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It’s done… visually at least.
Unsurprisingly, my DoP/Editor made it happen. He’s gotten his cuts to work with the music, he’s put the ADR in there for my SM to balance and he’s done all his effects. It’s rendering right now in AE.
We decided to give a good charge towards the end line and just worked overnight. He cut, edited and balanced whilst I sat there supporting him, giving feedback, and working on other assignments.
I personally feel that we haven’t had much exposure to Adobe After Effects in our course though, it seems to be a really good tool.
It’s rather humbling really. I’m sitting here, next to this guy, who’s already put in so much effort, and I realize that I still have so much to learn, and whilst te program may be a good foundation, I honestly think that the program itself is insufficient to produce the level of work I aim to achieve. After this semester, I’m going to try working on some video projects of my own. Small stuff.
Spotify is a new and upcoming program that is gaining popularity on the internet in the field of music distribution… legally.
How it works is that you can search for a song, and stream it. Occasionally, an ad, of about 20 seconds tops, will play between songs. It’s not very common, coming up about once every 5 songs for me. So, the production companies profit are paid through ad revenue, users get access to a very vast music library, of many popular artists, for free, and finally, the program can synchronize with your Facebook, allowing your friends to see what you’re listening to. Then they can comment on it or subscribe to your playlists.
I can see several great benefits to this of course, hitting large audiences easily, it’s legal so there’s incentive to use it, and it’s social. The ads may make or break the program but they do need to make their profits I suppose. It’s interesting, though I’m not sure where the downside is.
So… The ADR recordings weren’t too fantastic.
In one set of recordings, the person assisting the talent by reading out the lines of other characters kept cutting the talent off so we had a lot of trouble isolating the talent’s lines. In another set of recordings, the levels on the Zoom H2 were too low and the sound quality ended up very poor. My Editor has decided to do what he can with it and leave it to our Sound Manager to balance the dialogue, though he’ll put the soundtracks in when the musician sends it over.
The musician has sent a few sample tracks that have been received quite well by the Editor and Director so she’ll be putting the finishing touches on those and then will send us the final pieces.
I’m still waiting for the information regarding the screening to go up, though I have asked Paul Ritchard and he’s said that cast are allowed to attend the screening.
I suppose I’ve reached a lul period. I’m not too worried right now because I trust my Editor almost unconditionally regarding editing so I know he’ll meet the deadline one way or another. It’s not to say that I didn’t have any faith in my team (I’d be doing everyone’s roles if I didn’t have any inkling of faith or hope in them) but my Editor/DoP has been the one person who has been very clear about his abilities and limitations. He’s not a yes-man, he’ll actually think about whether something is feasible before committing to it. That is what I look for in my team for me to trust them. I don’t need a team that’s eager, I need a team that has a measure of their ability to be able to say what they can and cannot do.
We are in our second year, and I feel that if people in the course are still confused toward their professional direction, it may pose problems. For now, I can still understand it, tough I expect some technical standard, but if this sort of mentality continues to third year, I foresee a lot of problems regarding my ability to work with them.
So we’ve finally done all the ADR recording sessions.
There was a slight hiccup wit the musician. The instructions that she’s been getting have been too vague and she’s gotten quite upset. I managed to advise my Chief Editor (who as been in direct communique with her) how to respond in an effort to do some damage control. We’ve managed to keep her on the project and are now proceeding with the edits.
We’re behind schedule in my timetable, because we are scheduled to be burning the DVDs for the cast next week but between the ADR and SFX that my SM needs to pass to my Editor, the musician still redoing the tracks because of a miscommunication and the stress of other deadlines, wed be lucky to have the fine cut by the end of next week (which is important because I leave on the 3rd of June and won’t be able to supervise anything after that).
As a Producer, I think that I’m required to be aware of what all the roles can do. If I am to produce, then I am required to be able to manage, organize and control the team (at least with my style of producing). Doing that effectively means that I must be able to do things such as:
-Estimating the time required for specific tasks
-Facilitating communication between different sections of the production
-Being able to identify what I’m looking for, in a potential member to the production team, to be able to choose the most appropriate person for a task.
I’ve taken note of several things that the musician broguht up, especially in regards to providing reference tracks (which we unfortunately did) so I hope this will be useful in the future.
Not sure if I’ve linked Kevin Alloca’s talk before, and if I haven’t, I fully recommend watching it.
I also recommend Paxon, for those who have not read it. It’s in this sem’s Comms Histories and Tech readings.
(Paxon, P 2010, ‘New Media’, in Mass communication and media studies: An Introduction , Continuum, New York, pp. 151-171)
I think I’ve come to a conclusion regarding a point I mentioned earlier about Demand and Supply theory with Piracy as a factor, especially in regards to the media industry.
Alloca’s talk mentions communities of participation interest. Essentially, the media develops social capital, to be able to have a brand value. Piracy removes the value of the product for its monetary worth due to providing a competition that is very hard for a industry to beat. However, the media develops a community around it. Other advertisers will be interested in marketing to this audience, and the media owners can capitalize on that for profit. Also, there’s merchandizing options for physical goods and/or services. The reason piracy cannot affect that sector as hard is because the pirates do not have the monetary capital to compete in the production of the good. Quality is also an issue. Finally, the law can act easily when outside of the virtual domain.
With reference to:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120430/09032418715/hulu-puts-gun-to-own-head-may-require-users-to-show-proof-pay-tv-subscription.shtml
So it’s quite interesting. Hulu, and Netflix, are definitely examples of media moving to be more accessible and being successful because it doesn’t restrict the audience to a location (their television at home, which is connected to the cable or satellite) and a time (viewable at the convenience of the user). I suppose this is another case of the big companies getting it wrong and believing that if they forced people to pay more for the same product, people would still follow along with it.
I admit, from a marketing perspective, we always talk about the product as if it’s market value was dependent on its quality.
Standard concepts of demand and supply are thrown out the window when piracy is considered. I’ll think about it and write on it later.
First ADR recording session will be on Monday. Hopefully it goes well.
Dog ending is likely not going to make the final cut as the dog obviously doesn’t want to be there. WE’re currently considering our options. Sebastian has confirmed that we have a shot of our protagonist at his desk and it may be possible to use flashbacks to create an ending.
Thus, despite changes, we’re going to have to default to a voiceovered ending.
