Category: Communication

So now I have both rough cuts for both projects (Satsuma and Guardian) and from just looking at them I think that Guardian as I suspected is going to be a much easier project to work with. Everything flows smoothly from scene to scene the animators and editors have gotten their timings almost perfect so there not going to change much anymore. I’ve started working on the atmospherics for Guardian to try get the post -production under way and want to have this project finished first as I think it will be easier as communication with the Guardian team is a lot clearer and deadlines always seem to be met on time.

I’ve met with the Guardian team a few times now discussing with them how I plan to approach the sound, and their head animator for the project (Shannon Merrin) is very clear and to the point with what she wants out of this project, she is also open to suggestions from myself on how I should think something should sound or the direction I would take a certain aspect such as the music. On the topic of the music, in the last meeting between Shannon and I when discussing the music she asked for a few of my own idea’s but made it perfectly clear that in the initial video that they gave me when I took on this project, she wanted to keep the piece of music that was a royalty free piece of music that consisted of a child’s music box, like a wind up toy. She asked if I could write my own type of music similar to this, where I jumped in and offered as it’s a royalty free piece that I could sample it and build my composition around this piece already to which she agreed upon. She also showed me some animation that they added to the credits, where they have a feather falling down. To this I suggested a soft diminuendo using a light piano to symbolise the delicacy and the falling of this feather, which represents he whole texture of the animation. Shannon made it clear that she didn’t want any music until 1:08.

When I met with Shannon she had a folder for me called “Sound Design for Adrian” with all the relevant files, and even the project files incase I had adobe premier and wanted to look at the project in more detail. Unfortunately… the folder is rather un-organised, and all video files for different scenes and trials are all named differently and left slightly all over the place like so.

So first of all I had to locate the correct files.

We’ve scheduled weekly production meetings from after the Easter break, Thursdays are most convenient for them as that’s when they have lectures.

 

On the front of Satsuma, I’m a lot more concerned. For one I don’t think that they’re going to have their animation finished on time. From the rough cut they sent me a lot of the animation looks unfinished in comparison to Guardian. Also a lot of the animation, in my opinion doesn’t look very ‘human’ so I think reproducing the sound design adding the human element will be quite tricky getting it to sync up properly. Also working with the team for Satsuma is becoming a bit of an issue as I had to ask for a copy of the rough cut many times and even when I was told that it had been uploaded to the Google drive for me to extract.

As you can see in the next screenshot of the up to date G drive.

… It’s not there at all…

In the end I got the youtube link from the head animator and downloaded it myself. My main concerns with this project is that I won’t be able to get it complete on time due to waiting for the final cut to be finished, without me syncing up the foley and constructing the sonic soundscape for the animation only to have the timings changed. In the past when I’ve worked with animators they always seem to say “don’t worry the timings wont change” but they always do! It becomes a real problem!

The music for this piece however is mostly completed, and will be posted on this blog soon. My plan for the coming weeks is to sit down again with both groups and discuss how we’re going to get these projects completed on time and to the correct standard.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with sounds and styles of music making sure that everything is up to scratch with what I’m working too. I edited the sound of a crow I recorded for Guardians piece within Izotope RX, as I am new to RX I decided to look at the in’s and outs of all it’s processes. Something I found quite interesting was, its pitch and time feature. For the reasons of experimentation with sound relating to learning outcome 5 where I aim to expand my range of editing skills with audio and sound. I succesfully managed to transform a recording of a crow into … some form of monster, as demonstrated below.

 

The animators from guardian recently updated the cue sheet of sound fx and cue’s I gave to them, which is helpful as it’s more of a two way working relationship.

 (New Cue Sheet and FX for Guardian)

I’ve found working with the animators an designers from Guardian to be a lot better and more productive as they seem more organised and for the lack of a better term ‘on the ball’. Communication is a lot easier as well and there is a better understanding of what the task is. They constantly post updates in a group on Facebook of all the work they are doing, any edits, idea, etc. Example shown below. (L1)

 

 

Unfortunately I’ve found communication with the other animation team a little more difficult, they don’t really have any regular production meetings, so sometimes communication can be a bit tough, but the deadline for the Rough Cut of their animations is on Friday 18th, I’ve asked both groups for a picture lock date but neither have set a date in stone for the finished product. I’ve arranged a production meeting with them both in the following week to discuss a picture lock date and create an appropriate plan with updates from both teams each week! 

With better communication working with both teams will increase the productivity and work flow of this project by miles.

A recent update from the satsuma team basically gave me a brief overview of the work they have to do after submitting their rough cut which is…

 

After meeting with both teams, I will post a list and a timeline of work as it is to be done and when it will be finished, I will more than likely do this in a gant chart.