EVALUATION OF PROCESS
[Found it! - F.B.]
This was a great project to end the year on, on that had many surprises and things I would have never predicted from its inception. Even before it had begun, I was particularly interested in the concept of doing Foley art for the audio lay-up; it is a very exciting, mysterious and entertaining part of filmmaking that does not often get due recognition.
However, when I actually got the film I was meant to work on, I was deeply saddened. I had wanted to work on one of the Seventh Formers' documentary films - there seemed like there would be a lot of opportunity for challenge and innovation, which is what this assessment calls for - but I instead received one of the Sixth Formers' horror films. There were two key problems with this: I had already worked with the genre and its associated conventions when we created audio to accompany Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, so I was less interested in having fun with something I had already explored thoroughly; also, the film itself did not allow for much Foley art, or anything interesting. It was some faux-arthouse film called Matryoshka about Phoenix turning into a doll (I think), with no dialogue and very little diegetic sound. Its audio consisted wholly of two songs, one by Burial and one by Massive Attack.
Because I could not do anything with the film's pre-existing audio (for instance, clean it up or apply filters), I decided I would start afresh and create my own, entirely new audio accompaniment. For this, I decided to use the trusty old warhorse that is Reason, but not solely as a means of creating music. Rather, I would use it as my sort of 'development environment' where I could create audio with other programs and import it into Reason to arrange. This seemed like a very smart option: I could work with reliable software as my base, and use other less familiar software in relation to it. Reason's versatility was a great help in this.
Despite this, the first section of audio I completed for the film was composed entirely in Reason. As was the second. These were the distorted string crescendo and rumbling noise that appear around halfway through the film, as Phoenix becomes Phoenixdoll. That was really the extent of my composition; after creating those pieces, I decided I would incorporate my own version of Foley art and use extensive sampling to introduce new, exciting elements to the film.
One of the first things I did after this epochal decision was bookend the film with two pitched up samples of Duke Ellington's Black Beauty. This was really where I started to innovate during the process, introducing an element that was not present at all in the original film. The light nature of the sample juxtaposed heavily with the dark, heavy atmosphere of the film, creating a sense of tension and unease - things I am now a master of after my bout with Kubrick. The original film was dark in both audio and visuals, but I think my interpretation is far more interesting and creepy. It was really fun putting my own spin on someone else's work.
I was particularly proud of the next sample I included (or 'layed-up' as the professional Foley artist might say): a distorted recording of my own panicked breathing. It was essentially a "Let's do this, just because I can" moment, and the headphones Terry leant me proved suitable lo-fi microphones. Again, I think this added further and more effective horror elements to the film and vastly improved it.
Of course, my greatest achievement during the process was my interpretation (subversion, maybe?) of club music. This is where I went 'full-Foley,' trying to create a realistic narrative atmosphere by using crowd noise samples sourced from YouTube. This was definitely an element absent from the original film, where the audio was all non-diegetic (it did not play in the world of the characters); it was particularly effective to create this atmosphere of reality, as that would juxtapose with the dark fantasy world seen in the second half of the film.
Of course I had to include Katy Perry. When I thought club music, I thought I should maybe try to compose my own. But, for a 'lark', I decided to try out a distorted sample of Stompin' with Katy, which actually worked surprisingly well!
All in all, this process became much more interesting once I decided to go against the film's traditional grounding and create my own innovative pseudo-Foley art. Plus, Katy Perry. A great end to a great year.