Evaluation

Evaluation 

The concept of our work is an abstract piece to demonstrate the noisy and busy nature of humans, in particular student teenagers. This has grown out of multiple ideas and inspirations from particular films and directors. Our initial idea was to show the sounds of the inner workings  of a computer or a machine.  This had been inspired by the works of Charlie Chaplain especially his film modern times and its Marxist concerns on routine and machinery. When then focused on routine, and after watching the short experimental, animated  film Tango (Zbigniew Rybczynski,1983) we chose to focus routine in a particular room or fixed point and create a sense of build up in it. We mind mapped ways we could effective set the fixed point, where we came up with the fish bowl idea. Where the calm and quiet surroundings of the fish bowl would be tarnished by the noisy human lifestyle. We aimed to make the film as interesting as possible in both to look at and to listen to using a wide range of experimental techniques. We would like the film to be received by a wide range of audiences but the introduction of a party into the scene makes the film more targetable at young adults. 

I think the audio piece has work really well and achieves all our initial outlined aims and more. It is interesting and enjoyable to listen to for its entirety and it is easy to understand and appreciate. I believe its main attribute is its sense of build up created by the increased human noise activity in the the surrounding space. The post editing and experimental recording techniques have worked really well in emulating the fish bowl sense of place and really give the film character. 

The video is also I believe a great piece of work, but hasn't achieved the initial aims as well as the audio. The videos aesthetics and edit have turned out brilliant with a wide range of interesting and experimental ideas and shots on display. However I believe the film hasn't got a great sense of build up as opposed to the audio piece and too much narrative on show which I think lets the piece down, the introduction of the party is a nice addition and adds a humorous twist, however I think it makes it takes away interest from the experimental shots of the fish and its point of view. If I could remake the film I think me and my partner Reece both agree that we need to put more work into the planning stages of the film instead of just getting an idea and filming it.

Firstly we planned the audio as the main piece of work in the initial stages, then to work the film around the sound to keep with the sense of space of the fish bowl.  We planned the recording effectively making recording lists and following them during recording sessions. During the edit however the main problem I found as the editor was the sounds were unusable from he first recording session due to bad background noise from a busy road next to the room we were recording in. When editing the sounds into the underwater style using EQ and Reverb this background noise made the piece sound mysterious and scary, this made the mood and atmosphere of the whole piece change so we decided to re record many of the sounds. On the second recording session we decided to take into account the background noise and moved to a quieter room. We also began to experiment using an acoustic microphone wrapped in a condom instead of a hydrophone to get sounds from underwater. This surprisingly turned out really well and gave the sounds a unique and interesting sound. Most sounds we very odd and dirty sounding but served as a great guide to base the sounds on when editing normal clean sounds in Soundtrack Pro. As we had decided to edit the underwater effect onto the sounds to make the piece sound exactly how we wanted and a lot clearer we used the sound of the underwater recordings as inspiration for the effects used. For instance the first rough cut was very unclear and bass driven due to the low end frequencies being boosted, because this is what we thought submerged sounds were like. Instead when listening tot he sounds we had got I realized the sounds had more high frequencies, so instead I boosted these and the bass to not only create a similar sound but to achieve better clarity int he audio.  Altogether after settling on a sound and recordings I gradually put the sounds together and created a good sense of build up in the activity.  What I found most useful from the taught audio workshops was the use of presets and latch mode, these both made my work a lot quicker in production but also consistent. For instance when editing the EQ and applying Reverbs etc when I settled on settings a saved them as a preset to be applied throughout the piece. Latch mode helped me edit quickly, editing certain effects settings in real time with the audio. This was as quicker method I was shown by my sound tutor, instead of before where I edited  each key frame individually.

The film was more challenging to produce that the audio piece, as creating the sense of place of the fish bowl visually was very difficult. We wanted to portray the point of view of the fish and its space realistically and as interesting as possible. We tried filming from various angles throughout he glass and even putting the camera in the empty bowl itself and also balancing the bowl between two chairs and filming beneath the bowl. These methods didn't turn out great as the glass made the image very distorted and blurry.  To compensate this I looked into methods I could edit in After Effects to make the film focus the fish and make it from its perspective. We filmed some handheld point of view shots of the party, just tilting the camera quickly and in movement like fishes would do but keeping it visually interesting. To edit this further I created an orange glow around the frame in After Effects. Following a tutorial on Youtube on how to composite fire I manipulated the techniques to put it around the frame. This technique worked really well and achieved the aim we wanted from he fishes perspective, it made the point of view shots more interesting to view. 

After viewing the film Rumble Fish after being formed of its interesting black and white aesthetics and where the fish is in colour. We figured that this would make the non POV shots of the fish more interesting and highlighting the fish as the subject matter. However this was decided in post production and our planning let us down.  Although the effect worked well in the end product after a large degree of editing, we have a problem with the red colour scheme of the student flat. Wide shots of the room or fish bowl were hard to edit, the effect would work but the chairs would be in colour. This led to many shots being discarded and some being all black and white, but we felt that the images still worked as many of the shots you couldn't really see the fish. This is evidence that we need to plan the productions more effectively. We also found the various tutorials and critical review very helpful in refining our ideas and techniques. After receiving very positive feedback in the final critical review from both our tutors and our peers we felt very strongly about our work. Many agreed that the film worked and was both interesting and amusing. However negatives were found and we totally agree. We found that the film was too linear and narrative, it should focus more on the fish which people found more interesting. Many of the shots were not needed and filled out the film. We then edited this in a very tight time frame which led to not much improvement, however the main things we changed was removing a fair few boring shots of the party scene and tightening up the edit and sound. If we had more time I would have liked to have removed the toilet ending as believe this could have been done through a single sound effect. 

This project has been a huge learning curve for me, especially with planning, organization and research. Although I think I have learnt most from the audio project and engaging with an alternative form of media that is just audio. Due to us having experience in video I think we both put a lot more time and planning into the audio piece which is why it turned out a stronger piece of work in the end. We planned the audio piece and drafted ideas in more depth than the filming also, so next time on a project I think with the same amount of planning and effort I think I could create a great piece of work.

As a team, overall there is no criticism, we both worked really well together and both our creativeness is visible in the final piece. Working in separate role worked  really well as well, this meant we spread the effort out across all areas and not just in one place and this is visible in the finished work. I think the main criticism is just planning on both our parts, time wasn't an issue and in that sense our time planning was great as we didn't rush the project. I believe the film needed more storyboarding and planning to keep to the brief, achieve our aims and overall run smoothly.