I would have rushed in the past, like this blog. I’m fairly happy with it. I haven’t taken the easy road by pulling the material off the Internet, I’ve taken time and put a lot of thought into each blog which hopefully shows. I had intended to add more pictures and links to relevant material on the Internet, but as I’m not connected to the World Wide Web where I’m living, just completing this blog has been a challenge.

Soundscape

The soundscape was first created at Simon Fraser University in the early 1970s. What was originally intended for educational and archival purposes, the “Soundscape composition” soon developed into its own form of electro acoustic music. The first study on this subject was “The Vancouver soundscape” (published in 1973) which aimed to draw attention to the sounds that often went unnoticed.

were many aspects of this form of music that was to be taken into consideration when creating my own soundscape composition. I had to develop a piece of audio which would install an image in the listener’s mind of a specific scenario, activity, or environment.
My composition was based on a hobby of mine that I find relaxes me and gives me something to do when I’m bored. Drawing is something that takes imagination, patience and good observation. It’s something that everybody can relate to since childhood. Because of this I think that listeners will be able to find it easy to recognise the journey I will be taking them on.
It starts off with the preparation, rustling of paper, pencils rolling about the table. After pulling the chair closer into the table, the drawing begins. Pencil marks are made on the paper followed by smudging and blowing off shavings from the eraser. At the beginning of the drawing you hear steady breathing. This is because the person, at this moment in time, is fairly relaxed. As time goes on sounds occur that would begin to agitate an artist, for example, creaking of chairs, coughing, a ticking of a clock which speeds up to symbolise the artists impatience. All these sounds become more dense and faster until it all becomes too much for the artist to concentrate. When all these sounds reach a climax they stop and the room falls silent. The artist walks to the kitchen, pours a glass of water and returns to his table. Now having relaxed, the artist takes a deep breath and finishes the work he started.

I think my composition achieves the element of being recognisable by the listener. This may be because I have used nothing but found sounds in the piece. I had originally planned on adding a high pitched flat line for the part where the artist is starting to become overwhelmed. This abstract sound, I feel, could have been used as everybody can relate to, at sometime or another, having had ringing in their ears.
Being a keen, amateur artist myself, I hope to give the listener an insight into the problems that sometimes occur when I’m trying to create my very own masterpiece and how I would overcome those barriers. I hope it illustrates a healthy way of looking at life itself, that when your down or think your stuck in a certain situation or state of mind. Take a time out. Look at life. And do what ever it is you have to do to continue creating your masterpiece, be it a drawing or happiness itself.

Vox-Pop

The Vox-Pop comes from the Latin ‘vox populi’, ‘the voice of the people’. It’s used by reporters to get an indication of public reaction to a piece of news. A number of people would be interviewed and would reply to the same questions which would then be edited together.

The class was set a task for the day. It was to create a Vox pop on what the students of the college thought about a certain area of television.

The question that I put to the students was:

What is it about reality TV programmes that you think people find so appealing?

Bit of a boring subject, but it always is, doing a Vox pop! Normally the scariest thing about conducting one is gathering the material, but for some reason, for this task I didn’t have a problem with finding the courage to ask a bunch of random people about this truly boring subject.
The worse thing is when you ask someone the question and they don’t give you any kind of answer. You can’t say to them it was crap and ask for another one because they simply don’t want to hang about. Luckily this time I got quite a few good responses from my question. In the end I gathered about twenty answers, with the majority of them being usable.
The next task was editing my findings. This is the most boring and time consuming Vox pop. The problem I came across whilst editing was finding that I had interviewed some of people in the cafeteria where the ambience is high and very obvious, and others in quite environments like in a class room. To fix the problem of having the Vox pop change from loud to quite sections, and knowing I couldn’t get rid of the background from the cafeteria, I decided to use that ambient sound over the quiet parts as well hopefully giving the impression the Vox pop took place in the same environment.

Although it takes a lot skill to create a good and effective Vox pop, for me, its not one of those projects I ever feel happy about once finished. I can’t feel proud of what I’ve created because I find them simply bland. For a project to inspire, it needs to require me to use my creativity rather than my intelligence, which I think are the grounds on which the Vox pop relies on. Your intelligence is key when creating a Vox pop as you need to know how to structure the piece to make it bias, using the right opening and closing statement. Where creativity is concerned, I don’t think it is at all evident in a Vox pop, they all sound the same to me.

The Interview

There are three types of interviews:

1. INFORMAL, Factual.
i. a military operation
ii. a union meeting
iii. a city’s newly announced development plan
iv. a college building

2. INTERPRETIVE,
Interviewer supplies facts and asks interviewee to comment or explain.
The listener makes a judgement on values or priorities.
The content must be reactive and not rehearsed.

i. a government minister on a policy
ii. the view of the clergy on abortion

3. EMOTIONAL,
The interviewees state of mind.
The listener understands in human terms.
Must not intrude in to private grief.

i. feelings of relatives of miners trapped underground in an accident
ii. euphoria of an athlete or entertainer at a major event

'McLeish, Robert. Radio Production (Focal Press, 1996)'

Interview with Tom Cholmondeley

Concerning the three types of interviews explained above, our interview with Tom was very much an interpretive one. He had a lot interesting experiences to share with us about his previous work within the media industry. The story that fascinated me most was about his first job, working with Paul Macintyre in an undercover operation to expose arms dealers in Britain. This kind of work, for me, would be amazing. Being quite an adrenaline junky myself, I hope my future in the industry is filled with similar life threatening/stimulating experiences.

I’ve been taught a few techniques on how to interview people, like how to use certain questions and how use your body language to try and get the interviewer to ease up and give you good answers. In interviews I’ve done in the past I’ve had to take these learning’s into consideration, but this was because I wasn’t interested in what they had to say, but had to sound like I was. However with this interview I didn’t think about my reaction to his answers at all because I was too interested in what he had to say. I think this was why, as soon as it came to me asking my questions, I kept trying to get him to extend on his answers. I couldn’t stop.

I thought the interview went brilliantly and I really enjoyed doing it. I think the experience definitely illustrated that I do have a lot of confidence in those kinds of situations, and it comforts me to know that I could pursue a career in front of or behind a camera.

If you would like to know more about tom and the projects he's been involved in, and also to view his online showreel visit:

www.cholmondeley.net