February 2016 – Working to Animation

February 26, 2016Adrian Bradley Rayworth No Comments

Introduction into Sound Design – (L1)

Working in sound design I know and understand that there’s a lot more than just recording sound, sampling it and syncing it to on screen visuals. It takes great time management when working to deadlines, using the best of what you’ve got to the best of your ability, fixing and cleaning up audio, editing audio, being ‘creative’ expanding your skillset constantly and knowing what to use and how to use it.

I’ve recently been looking at a book by Philip Moroz a sound designer/sound editor who’s worked on various forms of short films, working as a sound designer, boom operator, dialogue editor, sound mixer and more! You can check out his website and other portfolio’s here:

-http://www.philipmoroz.co.uk/index.html – Website

-http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6841585/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 – IMDb

-http://www.linkedin.com/pub/philip-moroz/81/916/5a0 – Linkdin

It’s not so much his media work that I’ve been researching but more the book he wrote on sound design. “To Become A Sound Designer”.

Within the book there are “5 Useful Tips For Upcoming Sound Designers and Sound Editors” where it states five key tips from Moroz’s book and also a bit of insight on how to best utilise them. The five key tips Moroz states are; Motivation, Using What You’ve got, Being Versatile, Clip Gain Automation and Ways to get work. I will construct a detailed review of the book, and how it can be useful for up and coming sound designers like myself trying to break out into the professional world.

I will go into more detail about the skills that a sound designer needs and how he/she needs to utilise them properly more in another blog post. But for now here’s my knowledge on the wide range of skills a freelance sound designer needs:

– A passion for sound: (yes. really) it’s important to have a strong passion for all sound and music, every sound designer seemed to fall into the profession their own way, but a lot of them were either composers or already had a passion for recording and working with sound and audio in general.

– A good ear: being able to analyse sound and pick frequencies (it’s recommended that sound designers have their ears tested at least once a year to prevent from hearing loss) It’s also vital to have a critical ear, as stated by Aaron Marks (also a sound designer) “While hearing IS important, having a good ear is something a little different than having decent hearing – it’s the ability to recognise and be able to distinguish various elements of a sound. Clapping your hands together in an enclosed space will generate 4 distinct ‘sounds’. The ‘attack’ which is the sound of the hands coming together, the ‘body’ where it intensifies and reaches its maximum volume, the ‘echo’ as the sound bounces off another surface and returns to your ears, and the ‘decay’ where the sound decreases in volume to nothing. Tuning your ear to detect and analyse each of these types of sound is part of what makes up a ‘good ear”

– Capturing audio: It’s part of the sound designers job not just to capture audio but to capture ‘quality’ audio, this means to record the correct sound that you need to recreate it in a controlled environment, such as a studio. The other method of recording audio/foley is through field recording, which entitles recording the best sounding audio that’s clean and crisp with minimal interference from your surroundings such as wind, cars (if you’re by a road) and other people.

– Equipment management: Obviously sound designers work with various amounts of gear including software and plug ins used in DAW’s such as Pro Tools and also mixer’s, microphones and more. Which is the best to use and why? how they’re going to record the cleanest audio possible, what difference is there between microphones (Dynamic, Condenser, Ribbon)

– The ability to constantly availability to develop your skills and be adept through the constant changing of technology.

– Good communication: sound designers are always working with various groups and clients even if it working for a post-production house or freelance. So it’s imperative to communicate well with your clients and colleagues and keep a good level of professionalism at all times.

– Time management: It’s important for all sound designers to manage their time well, setting deadlines for certain sections of projects to be finished at certain times. For instance you set a time where you need to have all the voice overs recorded and edited by, when all the scene’s need to have all the audio edited and synced and when the mix has to be completed by, whilst leaving yourself enough time for any edits to be made that will be suggested by the animator.

– Being able to multitask: as a freelance sound designer, it’s basically garunteed that you’ll have more than one project on the go at any one time! which also links in nicely to the previous point on time management, where you will need to manage several projects at one time, and set time aside for each one so you can can all of them done on time! instead of just focusing on one and forgetting about the rest (with this project I will be working on two different animations simultaneously).

– An understanding of business and financial independence: working as a freelancer its important to have a general understanding of business to promote yourself and be able to pay yourself a sustainable wage.

– Negotiation: obviously the perfect deal isn’t always going to happen, they’re going to be differences and arguments, it’s good to be able to have key negotiation skills to try and limit the amount of possible conflict to as previously stated to keep it professional, but obviously as a freelancer there are certain terms and agreements that need to be met…. such as payment.

Obviously there is a lot more to be said about the role of a sound designer, and as this blog continues I will delve into more matters such as interviews of other sound designers and their professionalism within such aspects such as project management, recording audio, gear, working with clients, getting the work and more.

I think part of the blog I will build up a portfolio of information that every sound designer needs, sort of a portfolio of professionalism.

February 26, 2016Adrian Bradley Rayworth No Comments

Assignment of Copyright (L2)

When being commissioned to produce sound for a visual piece such as in this case to animation. It is important to know who owns the copyright of the material that your working on and getting the legal consent from the owner of the copyright to share the rights with you.

Under UK law in Copyright when it comes to the arts there are certain acts within the work that are restricted to anyone but the copyright owner, these acts are:

– Copying the work;

– Issuing copies of the work to the public;

– Renting or lending the work to the public;

– Performing, playing or sharing the work in public;

– Communicating the work in public; and

– Making an adaptation of the work

As by the Intellectual Property Office: Copyright Notice: Assignment of Copyright.

It is an infringement of copyright to do any of these listed things without the consent of the original copyright owner, to obtain permission from the original copyright owner you must obviously ask permission and permission is normally in contract/license form. This is known as an assignation form.

An assignation form is part of a binding legal contract and basically assigns the rights from one party to another, again in this case it would be between the animator and myself, sometimes through a 3rd party.

There are different types of assignment processes:

Partial Assignment – this is where the copyright owner can either assign the whole or part of the copyright to a person so in this instance the animator could assign a copy to someone like myself a sound designer to do work on the piece for the use of production. This is normally done through licensing. There are also restricted acts within the contract which the assignee isn’t entitled to do, if they did this would be a breach in the contract. Acts such as playing the work publicly. These acts are restricted so only the original copyright owner has right to them. Although restricted acts are allowed to the assignee under a new license. The payment for these licenses doesn’t always have to be money. In this instance this would accurate as the payment or consideration can be provided in services. As a sound designer this is how the license would be contracted.

Elective Assignment – this is where the copyright owner chooses to transfer the whole of the copyright over to another person, this can be done by sale or the owner can simply giving it to a new owner. As stated by copyright law for the assignment to be valid there must be a form of written documentation signed by both the original copyright owner. The original owner must also make reference to his/her ‘intellectual property rights’. The court will examine the documentation to see the intention of the assignment in case of any dispute between the assigner and the assignee. It is common for the assignee to make a nominal payment to the assigner which will be agreed and stated within the documentation (this can be as little as £1) or consideration (also known or understood as a form of payment) in future royalties, this is to ensure that the contract can be enforced if the assigner breaches the agreement. There are also clauses within this contract with can lead to reversion (the copyright reverting back to the assigner).

Assignment by Reversion – this is where an assignment contract can revert the rights from the assignee back to the original copyright owner/the assigner, if certain criteria’s aren’t met such as a breach of the contract by the assignee or if the assignee’s company goes into liquidation.

In short, an assignation form is used if the copyright owner would like to distribute the ownership or part ownership of the copyright to another party, it gives the rights to copy, sell, distribute the work from one party to another, it includes all the details of the agreement within the contract such as:

– Name

– Description of work

– The assignor

– The assignee

– When and where it will be signed

– Declaration from the original copyright owner that the work they are assigning is their own, and not borrowed from other sources

– Stating that no-one else in the world has the rights to this

– Restricted acts

– Clauses

– Consideration

February 14, 2016Adrian Bradley Rayworth No Comments

Area’s of Research

Here is a list of my first key area’s of research for this project.

Sound Designers and their;

– Workflow/ project management – how they work and manage all their projects and keep everything organised. I’ll do this by reading articles and journal posts that many professionals in the industry do, where they demonstrate their production method and progression of their work, as as I believe at the moment professional sound designers when working on smaller scale projects will have many on the go at the same time.

– Production Technique – how they create their sounds through foley, edit mix and process them. What types of plug ins do they use for both mixing and composition, why do they use these? When composing music is it better to record live artists or compose via computer based emulations of instruments? or is it a case of one is used to the latter due to time constraints.

– Use of sample packs and licenses – with the ongoing availability to sample packs, vsts, and sound fx available online, I read that some sound designers do sometimes use these to save time. But what are the legalities to using these sample packs and why would you use them instead of creating and using your own sound library. I will look at some of the top brands of sample packs such as samplephonics and investigate their licensing agreements to the use of their samples, as well as researching sound designers/composers that use samples generated from these packs and why.

– Digital Audio Workstations – Not all audio engineers use the same DAW, but whats the industry standard in sound design and composure and why? do the have specific parameters which enable sound designers and composers to work more efficiently or is it just down to subjectivity and personal preference. I will look at articles that deconstruct DAW’s such as Pro Tools, Logic and Cubase and also read into interviews of professional sound designers and investigate why they use these DAW’s not just because ‘It’s the industry standard’ as any tool used correctly can provide the best results.

February 14, 2016Adrian Bradley Rayworth No Comments

Learning Outcomes

Here below are a list of my desired learning outcomes of this project.

L1)

Learning what adaptive skills a sound designer needs in relation to working with animation professionally working with professional clients

I will learn the professional skills I need as a sound designer and composer working on animation/film, what software is used? at what db level do I need to produce the final mix to? levels of compression? Also the production method of producing sound design and music to these various pieces of media. I will achieve this by researching into various sound designers, composers and mix engineers and looking at their production method and how they produce their content. Also how much content they must produce and to what time scale they must produce it.

L2)

Learn enough about Copyright and Intellectual Property Law to be able to properly describe how to distribute my music professionally and get paid for it in a professional environment.

As I want to produce music to animation/film etc. I need to understand what copyright law is within composure and how it works, and how I can get paid for my work, and other various forms of licensing such as a User License Agreement and an End of User License Agreement, Music Publishing Licenses and Recording Licenses, also selling the license to an animator/producer.Be able to produce a professional standard of work to compare to professional standards of work.

L3)

Learn how to produce a professional standard of work in comparison to the works of other sound design professionals, Judged by industry professionals such as my tutors.

Matching my work to the works of other sound designers/composers and mix engineers and making sure my work is of the same standard as they have produced. This will be measured by the quality of the sounds used and music scored, how close the synchronisation is between audio and visuals, how consistent the quality of the work is, so for the lack of a better term that there are no mock ups through the piece. Finally the quality of the mix, how clear it is in comparison and how it pans out throughout and if it’s hitting the right levels for broadcasting.

L4)

Learn how to write up a license agreement for sound design and music.

As a freelance sound designer/composer etc, I will be responsible to write up my own contracts, licenses and agreements for the use of my work. So I’ll need to learn how to correctly license my work and get paid for it in future instances. Such as writing invoices, selling the licenses and such, and the contracting of musicians to record in the studio for writing a score.

L5)

Broaden my knowledge on PRS licensing and how I can use it to my advantage to avoid my work being stolen, replicated or used without my consent, and also being paid for my work.

L6)

Broaden my knowledge in editing within sound design

I wish to broaden my knowledge of sound design and using alternate methods of recording foley to capture the right sound or as Grant Bridgeman says even though it’s normally in film “capturing the performance” I will look at methods sound designers have used to replicate sound for visuals and how they did and try and adapt these methods to my own to achieve a more professional standard of audio.

February 14, 2016Adrian Bradley Rayworth No Comments

Cue Sheets and SFX

Here bellow are the cue’s designed for the animatics so far:

Guardian

Satsuma:

Although a cue sheet has not been written yet between myself and the animators they’ve given me a brief list of sound effects required for the project which WILL be extended upon.

SFX

Footsteps throughout, some further away. Crunching on leaves in the park scene.
Post box opens? Creaking?
Mail being picked up
Satsuma roll, hits the curb.
Bike sounds, spokes turning, chains?
Bicycle bell
Oranges falling out of the basket
People laughing or talking in background (park)
Bench noise, as he sits down.
Sighing
newspaper opening and turning pages.
Peeling an orange?
Sound of throwing an orange.
Picking up papers
throwing papers down.
Café background noise, people talking etc.
Sighing (café)
Sitting down on the chair (girl café)
putting the orange down
guy sighing
girl footsteps
tree rustling as the film finishes?