READING: Speech Music and Sound

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Perspective and Social Distance

 

Social Distance refers to “more business-like and formal interactions, keeping people ‘at arm’s length”, whereas Public Distance is for larger and more formal group interactions. Within film sizing, personal distance is represented with only head and shoulders in vision, which can also correspond with a close shot. This creates an imaginary intimacy with what is being represented, while medium shots create a more formal kind of imaginary relation. With Social Distance, we see the entire character’s body, with a bit of space around them, corresponding with the long shot, Edward Hall says that “people filmed with a longshot are addressed as though they’re people that are not part of their world”

Perspective and Sound

“Sound dubbing technicians in radio and film divide the soundtrack into three zones – dose, middle and far distance. These are ‘the ‘Immediate’, the ‘Support’ and the ‘Background’. The chief thing to bear in mind is that the ‘Immediate’ effect is to be listened to, while the ‘Support’ and the ‘Background’ effects are merely co be heard …” In this way, sound can work like a picture, having backgrounds, midgrounds and foregrounds. Backgrounds include atmospheric sounds, like a gentle breeze rustling the trees, or the sound of rain, whereas the midground could be cars driving past, the chatter of a crowd, or a barking of a faraway dog. Lastly, foreground includes whatever is being focused on, like a commentator or conversation being had. Terms differ for these methods of layering sounds.

Hifi and Lofi soundscapes (Fidelity)

“Hifi soundscapes allow discrete sounds to be heard from a great distance because of the low ambient noise level. Think of a very quiet library, where you can hear someone pick up a pen or turn a page from twenty-five metres away. In lofi soundscapes, on the other hand, individual sounds get blurred, obscured in a tangle, a wall of sound which may be as close to the listener as the other side of the street. In such soundscapes perspective is lost and amplification becomes necessary if one wants to be heard. “-Murray Schafer

Sound and Social Distance

Sound can relate to how close we feel with who is talking to us, the text refers to how people speak more softly to people they feel close to, and more loud and sharp to people who we feel distant from. The same can actually go for music. For example, a lot of pop music such as Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” can feel a lot less personal than some of Chet Baker “I get along without you very well”

Summary

Intimate distance: Soft voices, even whispering, creating intimate relationship with listener

Personal Distance: relaxed voice, low pitch and volume, creating friend like relationship

Informal Distance: Business like, and informal encounter, proper and full voice, high volume

Formal Distance: Projected tense, overloud voice, like giving a speech

Public Distance: Amplified speaking

Recording with Audio

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Recording With Audio

Re-examine what you’re listening to

 

Stories are more like a string of beads than a tapestry, ensure that there’s a space for people to breathe, rising and falling in intensity. A piece should prepare you for the end of its story, and a bad audio piece will often abruptly end. You can take a lot from a tone of voice. The way your voice reacts in different scenarios, (eg Hallways, bathroom, outside, in car etc) is relevant to an audio essay. Take fully into consideration the huge variation of inflections in the voice. It’s important to take into account how the sound is Mediated, as sound is very clearly different depending on whether its recorded on a cassette, or a CD, or Vinyl etc.

Listening to this example of a radio story, the combinations of sound include the scribbling of a piece of paper, cars driving, etc. As well as music to fit the scene.

An Interesting piece of audio was following a young girl grow from being a baby into a young woman called Nancy Schwartz, it contained a piece of audio of each every few years of her life, learning how to talk, and growing into a young woman with a distinct way of talking and articulation.

Siobhan Mchugh example: ‘Jan Gaham’ The audio is full of white noise, but the audio is still easily heard. The story depicts a man in war and his legs blew off, and as the girl cradling his torso and head as he slowly died pretending to be the wife that the man mistook her for. The audio depicts her experience talking about that with the man’s wife.

CBC Radio: The Wire ‘intro’ is crammed with heaps of different subject matter in sound, combining a bunch of little musical clips initially, but then Gymnopedie is set to a beat and played in the background of a bunch of “um’s” and “ah’s” Music can be very overdone, and it is important to have areas in an audio essay that use the effects of silence. Music slowed down can create a “new, secret story”

Don’t try to use numbers in sound

Adding sounds to the actions that the narrator is describing works well

Red hot Tips for making a Radio Show

  • Movement: Movement is the thing that makes a sound
  • When Editing, work with what you’ve got, rather than what you could’ve got
  • Begin with the strongest most interesting parts, and then try to find audio that can come from that.
  • Start with the sound followed by the voice describing it. (eg- Sound of a train whizzing past, and then have the narrator talking about a train halfway through)
  • When Mixing, make sure that it’s well levelled, and there’s not a huge change in volume throughout the piece.

The Post Broadcasting Era

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The Post Broadcasting era is determined by the rise of unbiased media distribution and individual critical analysis through means of the internet and to a lesser extent, television and radio.   

It refers to the growing ways that information is being spread, the era in which audience involvement became accessible, acceptable and easy. Audience involvement with their favorite TV shows and celebrates has been popularised all over the internet through the means of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. This means that anybody with access to the internet can log on and tell Justin Bieber that they think his song wasn’t all that great, or let Gordon Ramsey know what food they’ve prepared that night.

“The post-network era saw the development of technologies that deliver a wider diversity of programming choice, less constraints on a consumer’s choice of medium, decentralization of the location of their viewing, and freedom of choice over time of their viewing.”

–Lotz, Amanda D. (2007)

When the Post Broadcasting Era came into place in the early 21st Century, It threatened large Television broadcasting producers, as journalists and entertainment producers were then challenged by the average person so long as they could get access to a recording equipment, or animation. This made television less profitable, and it gave more options for people to stream their TV shows online, and through other means. 1 But it also provided a positive side for audience and the people, as they were able to gather stories and information more specifically catered to them. TV shows were then created for a specific group of people, whether it were people interested in complex and rare topics, or an absurdist comedy group, they could find this content instead of watching the limited programming given through television. Small groups of people with similar ideologies could also share their ideas and information with eachother through their internet, and ideas and opinions were more easily expressed and adapted.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nordicom.gu.se/sites/default/files/kapitel-pdf/nordicom-information_36_2014_1_pp._97-101.pdf

PB3 Write Up

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A Canadian’s thoughts on Australia  

 

Reflection:

I’m happy with how this Interview turned out, particularly in contrast to the first interview I produced.  

Refer to my other article on how my previous interview went. 

Anyway, in my interview with Jack, I made sure to correct each of the mistakes I made in my previous interview. These mistakes included more straight forward questions, less talking as the interviewer, correct framing, and a larger shot. With these being fixed, it really made for a much more reliable and consistent interview. I really liked how my interview was the intro and ending sequence turned out to look, I wanted to do a kind of parody of talk shows like the late-night show or Ellen, but with still keeping the interview professional for future viewers. I wanted to insert simple clips of Melbourne Street life, and clip footage of Political things, but it didn’t tie in with the style that I was conducting the interview. Another thing I think went really well was the small amount of picture editing that went into the video itself. I turned up the contrast a little bit, and added a filter to give it a warm glow, I then added black bars at the top and bottom to give it a wide screen look. This ended up making the interview look quite professional. Despite fixing a lot of errors in my interview, there were still a few things that were problematic. For example, the microphone was very focused on a single area, and I could only really have it pointing in Jack’s direction which made my voice quiet and hard to hear. There was also a lot of white noise that I had to remove in Premiere.

I’ve really taken a lot from this assignment, and I think the experience has taught me lots of things to consider before I go to conduct my next interview. I’ve learnt from this interview that in the future, I need to have a microphone that can pick up a more widespread volume, or better yet, a microphone each. Secondly, I should take more time to recording some extra nodding footage, and even just a repeat of asking the questions for if I want to do voice overs and such.

Lastly, I’ve learnt that making an interview interesting doesn’t necessarily have to involve complex questions, great equipment and a lot of help, but rather, just someone who has a good story to tell that they’re passionate about, and being able to listen and extract as much information as possible about what they’d like to say.  I’ve learnt this from both the interview, as well as the research I did on other interviewers like Louis Theroux and his filming style.

 

Louis Theroux Interview

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Place for Paedophiles

 

This documentary conducted by Louis Theroux that took place at Coalinga State Hospital, a hospital specifically for Paedophiles.   The documentary itself is very interesting, but I want to analyse the way that Louis asks questions and the editing of the footage.

Questions and Voiceovers

The scenes are initially set with various interesting shots such as a Shot of Security Guard walking towards camera in Silhouette or a shot of a curved mirror, not really showing much subject matter. Louis then sets the scene with a voiceover. The voiceover overlays often shots of various scenery, such as a hallway in the building, or just a long open road leading to the area. Footage used is often shots used to set the scene and state where we are in the story, whether just a shot of the night sky to convey that a day has past, or a shot of the area where the next interview will be conducted. This footage is often followed by Louis walking to the next room or area to interview people in a different scenario. For example, Louis walks into a basketball court and has a small 10 second conversation with one of the people participating in the game, shortly followed with a different location and setting.

Louis’s questions are very simple and often seem very blunt, though his tone is always sweet and unassuming. For example, “do you find you’re still attracted to small children?” to a man who received a full physical castration, and “How could you have thought that molesting that child was something that was ever okay to do?”. He occasionally asks closed ended questions followed with “why”. Such as “Do you like it here?”. Louis focuses on the responses, and stays very silent as the person he is interviewing. Often there’s about a 3 second gap after every question has been answered before Louis reinitiates the    conversation. There’s also very occasionally music playing in the background, particularly in the establishing shots.

The entire Documentary seems to be the reoccurring structured sequence of

  1. Establishing Shot (Either panning, moving backwards/forwards or still)
  2. Voice Over of what’s next with walking implying time has passed
  3. Interviews

And though not directly related to the filming process,

  1. Revisits and Shows the growth of characters we’ve empathised with

 

Camera Work

The Camera work is quite simple, it follows the characters being interviewed with what looks like a handheld Camera, often looking up at the characters. The camera work is often wobbly, seemingly not overly professional, but showing what needs to be shown very efficiently. The lighting and contrast of the people being filmed is good through most shots, having the face and their expressions very clear and easy to determine. The characters are positioned on the right side of the screen looking left or the left side of the screen looking right, particularly when there’s a conversation between two characters. (Usually Louis and somebody else) There looks like there’s two cameras, occasionally skipping to a different view, but often the camera will literally follow the conversation back and forth. It’s really quite easy to follow, and there’s very few cuts. Often the questions and conversations that Louis are have don’t sound rehearsed at all, but he always gets the message and his question across efficiently.

Overall, Louis Theroux conveys his documentaries in a very simple and easy to follow manner, not using overly complicated language or impressive camera work. The success in his technique is his simple and unassuming/unbiased ways of interacting with his interviewees, as he comes across very unjudgmental, and just another person, which puts his subjects at ease.

 

 

 

 

(24-04-17) Interview Personal Reflection

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Mistakes made, and how I’ve learned from them.

 

To begin, my interview didn’t turn out the way I’d have liked it to, despite the planning that went into it. On the 18th of April, I prepared my interview, I began by selecting a room in the University that was quiet and well lit.  I felt it seemed easier for people to meet in the city than for either me to bike all the way to their far away houses with lots of gear, or to have them come all the way to my home in Preston. My interview featured Shahrzad Rafezi (Sherry) and her experience regarding coming from Iran and living in Australia as a Muslim.

The interview failed for multiple reason, the first of which being because my questions were not straight forward enough, and didn’t invoke a very in-depth response. The responses I received from Sherry weren’t particularly long, and a lot of the information provided was spasmodic. It would’ve needed to be cut and changed, which made for a choppy and unusable interview.

The second mistake I made was talking too much as the interviewer, I reiterated the question far too often, and was always quick to fill in the gaps of awkward silences. I was troubled by my own worry of making the interview awkward and uncomfortable that I didn’t stop to let my interviewee fill in the silent gaps with their stories, knowledge and experience. I too often asked unrelated questions in a hope to lengthen the interview with interesting responses, but since they didn’t link back to clear primary questions, it was pointless. I learnt that I need to keep a level of professionalism when conducting an interview, and not acting too casual or aloof.

 The third mistake I made was a novice mistake. I had filmed my interviewee on the wrong side of the wrong side of the shot, meaning she was on the right side of the shot, looking right, whereas she should’ve been on the left side of the camera looking right/ right side of the camera looking left for the shot to make sense. This meant there was no way that I could have films of me nodding without it looking odd and unprofessional.
Having me look from the right to left made sense logically, but it looked odd the way I was on also on the right side of the frame as well, it didn’t make sense to flip the footage, and it also just looked odd to have me on the left looking left.

Lastly, I should have zoomed out a little more, as I felt my interviewee was too close up, and this wasn’t editable, whereas if she were too far away, I could’ve easily edited her closer.

I talked to a few people in the media workshop and asked for what I could do to continue using this footage despite the mistakes I had made. Matt suggested I could use lots of footage related to what I was conducting the interview about, such as mosques, headlines featuring some of the prejudice regarding the Muslim culture, or some stock footage of life in Iran, and not feature the actual interview video at all. I liked this idea, but I didn’t like the amount of effort I’d went through setting up a nice filming space only to simply edit over it. Jeremy suggested I put something in the left part of the screen beside my interviewee, featuring photos and videos of supporting footage. This idea worked well too, but it didn’t solve the problem of my replying nods being rendered useless due to being on the wrong side of the screen.

 

 

What did I learn from these mistakes?

  • Make sure to have clear and understandable open ended questions.
  • Embrace the awkardness during some of the responses, and allow the interviewee to fill the gaps.
  • Film the shot on the correct side of the screen, either right looking left, or left looking right.
  • Zoom out to make the video easier and more free to edit later.

Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, I will be conducting another interview Tuesday the 25th.

23-04-17 (READING) The Night of a Thousand Wizards

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The Night of a Thousand Wizards

Reading Analysis

 

Infinitus 2010 was an event held in Orlando, which is the gathering of thousands of JK Rowling fans. Henry Jenkins talks about his experience accompanied by his wife Cynthia as two journalists describing the young people dancing, sitting with the older folks and watching the events unfold with “wistful eyes”.

Henry also talks about how not only are the fans just people enthusiastic about Harry Potter itself, but also people who have spent time creating media through fan fiction, editing websites, producing podcasts and recording their own music. Henry’s style of writing describes the events unfolding in a very straight and unbiased way, somehow replicating in a sense the fun and wonder of the night that he experienced through his language and the humorous jargon references to the event he’s writing about. “There will be no muggles in Hogsmeade tonight, we are indeed all wizards here!” There’s a sweetness in the way he’s written the piece, alternating between the position of someone watching the event unfold from a distance, and someone participating and experiencing the event first hand. Henry makes sure however to have both compliments and criticisms of the event, analysing the positives and negatives without much bias. He criticises the way that much of the food served at the event was loaded with sugar, and he being a diabetic didn’t appreciate the lack of options regarding what he could eat, and the way the stalls catered for merchandise for the houses Gryffindor and Slytherin, but none for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

“Some of the fans described it as a kind of homecoming, as they were able to at last enter a world they had previously known only through their imagination” Henry communicates the experiences that many of the fans have had, some seeing the park as a real immersing land of imagination and a chance to see the world they read so much, whereas others saw it as a play set, or a theme park kind of scenario. Henry uses a lot of colloquial emotive language, such as when he’s talking about the that the multimedia experience of exploring the Chamber of Secrets. He describes the experience as “Intense and jolting, but oh so very immersive” Despite the lack of formal the language, Henry still gets his message across effectively, and makes it relatable.

For a blog piece, I can appreciate the way that Henry writes. I like his use of emotive language, and his analytical nature in the way he picks apart the scenes he comes across. Personally I would prefer a little more in the sentences to have them flow better, such as the running sentences like “I can’t tell you about the other two rides, both of which are roller coasters, since I am a notorious roller coaster wimp, and I spent much of my time wandering the streets, watching people, and yes, buying stuff.”

An interesting read nonetheless.

Can I borrow a Ciggy Mate? (In class no editing project)

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In the Media workshop today we tried to create a flowing video without the use of editing on premiere, the result turned out to be alright, but some of the scenes seemed to go on a little long (Like the shush scene) and due to time constraints, we didn’t do many other recordings.

I thought for the sake of it, I’d upload the video with and without editing.

Without Editing 

With Editing 

06-04-17 (READING) Brief Notes on Conducting and Shooting Interviews

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Brief Notes on Conducting and Shooting Interviews

 

The purpose of an interviewer is to simply draw people’s stories from them the work as a catalyst for the audience, the interview either wants to fulfil the interviewers purpose or resist and deflect it.

Initial Interviewing Preliminaries

Make sure to watch some Lois Theroux
  • During research conversations, note down how to draw information through broad general questions.
  • Be cautious that questions do not interrogate the interviewee, and don’t imply negative manipulative intent.

“You see there are spontaneous moments of humour, inspired questions, and well-judged pauses, but also self-consciousness, persuasion tilting into manipulation, haste disguised as enthusiasm, and timidity masquerading as respect. What a rendezvous with the ego!”

Often directors work hand in hand with a researcher, who locates participants and learns about them, which often leads to whether the interviewee would prefer to discuss their topics with the researcher or Interviewer, a familiar ear, or a fresh new ear.

The presence of others is an important thing to consider in an interview either on stage or off stage, as it can influence either positively or negatively the information the interviewee might give you.

Groups can also work well, as different people can prod each other into a more impulsive response, a best-case scenario involves them turning to each other and forgetting all about you. After imposing your question “You can remain happily silent because your task is to catalyse people’s thoughts and feelings”.

 

Shots while interviewing

 

  • Wide shot (to cover the questions
  • Medium shot (for the answer)
  • Close shot (For emotional shots)

 

“During a lengthy answer, alternate between medium and close shots. During a new question, however, drop back to wide shot. I try to change image size whenever a speaker shows signs of repeating something. Since repetition is normal, the subsequent versions are often more succinct. Then, if it’s in a different image size, you can cut between the two versions.”

 

Camera Positioning

 

  • On Axis Interview: Positioning in the camera directly above the interviewer can give the illusion that the interviewee is talking directly to the camera.
  • Off Axis Interview: Positioning the camera to the left or right of the camera in or out of frame has the interviewee looking off to one on side of the camera.

 

Editing Out the Interviewer

 

This can be an awkward process, but you’ve got to let the interviewee know that they need to start their answer with an “I arrived in Alaska…” etc.

 

Jump Cuts

A jump cut is when two similar images mismatch, and the footage between them appears to have been

removed. This makes for a choppy, and unprofessional look.

There are various solutions to this.

Firstly, it can prove to be an advantage to shoot the entire interview with the camera stationary, making the edits seem more seamless, you can fill the small gap with a simple nodding shot, but it is said that it may appear “bogus”

Secondly, We can create multiple Interview strands in parallel, cutting between them, abbreviating each as you go. ?

Thirdly, you can use varying shot sizes throughout the interview, which means if you do cut back to them and the camera is viewing them in a different zoom or focus, it won’t seem out of the ordinary. This way leaves you with more options.

 

The Interviewing Personality

 

“If you are formal and uptight, your interviewee will be more so. You’ll only get spontaneity by being relaxed and natural yourself. I try to lower pressure on interviewees by making my first questions deliberately slow and bumbling. That way I show my expectations are totally unlike the manic brightness of the live television show, where hosts chivvy people into performing.”

 

When beginning an interview, you cannot start with personal open questions, you’ll first need to make them comfortable asking simple questions about facts and things, and obviously, avoid questions that will push them into to discussing their views in a certain direction.

Feedback is important, but keep from being vocal. Look into Louis Theroux for this, he’s fantastic at keeping silent but clearly listening.

Aim to bring out emotion. Many people want to come across stoic, and don’t want to appear self-indulgent, this will lead to a very general answer. Eg. “How did that rejection make you  feel?” “Well, you simply need to move on and get over it.”

With these kinds of people, you may need to be more specific with what you want to know, respond with something like “What were some things you did to help yourself get over it?” Many interviewees, (particularly men) will not be open with the way they feel, so to get information, you’ll need to ask stories, stories, stories.

 

      “The best interviewers really listen and press for specifics and examples. Simple rejoinders-such as “How?” or “Why was that?” or “How did that make you feel?” or “Talk some more about that, would you?”- liberate the sentient being from the stoic observer. Asking the interviewee to take time and talk about pictures in his or her mind’s eye can also elicit a better kind of telling.”

 

Don’t catch them when they fall. Often when an interviewee is talking about something very emotional or troubling they may cry, and it’s important to stay silent rather than comfortable them. Often after explaining a huge topic or memory, they’re all over the place, and it’s difficult to get a flowing and accurate answer. You can often ask afterwards “Maybe you’d just like to go over that once more and give me a shorter version”.

Before ending the interview, you might like to say “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”