Weekly Broadcasting and Podcasting

For the broadcasting class at AI I had the privilege to lead a team of students to create weekly radio broadcasts.  Each broadcast had a certain amount of advertisements needed as well as new content every week based on our format that we chose.  For my team we chose comedy radio play style piece about a team of audio engineers stuck in space, and the adventures that they went on.  We had to create scripts for the ads and for the play weekly, and the amount of time we had to broadcast grew each week as well.  It took a couple weeks to really get everyone on the team involved and working smoothly, but when we hit our stride we got better and better in all aspects.  It was great to help lead the team in a creative direction, as well as watching us grow together as a team.  We spent a lot of time each week making sure everything was top quality, and at a rapid pace.  There were many strict deadlines which we had to meet, and as we went on it got easier and easier to meet those requirements.  Working with fellow students and voice actors was great to add a unique flair to our piece.  It was probably the most intense 6 weeks of recording that I’ll have at the art institute but it was really important for developing core skills and attention to detail, as well as team work aspects as well.  The use of memory locations within Pro Tools was key for our timing and our success at filling in enough time each week.  While it was highly challenging at times it was also a lot of fun.

Live Sound Recording

 I got to help out some fellow audio students record a live band over at the 702 Lounge just off the strip.  It was really great getting to collaborate with both audio and video students to make a complete, and really nice looking project.  The band we recorded was great and had a variety of instruments from trumpet, to piano, bass, drums, and vocals from the female lead and backup vocals from the trumpet player. They played a mix of jazz and rock songs as well as some original tracks as well. We got there just before the band started so we could set up.  It was a fairly simple set up for the group. We used a DAR to record all of our audio and get our levels, and we used the Rode NT-5 pair set up on opposite sides of the stage to get the proper stereo width of the performance. We then set up a pair of Shure SM-57’s in the back by where we were recording to capture the proper room tone as well as audience sounds.  The thing that took the longest was getting the levels set up properly to capture the bands sound, but once we had that dialed in it was all about getting a good mix during the songs.  My teammates and I took turns mixing songs and getting the level correct for each song the band performed.  After the concert we broke down and then it just took a little touch up in Pro Tools to get the proper sound and to sync the performance to the video we captured.  I’m really happy with how the project turned out.

Location Sound and Video Editing

This is from a group project that I helped work on several quarters ago during my Field Sound Production class.  It was a short film that a fellow classmate had already come up with the script for.  We shot it on a location off campus and I did some boom operation while the filming was going on.  There were two of us doing boom, one for each character to make sure they got the clearest sound quality.  Adding those tracks with the ambience of the camera audio really added to the feel of the piece.  I edited the piece for continuity, which was difficult at times because our shooting was on a tight schedule, so piecing together the script from only a couple takes of each line made it fairly difficult.  I mainly achieved success through using a lot of reaction shots as opposed to just showing each person talking back and forth.  I used a couple sound cuts, as loud sounds are made it really helps make the cut more invisible and flow with the emotion of the piece.  Color correcting for this piece was a lot of fun, and I chose to make it black and white to match a classic mob movie piece.   It was great adding a little bit of film grain in there as a top layer on it to give it the extra spice it needed.  From there I found music beds which were appropriate for the style of shoot we were doing.  It ended up turning out much better than what I originally thought. 

Music Composition for Video

This is a shot of me doing some work in the studio for my Music Scoring for video.  I started out recording live instruments such as guitar, bass, and some acoustic drums.  I used some fairly basic processing using such preamps as the Avalon 737, which adds nice analog warmth to any recording.  From there I added in some different synthesizer patches within Pro Tools to add more layers.  I used a drum machine to add some extra effects to the drum tracks.  I recorded my micro korg as well to have more control over my synth sounds.  Any other instruments such as horns I used my micro korg as a midi controller to punch in the horn instrumentation.  Getting the right reverb on each track to add proper depth and space was very important as well.  The important part was getting the music to add the necessary emotional effect to the video.  Using volume automation I was able to add the necessary dynamic quality to add the punch I desired.  Besides that it just came down to using my vast knowledge of music theory to compose a chord progression and melody that fit along with the piece.  I layered in some different sound effects to add to the mix in slight layers.  This adds greater depth to the mix especially when listening on a nice pair of headphones.  Getting the drums to mesh properly took a good amount of EQ-ing as well as some light compression to get everything to resonate properly and also cut through the mix.  Rhythm helps drive the piece forward to add the exact flair to my video piece.  Adding this music to my film really helped jump the effectiveness of the overall piece soar above and beyond.

Music Composition

I worked on a music composition a couple of quarters ago.  Our parameters for this involved using no musical sounds whatsoever.  This is known typically as Musique Concrete.  It requires a lot of attention to detail and a lot of fine tuning of many sounds to get each sound to function properly within the tune.  I started out by recording a handful of random knickknacks from my garage and bedroom. I used things such as glass bottles, metal water containers, jars of screws and nails, a butane torch, and even the sound of water running.  On top of that we were allowed to synthesize sounds together using an old fashioned Analog Synthesizer, which works on making physical patches to get specific sounds.  I recorded about an hour of different patchwork with that, and that provided me with many of my layers which I used to provide rhythm to the piece.  The fun of music concrete is really manipulating the samples to change their sounds into something completely different than what they originally were.   Using time expansion and compression I took many different sounds and sped them up, and others I slowed down to add more ambience to the piece.  Lining the samples up with each other amongst the whole piece was very time consuming, and it took a lot of creativity to really get some magic to happen.  We weren’t allowed to use any real plug-ins for this project either besides basic EQ and compression.  This added another layer of difficulty in making these sounds stand out without adding any high level effects such as flanging or chorus effects.  Arranging a three and a half minute piece sample by sample is definitely tedious, but the ultimate outcome of the piece was exceptional.

ADR and 5.1 Mixing

 

This is a piece I’ve been working on currently and is coming along quite nicely.  I found a short film online that has some good dialogue in it called Expo.  I gutted the entire piece after gaining permission from the films creator and sound designed the piece from the ground up.  The most important thing for a piece like this is the dialogue, and getting great sounding recordings that match the lips of the characters in the film.  To achieve this you must have your voice actor loop the dialogue until it matches the appropriate tone of the piece and the character they are portraying.  Because all of the characters are in space helmets throughout the piece I am working on, some filtering with EQ must be done to make their voices sound like they are indeed in a helmet.  For the voice of the computer I recorded my own voice for the very short lines, and using elastic audio compressed the time slightly so that the voice sounds more like a computer.  I added some little flanging and some pretty drastic EQ-ing to get the perfect sound.  After listening to it back I find it hard to believe that it was once my voice. Realizing that, I knew that I had done well.  Casting the right voices for the characters is one of the hardest parts about the ADR process.  So far my two actresses for this piece are doing great, and I am excited about the final product.  This will also end up being my 5.1 mixing project which I’m very excited about. 

Sound Design and Music Composition

This is one piece that turned out fantastic despite being given few tools to work with.  The object was to sound design completely from scratch a scene from an old science fiction movie.  We were not allowed to use any canned sounds and everything had to be created using only sound synthesis.  I chose an old classic, War of the Monsters and found the perfect monster fight scene to recreate. 

The most unique part about this piece that I enjoyed doing the most was creating the monsters different roars that they do throughout the battle.  I did this by layering several distorted sounds from the Vacuum plug-in in Pro Tools.  I then modified them by putting them the various pitch shifters, flangers, and to add the larger than life sound I put them through some reverbs.  The results turned out fantastically. 

Creating the ordinary sounds was actually the hardest part of the process.  Without Foley as an option I had to get creative and create footsteps out of different low bass drum pads. With some careful EQ work I managed to get them to sound like real footsteps instead of what they originally were.

For the music I wanted something that would match the otherwise cheesy puppets fighting. With that in mind I composed some fairly basic chord structures that helped move the action forward, and they added the proper tension to the piece.

Given all of the time I put into the project I’m definitely proud that it turned out so well. After sound designing this piece I feel like I can create sounds for any occasion or piece.

Commercial Production Piece

This particular piece of my reel is my Commercial Production.  I came up with the concept of a commercial that makes fun of some of the goofy energy drink commercials out there, especially 5 hour energy drinks.  I recorded all the audio in a pro tools session and I shot, edited, and color corrected the entire piece myself.  The hardest part was getting the voice over to match along with what was happening on the screen.  I found the music on firstcom.com and as soon as I heard it I knew it was the perfect fit for my piece.  I used some goofy wipes throughout it very similar to how that energy drinks commercials work.  It’s definitely a comedic piece.  

 When the main character first drinks his coffee and the black and white editing flips to full color was a lot of fun to put that particular part together.  I edited the piece with Avid Media Composer, a hefty program but I’m very comfortable working within it, and especially color correcting it as well.  The footage was shot with a P2 camera, and didn’t use any audio from the shoot because of the fact that it was to parody energy drink commercials.  I recorded the dialogue for the voice over using Pro Tools 10 and a Sterling Audio ST-51 condenser microphone.  I did some light mixing on the voice and it was ready.  Getting the music at the perfect level was probably the hardest part of the whole thing. I’m very happy with how this piece turned out, and is probably the highest quality editing work I’ve done to date.

Recording an Acoustic Album

This is a snapshot from a side project, which has been consistent for the past several months.  I’ve been recording a local Las Vegas band called Chug-A-Luv, while they’ve been recording an acoustic EP.  While that causes a relatively simple set up, their arrangement is what’s most interesting.  As far as instrumentation goes, there is one guitar, a tenor saxophone, two vocalists, various percussion instruments, and a djembe as their acoustic drum.  They record all original music that ranges from comedy to jazz-rock.

         
 The guitar was recorded with a Neumann U87, the saxophone with an AKG C-414, and the djembe, because of its design was set up with a 414 underneath the sound hole of the drum, one 414 overhead, and a SM57 on the skin of the drum.  That was the way we could most fully capture the full tone of that drum, and was one of the hardest parts of the mixing process as well.  Some difficulties were faced when recording vocal harmonies at the same time, as so comb filtering occurred because of the closeness of the vibrations.  The only way to resolve that was to re-record those particular vocals, which were effected. 

           
For processing on each track I generally added a compressor, an EQ, and a very cool tube warmer plug-in that I have.  Because the djembe consisted of three tracks, getting the balance between the attack on the skin of the drum, the bass from the sound hole, and the depth of it from the overhead.   With a couple nice plug-ins it was quite easy to get the vocals to punch clean through the mix. Then the difficulty is getting the bands natural dynamics to shine through the mix.

Foley and Sound Design: Night of the Living Dead:

Two quarters ago I was a part of a group project whose goal was to completely gut an old Royalty Free film, and rerecord the entire film over again from scratch.  My responsibility for this particular group project was to do all of the Foley work for the project, which was quite a lot to take on for one person.  I began my process on the project by watching the original film two or three times to really understand how it sounded originally, which led me to think of how to make this project better than the original.  After my viewing sessions I started filling out dozens of pages of Foley notes, breaking the film down sound-by-sound. 

When I finally started recording I needed some help from my fellow group members to efficiently create the sound effects.  There were certain aspects of the film, which I would not have been able to recreate in an outdoor environment, even though it would have been preferential to do so.  I wanted the cleanest audio possible so I could change it how I saw fit later on. This is where I had to be very creative, so instead of recording live grass without the video from the movie, I used different kinds of plastic bags for the grass in the film.  After recording these bags I put these footsteps through many different EQ’s and pitch shifters to give the bags a more realistic sound. To record all of the walking in the film, whether it was on wood, carpet, rocks, or plastic bags; I used 2 Sennheiser MKH-416T Shotgun Microphones. Those microphones were recorded straight into Pro Tools, either through my personal Mackie ProFX12 mixing board, or the schools SSL Duality console.

Other things I recorded to help bring the piece to life were things such as distinct clothing movement for each character, a time consuming process but it is necessary for the piece to seem truly realistic.  This was continued in my work by using different kinds of leaves and brush for the movement of trees in different scenes.  My classmates and I broke different kinds of glass for several different scenes of the film as well.  During scenes where characters were killed we got to have fun making their deaths more gruesome than the original film.  When the character Johnny dies by a head injury I layered the sound of a sand bag falling with a hand punching the same sand bag and a foot stomp. With some careful EQ work, some compression and adding some extra bass in with Wave’s R-Bass plug-in I successfully created a nasty crush, which draws viewers into the scene.  One more example of some of the creative things I had to come up with was for scenes with characters being stabbed. 

To create one I used an apple and a small pairing knife.  I stabbed the apple a handful of times to prep it, and then recorded it once its juices were already almost on the surface of the apple.  I layered that sound with the scraping of a trowel, and one more sound in that design was a wet paper towel being squeezed out, which created the perfect squish.

This was one of the most involved projects I’ve been involved with and to see it truly come to life at the end of the project was amazing to see.  All of the fine details involved in creating this piece, from the actual foley work, to the signal processing, and ending with automation and mastering the project taught me a great deal about the post-production process.