POST PRODUCTION PROJECT REFLECTION AND FINAL UPDATE

All in all, this was a majorly fun project to be a part of, having only dabbled in Foley and post production this was a great opportunity to see into the world of sound design, ADR and mixing for film. Looking back at the beginning of this project when Quinn and I started by heading into the city to collect audio assets for crowd ambience and rain sounds, I’m probably most proud of the recordings we collected. Spending hours in the city making sure we came out with something usable meant that we barely had to touch these sounds in post. We recorded each ambient sound far longer than we needed to in order to make sure we got what we came for which also opened up layering options in the future. Initially we were directing the zoom recorder in a way that was picking up too many conversations of the public, so we made adjustments here in order to capture only background ambience. Footsteps were a bit of a challenge as well but after trying a few locations and microphone placements we got what we needed. The rain sounds you can hear in the final mix are an ensemble of water sounds we collected over a number of days including the sound of a water feature in queen street mall, a couple of water falls in Roma Street parklands, a running shower and a running shower on an umbrella. I was very pleased with how these sounds turned out once we layered and EQ’d them in the mix. I was also happy with the levelling of these ambient sounds when jumping from scene to scene. This was something I hadn’t thought of doing until it was brought up in class which made me super excited to go and use this technique and hear the mix shape out into something far more realistic sounding.

If there were anything I’d do differently in another post production project it would be to spend a lot more time on recording, mixing and editing the ADR. Vocals are one of the trickiest things to record let alone trying to record dialogue perfectly in time to a movie scene. We probably rushed this part of the project a little as we had planned to record an enormous amount of Foley in one day. This is where better time management would have made the final asset shine a bit more. Quinn and I being very busy people, managed to keep in contact every day on social media from the get go so we were on top of everything for this project however other commitments did at times get in the way. I think if we had of planned out the Foley sessions into two or three smaller sessions, we would have focused a little harder on this aspect of the project although I am still very pleased with what we managed to pull together.

Speaking of working together, Quinn and I doubled up as a great team for this project. We both hold each other in high regards when it comes to technical ability (even though she crushes me at Ableton) and were able to trust each other with handling the session and delegating smaller tasks that only one of us had to be there for. We were able to divide the work almost evenly (with Quinn as mentioned in previous blogs taking the reins on the sound design and music making). When in the studio we made sure that each of us had a turn at DAW operation and being Foley artist and at no point did ego get in the way with us, it really was easy to get along with each other and I’d gladly work with her again on future projects. Again, the only issues that we did come across were timetable clashes. We were able to get through just about all of these! Perhaps planning two weeks ahead instead of one and consulting a personal calendar would tie up loose ends here.

Overall, I had great experience working on this project and can’t wait for the next one! :)