For freelance this trimester I completed 3 projects. I recorded drums for a tri 2 student at SAE who was making a film who wanted drums to be the element that created tension, this was a very interesting session to be involved in as it was great to see such a creative and funky style of drumming. The clients were very happy with the end product as it was pretty much exactly what he had envisioned for his film, which was pleasing feedback to hear.
I was also involved in 2 documentaries, the first being Mrs Koolstra. This was a film about a man who went missing while hiking in Utah and sadly never made it home. I was the sound supervisor on this project which included on set recording, this was an easy job as it was a locked off shot so all I had to do was put the mic on a stand and make sure tape was rolling. On the second day, we were on foot recording shots around the school where we interviewed Mrs Koolstra this was a bit more difficult as I had to figure out how to move around and record good sound without getting in the way of the shot, but after about 15 minutes I figured out that the best way to get around it would be to stand with the DOP so they could tell me if I was in frame or not. Another aspect of my role as the sound supervisor was to complete the final mix, this was a very easy task as all the dialogue was from the same scene so I just had to correct levels and make some eq adjustments and away we went. Although there was some RX work to be done with the air conditioner noise interfering with the intelligibility of the dialogue. Every time I’ve shown something to the film crew they have complimented on the work that I’ve been doing so I suppose that means they were happy with the end product as well.
The second documentary I worked on was ‘A Breed of His Own’. I worked on the music to go with the film, and it was a success in my opinion. I did struggle quite a bit with the director not being sure about the emotion he wanted from the music. I showed them what I had done after the weekend they gave me the lock off and he said that the music I created wasn't quite right for the scenes. So I spent the next week trying to come up with something else, to no avail. So I then began to stress out over not having any music they were happy with. I then decided to go with my gut instinct and use the original music I did when I first showed the director and he said that it was perfect. So I don't know how to feel about the process on this project other than confused and annoyed that if he had of green-lit the music in the first place I would have had more time to make it better rather than spending time trying to come up with something else. But I’m just glad that in the end it came together and there were no major issues to deal with.
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