#filmadaption

[gobooksbeforebros-blog]

Alexandra Bracken has just announced that this guy right here- Harris Dickinson- will play Liam in ‘The Darkest Minds’ adaption! I’m so absolutely excited. This isn’t how I imagined him but still damnnn, as long as he knows how to play flirty I’m down. 😁😍🤗

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Misc Production Documents - Adaption (POTP)

I've been doing end of year organizing and since our producers have to compile the dossier, I figured I'd try to find stuff relevant to my department to post. There won't be too much (and I lost my sound notes!!! Arg!!)

I remembered I did a little sound breakdown- I wish It was more in depth and organized, but that's alright, it did the job! Just for me to remember things I def needed or wanted to get during shoots

Wahh the screenshots are blurry but you get the gist (postscript: actually they were fine once I posted hehe)

Kit List - Pretty simple. I kinda forgot that the Mixpre3 only have 3 inputs (unlike the 10? I believe it’s called? That we don’t have available yet) so couldn’t use two lavs- but it was nice having them in case of tech difficulties.

And thats it cause I very much cannot find my sound notes OR my location recce checklist :,(

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Adaption: Final Reflection, POTP

{youtube link xoxo}

And that's post wrapped!

It's been a long semester, and I'm stoked to have learned as much as I have and to have developed the skills and knowledge I now have for the future. I don't have too many photos of post because I was really hunkering down but I'll try to find some to put in!

I'm proud of the work I managed to do in the time we had after picture lock and before the crit. I think an extra day or two to sit on sound and let it marinate would've be nice, but considering, I think I managed my time and schedule well and am glad of that.

(pretty long post so pls open the readmore ive put in!)

I'll start with a quick location sound review - I had no issues, beside the usual nuisances that come with filming outdoors and in businesses. I did what I could to minimize this (the angle/direction of the shotgun really does matter) and it worked, for the most part. I'm going to utilize wingman more in the future, because the sound notes put into the app can be seen in AVID next to the video files- I hadn't realized the info is "burned" into the files like that but this makes communication between sound and camera notes really nice. Of course ill do physical sound notes still, but in addition to wingman too.

Now onto post!

I was stressed about this, I admit. I hadn't done such a dialogue heavy film before, and was only vaguely familiar with the proper workflow. Common sense when organizing is huge though, and the project wasn't messy at all. Initial checkerboarding went smoothly. One thing I was irritated to notice was the quality of the park atmos changed very much depending on what angle we were shooting at relative to the road, which of course I knew would happen when we chose the location, but was still very blah this sucks about. I managed with minimal tension headaches and I think it is very minimally noticeable, if not noticeable at all, in the final product so yay for that.

Leveling and doing a temp mix for their lines, though.... I abused automation and I was holding myself back (to be fair I didn't overuse it but I definitely used it a lot). In one line the actors would start off quiet and then their voices would spike and go loud, which is a combination of delivery and boom oping I think. (It never peaked, and worked for some instances of topic and character and etc but I wanted it not to go up and down always) I gave my boom ops very very very Very basic rundowns on 'How To' and I wish I had sat them down for a more in depth lesson, and I WISH I had headphones for them - but we couldn't get a splitter, or didn't. Going to push for this if I keep outsourcing Ops and don't record and op myself.

ANYWAYS. Finished with that and then went to my favorite bit: DESIGN!!!!! I was very slumped and depressive at this point, so it really picked me up. I wish I had more time to look into certain music choices for scenes, but I am happy with the piano we got scored for the end sequence.

One thing I will say: I had a lot of trouble and internal fighting with How Much I should put in. Originally we had wanted something very stylized and Edgar Wright-esque, but that didn't really end up happening with the coverage we got, and in turn with the edit (which is definitely fine!). But this left me trying to balance not overdoing it, since sound is supposed to mesh well with the edit and visuals, but I felt like I HAD to make it stylized in order to try and get closer to what we wanted OG. I think I did an okay job - in the crit Olivia said the sound did all the heavylifting, which I still cannot decide is a compliment or a detriment. While I'm half glad it got noticed in a- positive?- light, im also kind of eh about it since technically it should enhance the world and match it, not 'heavylift' it.

Through the process Anne Marie helped me a lot with suggestions and notes: here are some I found below from my phone, they probably make no sense heh, I also had markers on pro tools I was referring too as well

Phew, that's long. I'll end on a happy note before I go into things I will incorporate into the workflow for next time. I'm glad I didn't have any technical issues, and all my qualms were creative. Even though I will be pushing for earlier picture lock on future films, because I feel I haven’t been able to breath when sound is left for minute (mainly because I’m trying to balance getting it all done and doing work I’m proud of) I'm content with what I managed to get done in the time I was given. I started Sound 7 days before the crit when picture was locked, and I managed to do what I think is an alright job! So, success, and a good test of my time management skills, because I had to learn to stop nitpicking cause more often than not it's fine and no one else can hear it but you.

THINGS TO INCORPORATE/MAIN TAKEAWAYS~

Wingman notes for the editor

set the edit window and sound window DURING PRE PROD, not during production. See if people can give you a week and a half at least for sound so it can breath a little bit and you don't waste away in SAS. Also so you can do a proper Mix and not a temp one

TEMP SOUND IN AVID - have a meeting with the editor to see what you can give them, and to say they can put in temp sound if they think something similar should go in certain places. Mainly for music and timing instances.

Decide on a color coding system so I use the same colors for everything always moving forward and It doesn't vary depending on the project (look up industry standard)

VOICEOVER IS A SCRIPT/STORY/PRODUCTION ASPECT not a sound department aspect

Drink more water to avoid tension headaches

xoxo I really hope everyone a good summer and to lots of learning and growing in their field!

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Update: Post Production

As we draw nearer to the crit I become a little pile of mush that drags itself to sas on some of the nicest sunniest days we’ve had in edi as of late. It’s alright though cause I only start to mind if I’m in by myself and there’s a plethora of people to bother when I’d like a break!

Documentary is doing good for sound. Anne Marie gave me some good advice and I’ll implement it today, wanna get as close to done as I can by nine, screw the eye strain headache. I feel a bit like a wizard throwing bits into a pot and stirring precisely 3.7 times to the right and 8.2 to the left. Which is specific but how I feel.

Slightly late, but earlier I had went through my files and created little time codes / transcoded the interview for easy finding of good sound bites and moments

I’m gunna throw more stuff in (tactfully) to make the soundscape more full and use automation for the mix to help make it not overwhelming.

I need to crack on with work but short update!

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Adaption Shoot // Pictures

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Update: 05/04/2023

All the shoots are done - yay! Now we move into post.

They all went smoothly, in terms of scheduling and during. For documentary, after going over the rushes, we would like some more close ups and a few other supplementary things. Luckily our subjects go out wild swimming every morning and are super accommodating so its really up to when the group can go. I have everything I need for location sound, to be honest, and i'm going to be away when they would like to head back out anyways, so I'll probably focus on getting some wild track/foley.

For adaption, it's been like standing in a mirage screen academy sucked the energy out of me for four days straight. But!! I'm feeling good about it. I linked, transcoded and synced everything for Ethan, and bless his heart he's starting on the edit right after picture locking his other film. We have in mind a couple things that will be issues later on in terms of the style we want to input but we've been working really closely in order to discuss what the sound and edit can do together, and how they can integrate to create something close to the film we want! Execution is a different story, but we've been communicating a lot on this so I think it'll be alright. I had fun as a lil editing assistant heh.

I'm very nervous in terms of the timeline - both my films are picture locking on the 15th, so. Um. Yeah, there's that. I'm going to be breaking my back pulling 8 hour days at sas but I know I can finish on time! I just hope I can do everything I want to with both films, especially adaption, since it's supposed to be heavily stylized in some parts, and with alllll the dialouge to get through and mix I'm hoping I have enough time for the fun bits. I've not worked on such a dialouge heavy film so my workflow will be different than the more non-narrative, non-fiction stuff, but hopefully i won't detest fiction sound after the tight timeline i'm on.

Ideally we might've shot earlier for both films so post isn't such a stress basket, and both Ethan and I have time to experiment, but c'est la vie.

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Film Adaption: Development

The other day our group had a meeting to discuss our short film. We decided on The Proof of the Pudding.

We spoke a lot about stylistic ideas for the film. it’ll be pretty true to the original short story in terms of plot, but the time period and location will differ.

Some things we spoke about was it being a drama/comedy. In order to do that we’d utilize smash cuts, dramatic audio choices and possibly even a sort of collage-esque, split screens method. It also has very normal, stripped down moments as well- so the film will kind of jerk the viewer between these two ways of seeing the world.

My Role//sound

As I’m doing sound, I’ve started to think of the vibe of the soundscape. I’m not too set or sold on using music, cause I’m more a fan of creating the world of the film with just the soundscape and not a soundtrack (unless it calls for it ofc), but since it’ll be set in the 70’s I do like the vibe of certain popular music in Scotland during that time. I’ll at least use that as inspiration for the feeling of the world. I would like to incorporate camera shutters, typewriter sounds and pages as the story centers on the publishing industry (and I like creative sound design)- this would most likely be pretty subtle and used in transitionary instances or an intro scene, to set the period and work happening. I don’t want it to be disembodied, so hopefully I can find something/think of ways it can fit into the design. If not that’s fine, though.

There are also moments of “realism” as well. Since I was thinking of having really sharp snappy foley for the dramatic moments (similar to the scene in Hot Fuzz where he is told he is being relocated), the diegetic sound in the more documentary instances would be like the film Roma- true to what is happening in the scene, nothing extra going on. Mixed in a way that’s balanced and not exaggerated. This is easier for me to do so I’m not focusing on it too much.

Since the exchange between the author and editor is only a portion of the film, the rest of the scenes will be balanced between the two styles- stylized but still true to the world they’re in.

I’m exited to experiment and try out a more comedic feel to the sound with this film! Playing with the contrast between the stripped back bits and the snappy bits should be interesting, and I get to try two things for one film.

[wrestlingwithdisney]

Mickyvision #12/1964 by Michael Studt Via Flickr: Mickyvision / Heft-Reihe Merlin und Mim (The Sword in the Stone) Copyright: Walt Disney Productions EHAPA Verlag (Stuttgart / Deutschland; 1964) ex libris MTP www.comics.org/issue/662718/