Sound – Evaluation

My outcomes for Sound aren’t all they could be, in large part because Premiere lost a number of the files I was working on, and I ran out of time to recreate them. But I can talk through where I went right or wrong and what I could have done better all the same.

Foley Sound

This outcome is the main one that’s evident on my blog and, obviously, since it’s finished, the one I’m happiest with. We were given a clip with the sound taken out, specifically concerning dinosaurs, and had to use stock noises/noises we made ourselves to recreate the sound effects. It was a good introduction to the subject, and helped me grasp the workings of Premiere better for future projects. I can’t say I’m too unhappy with the way I did anything in this project, though I had to remake it from the ground up when it failed to save in Premiere.

Sampling Song

For the next few weeks after the Foley Sound project, we were tasked with making a song using, in some regard, a sample from a movie or TV show. It was the first time we had used GarageBand on the course, and the first time I personally had ever used it seriously. I let myself get off track with this one and spent a large amount of time playing with the different instruments and trying chords to see what worked, but I came up with a serviceable enough song in the end. At the time of writing this I still need to upload it, as I couldn’t figure out how to save it as a file YouTube would recognise, but if there’s any changes I would make they would be to play less by ear to get more precise timing on the beats and to actually integrate my sample of choice more.

Plant-based Diet Information

This was arguably the main project of the unit, and the only one I can fairly confidently say I didn’t finish, as it was so heavily tied with my Digital Animation project, the many development issues of which I detailed in that unit’s evaluation. The general idea was that it would be a recording of me reading the script with sound effects to accompany what’s happening on-screen added in post. But my first attempt to record the script was done on a free piece of software I downloaded onto my phone for the exact purpose, which I wasn’t able to port onto my computer and which has now been essentially lost in the aether forever. This was in all honesty a stupid choice for me to make, and one which came about because I kept putting off renting out the necessary equipment until it was too late. If I were to do this project again I would start from the ground up, with an actual sound recorder set up and a viable way to port it.

Audio – Time Management Plan

Week 1 – Dinosaur Foley Task

Week 2 – Song Sampling Task

Week 3 – Song Sampling Task completed

Week 4 – Planning for plant-based audio

Week 5 – Recording plant-based audio

Week 6 – Editing plant-based audio

Audio – Brief Parameters

Project Goal

To inform people about the benefits of a plant-based diet

Audience

People who may be interested in plant-based or vegetarian diets

Equipment Needed

Sound recorder, headphones, editing software

Tone

Light, informative

Where would it be shown?

YouTube

Length

Short, 1-2 minutes

Digital Animation – Outcome/Evaluation

This isn’t finished, but it is probably the most I’m getting out of this project. I’ll talk through what exactly went wrong.

Animation

The keyframe animation was done in Photoshop. This was a mistake. While the video as it stands is mostly just a jumbled mess of frames, you can see the ones at the beginning linger a little longer. This is the result of my attempts to sync the animation with the audio, which proved to be near impossible. I couldn’t say if Adobe Animate has better facilities for this sort of thing, but it would probably be a bigger help than Photoshop.

Audio

The audio is complete, but I cannot at this time access it. I kept forgetting to rent out a sound recorder, so recorded the script using cheap software on my phone. Whether I would have been able to port it across at any point is unclear, but I certainly wasn’t able to move it to a Mac using an Android phone. If I’d had a little more time I probably could have figured it out, but I don’t have a little more time, which brings me to my third point.

Time Management

It’s easy to say that the project was doomed from the start entirely because of how I was doing it, but it would likely have been salvageable to a point if I’d managed my time better. Judging by the recording of the script, the video would have come out to 3 minutes or so in length, which is ambitious even if I’d been doing everything perfectly. There are nearly 100 admittedly poorly-drawn frames in the video above, and still more that needed doing. I should have accounted for this and either downscaled the project or spent more time on it.

Conclusion

I’d mark this down as a failure, but one I think I can learn from if given the chance. I’m not any good at art or animation on the best of days, and this was the result of the worst of days. In future I will make an effort to keep focus, understand the scale of a project and make sure I know what I’m doing with the software I’m using.

Sound – Foley Sound

We were given a video and told to find sound effects to match it.

The first scene to add sound to was a dinosaur walking into water. I found sounds effects of footsteps on gravel and water splashing for when the dinosaur enters the water. Once they were timed to what was happening on-screen, I filled the spots of silence with the sound of a running current.

The next scenes all share the same setting, so I added the sound of birds chirping running all the way through, at different levels for each scene. This scene in particular is a group of dinosaurs eating leaves while a tree falls, so I added the sound of a tree falling and ran some rustling leaves through it.

Next is a scene of a dinosaur digging. I couldn’t find any noises of animals rapidly digging, so the effect used here doesn’t match up as well.

Finally was a dinosaur cracking an egg open. The only sound effect I could find to fit this one was too short, so there’s some repetition, but it matched up fairly well.

Digital Animation – Research

I have looked into a range of different animations talking about plant-based diets to try and influence the style I intend to go with.

This video is probably the most common type of informative animation you’ll see, following a style popularised by channels such as Kurzgesagt. It has a colourful, minimalist art style with some more simplistic and repetitive animation to represent what is being said by the narrator. Probably most notable about this style is that all the moving parts are made up from relatively simple shapes, and make strictly segmented movements. It’s an evolution of South Park’s papercraft style, if anything.

This video employs a sort of rustic, indie style, making use of detailed drawings and hand-drawn lettering. There is also notably no narrator in this video, and it instead relies entirely on the visuals to get its point across, with the only sound being music and various sound effects that coincide with the delivery of new information.

This is one of the most popular styles of animations, and more than likely the one I am going to employ. There are no specific examples I can find in this style that talk about plant-based diets, but the above video should work as a baseline for what the style is. The Casually Explained channel has 2,000,000 subscribers, and this particular video, as of the time I’m writing this, has 2,726,752 views, despite how lacking it is in the way of presentation. If done well, this type of video (which I’ll be calling the ‘shitty infographic’ from this point forward) has no particular need of high visual quality, instead relying entirely on the quality of the writing and the personality of the narrator. Almost all ‘shitty infographic’ videos fall under the comedy genre, because it’s not expected to be taken incredibly seriously. It usually delivers the necessary information, but it does so amidst various jokes made both by the narrator and by the visuals.

Digital Animation – Brief Analysis

Did you achieve what you set out to do?

No.

Did you have to learn a new skill?

I learned more about keyframe animation in Photoshop.

Did you have any challenges/obstacles to overcome?

I have very little practical artistic skill, and had to work around that by playing into a specific genre of video.

Did you succeed?

In terms of the style, yes.

What would you do differently if repeating this project?

I would organize myself better and make more of an effort to complete the animation.

Are there any new skills/techniques highlighted during this project that you feel you need to master?

I could manage my time better to produce a finished product.

Audio – Brief Analysis

Did you achieve what you set out to do?

No.

Did you have changes to make?

I more than likely would have done, but the project wasn’t finished.

Did you have to learn a new skill?

I had to learn how to use GarageBand.

Did you have challenges/obstacles to overcome?

My biggest obstacle was managing my time effectively against the other projects I had.

Did you succeed?

No.

What would you do differently if repeating this project?

I would more effectively manage my time so I could come up with a finished product.

Are there any skills/techniques highlighted during this project that you feel you need to master?

I would be interested in using GarageBand more in the future.

Visual Communication – Brief Analysis

Did you achieve what you set out to do?

Yes.

Did you have any changes to make/if so, what were they?

While everyone else was on work experience, I was one of those who stayed behind to put the timeline together/make necessary changes to the design of the timeline (namely the 80s and 90s). I also put together the full list of college principals after finding a blank spot in the late 80s.

Did you have to learn a new skill?

Nothing I did was totally new to me, though I did use Photoshop more extensively than I have in the past.

Did you have challenges/obstacles to overcome?

Yes.

What were they? Did you succeed?

As mentioned before, there was a gap in the list of principals. To resolve this, I looked for senior members of staff who had been around at the time to help me with the specifics. There was also an issue with blending the visual styles of the 80s and 90s. I ultimately believe I could have done this better, but I’m happy with what came out all the same.

What would you do differently if repeating this project?

I could have spent a little more time on the actual designs for the timeline.

Are there any new skills/techniques highlighted during this project that you feel you need to master?

There’s nothing I particularly can think of in this regard.

Brief

Project Launch: 25/02/19

Project Start: 25/03/19

Project End: 17/05/19

Hand In Date: 24/05/19

Summative Assessment: 27/05/19

Parameters

-Time

-Audience

-Material

-Cost

-Cognitive

-Intellect

-Understanding

-Motor Skills