Cognition? more like Blognition

Christi called me in to do a days sound recording as his guy was unavailable, and I had also leased the location for that scene. Having worked on all previous projects with Christi, it was great to have the gang back together, as him and Joe are very enjoyable to work with. As the characters were seated in one place booming was relatively easy, and I made a rig, tying the boom pole to the rafters so I only had to direct it with one hand and bore none of the weight. The males voice carried much more than the females and I had to attenuate some of his shouted lines to get an even balance.

Shoot Diary

Whilst on-set I made sure to note down the problems that occurred after shooting each scene. The following is an expanded transcript of said issues. 

Tuesday 17/03/14

Scene: 2

Some heavy rain nearly delayed the initial shoot, but once we got under tree cover and it died down a little. Due to the skeleton crew I had to boom op and mix, which was difficult as the actor started from a distance and got closer, shouting all the while which made levels unpredictable. Manoeuvrability of the boom pole in the trees was also difficult. 

For the first few slates the cameraman didn’t check to confirm the sound was also rolling causing me to miss some of the marking. We also had to pause shooting several times for passing planes.

Dialogue shouted, so levels were unpredictable at times, difficult to compensate w. boom

Nature of shots + tree manoeuvrability meant I was initially distant from actor

Had to pause several times for passing planes

Scene: 7

With a limited window of light remaining due to the scene taking place just before dark there was a hurry to get all the shots in time. I recorded some takes of running, swinging the boom along side the actors feet as he went, but positioning of the camera and crew wasn’t ideal, especially with the cameraman running alongside for a steadi-cam tracking shot generating extra footsteps.

Hope to use Friday to capture properly miced running foley. 

Wednesday 19/03/14

Scene: 11

Set up: x1 boom x2 Radio Mics

Having spent the previous evening configuring radio-mic channels and putting fresh batteries in everything to ensure the day ran smoothly, I was baffled to find the Tascam completely drained when we arrived at the exterior location down the Road. As we were only shooting a relatively short scene here in the morning I hadn't put any spare batteries in the kitbag and had to send someone back to the house to get some. I felt unprofessional keeping the actors waiting, and frustrated since I had taken adequate measures to prevent this exact occurrence.

As the largest day of filming we had extra hands on set, and being relieved of boom op duties was very welcome as i could concentrate on level adjustment. I had the mother and father radio miced up, although in hindsight this was perhaps not the best option as they offered little in the way of wind resistance when they first run into shot. I did make sure to get several boom takes of them also. 

Although I had recce'd this spot it was in the evening, which left me unaware of the daytime activities, so the clank of farm vehicles could be heard intermittently. There was also the usual traffic, plane and helicopter disruptions, but nothing could have prepared me for the inexplicable wailing of a World War 2 air raid siren that wailed out over the hills. Fortunately it didn't last too long.  The Tascam also started getting a strange digital interference, it sounded like a beeping timecode but it was something i couldn't sort out in the time remaining. The SQN also seemed to be draining far more rapidly than it should, which I soon realised was due to the radio mic channels being set to phantom instead of 48v, an oversight I shouldn't have missed given how long i spent configuring them the previous night.

We also had to abandon the main SFX shot of the throat slit due to the time constraints and prosthetic being applied to the wrong side of the neck to the camera angle. 

The change over between scenes was particularly stressful with so few of us, as we had to cater for the actors, take apart the bedroom and replace the bed, put the props and lights in place and also check and maintain our respective equipments in the space of an hour, already running behind from the mornings shoot.

Scene 6

The electrical interference was definitely sourced in the Tascam but I had no idea how or why it was doing it, and so switched to the Zoom H4N I had brought as a spare. When the SQN ran low there was an earsplitting static feedback interference I wasn't prepared for. Though I had a boom op the shouted lines were still difficult to compensate for, I would either adjust the volume dial or attenuate by - 10db.

The cameraman and director improvised some shots based on the available shooting angles in the space, but didn't mark or slate them, which I knew would lead to future syncing difficulties but there was also a rush to complete the scene and get the actors of set so I held my tongue and tried to memorise what the camera set up was for the log sheet.

Thursday 20/03/14

Scene 2 Reshoot

With the director and cameraman unhappy with the footage from the first day the entire scene was re-shot. The impromptu change of location meant I didn't really have a chance to recce it, and it turned out to be an exposed hillside forrest with particularly high winds that day. Though a much more visually stunning set piece than the previous one used, the terrain and long shots required made it too difficult to boom closely. I did try going prone behind some rocks to no avail, and also once the camera was closer up i tried to get in and follow the actor, however walking backwards over rocky terrain whilst trying to concentrate on both meter levels and positioning of the microphone was damn near impossible to do with out falling over or getting the boom in shot so I soon gave up, conceding that ADR would be required for this scene.  

Scene 4

Single mic set up
Though I boomed and recorded this wasn't too problematic as the scene mostly involved 2 characters and I wasn't confined to a corner the entire time. By this stage I was in good practice of turning off my kit the instant it looked like we wouldn't be going for a take right away, such as if the lighting needed adjusting or the director stopped to coach a performance. 

Friday 21/03/14

Scene 1

Hadn't had a chance to recce the lake location so was unaware of the nearby waterfall. The scene did not require dialogue however so I just helped out with applying fake blood and getting the shots.

Scene 11 Pick up

I had hoped to capture some running foley before we got this pick up however the card was full and the computer back at the cottage so I was unwilling to delete anything. I plan to come back at a later date when not pressed for time and capture this location properly. 

The pick up was the throat slit we failed to get the other day, it also didn't require sound, but did require all six of the crew present to get the shot, as we were using a jib, and had a pump rigged to a neck prosthetic to churn out blood. It also started spitting rain so umbrellas were required.

Saturday 22/03/14

Scene 8

Having left the bubble of the set to work the previous night in Sheffield I arrived a little later, to find the rest of the crew making a hasty exit as the cleaner wanted them out of the cottage earlier then anticipated. Though the scene would be non sync sound I had hoped to get a few bytes of bible reading for manipulation in the dream sequences, however due to the situation the cameraman was shut in the lounge with the actors getting the footage as quickly as possible whilst the rest of us packed up and restored the location to its original state. 

Monday 24/03/14

Scene 9

The final day of shooting ran much more smoothly due to having our producer on hand, and the editor there to help out as well. Despite the extra hands i still boomed opped for some of the takes and found myself caught off-guard with shouted lines from time to time. I again attenuated to resolve the levels. 

Very tense scene and immersive to watch unfold, however once again with the rush towards the end the cameraman and director started to neglect slating to get the improvised shots they wanted. Again I wish I had been more vocal about how much of an ache in the collective balls of post-production this makes synching dialogue but alas, I did not. 

After Wrapping I made sure to get foley of all objects used whilst they were still at the location.


Wednesday 26/03/14

Scene 5

Brief dream sequence in the basement that did not require sound, I was mostly just there as a location liason/set hand. As we were using a young actor to be crucified I improvised a measure of comfort we did not offer to our main lead when he was in the same situation by bubble-wrapping his wrists.

All in all it was a challenging shoot due largely to the small crew being stretched too thin. We would find ourselves behind schedule everyday but somehow managed to pull it together and wrap at the intended time. I think Into the Woods left us a little complacent, considering we had all 6 crew members essentially focused purely on the cinematography. I had almost forgotten that no matter how prepared you think you are on set you will always be surprised when a new problem inevitably occurs. 

Lair Barn Recce

When I say Recce I mean we had already booked the location and took all the equipment and props up on the saturday before moving in on monday for a tuesday start, so if it was acoustically unsuitable it was too late at this point anyway. I still tested out the two rooms we would be using and one exterior.

SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY - SOUND Joel Danby Irons                              Home Away From Here                       15/03/14                  Lair Barn - Audio Recce
Lounge and Bedroom Interior Location already confirmed	Traditional Cottage  Lounge Bedroom
Report
Acoustical	Lounge Some reflective surfaces, lots of furniture, bare walls [will be wallpapered for scene] not v. reverberant. Large window Bedroom Beamed ceiling, tiny window. Much furniture to be removed for scene. Quite reverberant!  0.5s echo??
environmental	Strong wind (ext) as house is exposed No traffic, isolated Lighting could be invasive
Surface	Lounge Wooden furniture, leather sofas, paved floor Bedroom Carpeted, very rickety floor boards
Art Department	Clock?? Amy decorating with own items Dresser that head will smash on
Suitability for recording	Lounge fine for dialogue, though unsure if there will be any for that scene Bedroom ok, a little echoey/tinny. depending on camera placement close-miccing could be an issue due to sloped ceiling and number/positioning of cast/crew in the room.    hopefully ADR not necessary but wouldn't rule out
Recommendation have brought 4x radio mics for this scene anyway for extra coverage as may not be able to get close takes from all 5 actors due to time constraints .

SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY - SOUND Joel Danby Irons                              HAFH                         15/03/14 Lair Barn Fake Ext. - Audio Recce
Nearby decrepit farmhouse Adjacent field	Ext. Lair Barn too modern to use exterior, this is down the hill towards the village, has not been occupied for some time.
Report
Acoustical	Field relatively exposed to wind
environmental	Went in evening so cannot account for daytime disturbances. Close to the village though so there is occasional traffic. Most likely still under East Midlands flight path. Heard a few overhead planes
Surface	Grass, stone buildings
Art Department	Lots of run down sheds and barns, creaking wagon door
Suitability for recording	There will be inevitable vehicular interruptions but on the whole dialogue should still be obtainable ADR still strong possibility.
Recommendation Will have to scout again in the daytime to gauge other potential problems.

Sound Equipment List For Shoot

SOUND EQUIPMENT LIST

RECORDER

Tascam HDP2

Zoom H4N

MICROPHONES

Sennheiser 416

Rode NT4

x2 Sennheiser EW112 Radio Mic Kits
Aquarian Audio H2A Hydrophone

MIXER

SQN 5S
Wendt

Accessories

Boom Pole

x4 Battery packs

CF Card Reader
x Many Sound Log Sheets

Additional

x1 Rucksack containing:

Macbook Pro w. Charger & HD

Change of clothes

Sleeping Bag

food

Binbags incase of rain

Major Project Inspirations

The following are films I researched either for the exploitation of the rural, isolated setting the characters inhabit, allusions to cults, or the inclusion of disturbing torture scenes. After identifying and analysing the successful common denominators, these will serve to inform the inspiration for our own approach.


TORTURE

Prisoners (D. Villeneuve, 2013)

Similarly to our film, Prisoners deals with family, captivity and torture. There is ample suspense drawn from the whodunnit mystery of the abductor but also a constant air of dread that envelopes the mood of the film regarding the fate of the girls, and indeed the wrongly imprisoned suspect Alex (Paul Dano) who is tortured in desperation for answers by Hugh Jackman's Keller. The bleak, desaturated cinematography combined with Johann Johannson's starkly ambient score has an unnerving resonance that reflects the psychology of the characters as they deal with this horrible situation.



Only God Forgives (N. Winding Refn, 2013)

I found Only God Forgives to be entirely an exercise in mood. With minimal dialogue and little narrative or character development, the film instead uses ambient neon set pieces and Martinez' brooding score create the atmosphere and outlook for the characters.
Much like the rest of the film this disturbing torture scene is hyperstylised and surreal in the way all the women are made to close their eyes. There is tension in the silence it plays out in, interrupted only by the man's screams as he is skewered. Close ups of the acts are used sparingly, giving maximum effect as it leaves the rest to the imagination, cutting away to other people in the room and letting the sound fill in the rest.
Martinez noted (2014) "The audience will look to the music and sound and images to get its cues if [the characters in the film] don’t say anything. There are three stoics in this film who are not emotionally very demonstrative."I don't think I would have enjoyed the film without his score, with notable thai influences it holds the piece together and is suitably dark.

Martinez, C. (2014). The accompanist: Cliff Martinez on scoring for Soderbergh, Winding Refn et al.Sight and Sound. [online] Available at: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/accompanist-cliff-martinez-scoring-soderbergh-winding [Accessed 1 May. 2014].


Under The Skin (J. Glazer, 2013)

Similarly to Only God Forgives, this is a mood oriented piece with scarce dialogue. It is reflective and expressive primarily through the excellent sound design of Johnnie Burn, and Mica Levy's chilling, modernist score. Making use of live and processed instrumentation, her strings are at times both seductive and sinister, befitting of Scarlett Johansson's character. The cinematography is both bleak and breathtaking, reflecting Glazer's background in music videos, with intimate close-ups and the most extreme long-shots used to depict the isolation and loneliness of the characters and setting.

The film features a lot of natural interactions with non-actors using hidden cameras. And much of the sound captured was natural as well, with Burn disguising microphones as headphones and an umbrella to covertly obtain the city's natural ambience."I got a hacksaw out, chopped that off and stuck the microphone in its place. I went and tried it down Oxford Street and it's great because people obviously don’t expect an umbrella is a microphone, so I spent a good week or two wandering around Glasgow just pointing my umbrella at things."

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/19187/1/how-to-create-an-alien-soundscape
http://dazed-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/article-files/19187-UTS-SD-W-24-rvsd.pdf

This article offers a great deal of insight into their production process, how they used an anechoic chamber to create the void where Johansson devours her victims and includes a timeline pdf so you can see how the project developed and unfolded.

Burn, J. (2014). How to create an alien soundscape Under the Skin's sound designer and music producer on how they created an ethereal symphony. Dazed. [online] Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/19187/1/how-to-create-an-alien-soundscape [Accessed 3 Mar. 2014].




Game of Thrones S03E02

Game of Thrones has never been one to shy away from gore, but this torture scene goes for subtlety instead. Similarly in our film the person being tortured does not know why this is happening, and the silence here lets the dread and confusion of the character be conveyed.




Kill List (B. Wheatley, 2011)

Kill list served as a big inspiration for Into the Woods, and I already mentioned the torture scene in a previous post, but I will reiterate here.

This scene is made all the more tense by its use of silence in the score, and the subsequent impact sounds are all the more painful in their loudness. The visuals are sparing with the close ups, leaving most of the hand-maiming to just out of frame until the money shot. As with Sightseers (2012) Martin Pavey's sound design in Wheatley's films leaves little to the imagination, with gore and impact sounds foregrounded prominently in the mix, something I tend to emulate in my own works.


Frontiers (X. Gens, 2007)

Frontiers is brutal and unforgiving with it's torture, which is beyond gratuitous. It is similarly committed by a quaint family (who turn out to be Nazis) in a rural location. It becomes a relentless bombardment of nastiness towards the end but is well executed on the whole despite a rigid following of genre conventions.




Inbred (A. Chandon. 2011)

Though a ludicrous exaggeration of rural Yorkshire (it was filmed not far from my hometown), the performances add a great deal of realism to the film and manage to elevate it above b-movie status. I did find some of the foley/mixing to sound a little artificial once my attention was drawn to it, and the score was fairly typical. The film was frustrating in that the characters made stupid decisions resulting in their deaths which is horrors most annoying cliche.




Irreversible (G. Noe 2002)

The Film effectively tells the story achronologically, with the brutal firehydrant murder becoming mercifully justified once the rape is revealed to have been the reason for it. The rape is horrible, unfolding in one long unbroken take with the camera bringing the audience to floor level. This scene also unfolds in brutal silence, and the harsh reality of her powerlessness is made all the worse when someone enters and walks away from the scene.




Reservoir Dogs (Q.Tarantino 1992)

In this infamous scene the torture of a cop is juxtaposed with Mr Blonde (Michael Madsen)'s psychotic dancing to  'Stuck in the Middle With You' on the radio. The camera pans away as his ear is sliced of with a razor, leaving the action itself to the audiences imagination.





True Detective (C. Fukunaga, 2014)

By far the most captivating television series I have possibly ever seen, True Detective follows a murder investigation spanning twenty years in rural Louisiana. Despite the murders and disappearances having ties to a satanist cult the focus of the show is very much on the fractious relationship of Marty (Woody Harrelson) and Rust (Matthew Mcconaughey). The character development and the way the narrative unfolds through analepsis is enthralling as the gaps from their stories are gradually filled in. The show is quite self aware and celebrates and subverts the tropes of the detective/thriller genre. The Music is brooding, and builds suitable tension and can be accordingly disturbing. The sound design manipulates the atmosphere of the swampy environments rife with crickets to the point it becomes hallucinatory. The Yellow king's house is very isolated and as creepy as they come, and hopefully we will be able to capture a similar essence in our own location. Finally this masterful technical craftsmanship is one of the most impressive feats in recent television, a 6 minute tracking shot in one take. wow.

Hannibal (2013-)

Though the show's frequent gruesome tableaus push suspension of disbelief that such murders could be so common place away from any sense of realism, the world these characters inhabit has an entirely dream [nightmare] like quality about it. Much of the exposition comes in the for of hallucinatory visions and suggestions, easing the audience into the subjective experience of Will Graham's (Hugh Dancy) fractious mind. The cinematography is at times, astounding, but has a constantly bleak and foreboding tone about it, especially evidenced by the stark colour palette. That is, at least until we enter Hannibal's (Mads Mikkelsen) sanctuary. Like the character, it is dark, with a rich warmth that denotes his taste for the finer things, disguising the desires for his true taste. His cooking scenes are shot with playful, mouth-watering gratuity, as he fixes up rare cuisines that only the audience are privy as to the true ingredients.
These scenes are generally complimented with elegant classical music. But what really sets this show apart from other killer-related shows is the sound design throughout the rest of the episodes. A constant air of discomfort is established through eerie, disjointed percussion. Subtle at times with thumps, chimes and rattles and unrelenting at others with dissonant strings, synth and harp notes thrown in the mix to add to the unease, which compliments the cerebral nature of the show's characters and the psychological games at play.
As with 'Into the Woods' I hope to use percussion in a similar fashion, to generate unease and to facilitate tension as necessary.



Berberian Sound Studio (P. Strickland, 2012)

As both a sound designer and a fan of directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci this was a joy to watch, not only for the reverence for the Italian giallo genre on display, but the way in which the craft of sound mixing on analogue technology was shot with such lingering affection. Much of the psychological tension is highlighted through a diagetic score the characters impose on their own film, of which we see very little. The horror instead comes through suggestion as fruit and vegetables are brutalised by foley artists, something I myself experienced working on a film last year.

Basement Recce

SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY - SOUND Joel Danby Irons                              Home Away From Here                 01/03/14 Basement - Audio Recce
697 Abbeydale Road Friends House	Large interior space. They built a bar in the next room which would be a green room and great for a wrap party! The room itself is around 4x4 metres and has furniture (including ping pong table!) that would have to be removed
Report
Acoustical	Very Low ceiling, bare concrete walls and floor, some carpeting there but would likely be removed. A little reverberant/tinny.
environmental	Adjacent room gets some of the traffic sounds from Abbeydale road, not much can be done about this. Heating/gas will occasionally come on but during shoot will have occupants out of the house to ensure this doesn’t disrupt any takes.
Surface	Slightly gravelly, concrete floor. Good scuffling sounds.
Art Department	Already table and chair that the scene requires Also a hook on the ceiling, hung by wrists instead of tied to chair? Pipes, atmospheric creaking
Suitability for recording	The low ceiling will make booming very tight, and the acoustics do not make for the cleanest sound, especially as some lines will be screamed Consider possibility of ADR
Recommendation Use Radio Mics as well as boom for maximum coverage in the confined spice.