Sound Man

I started work on a new documentary (Distant Donors) last month which is still in production, so I don't have any footage to show, this time of nine minutes in length.

I'm again doing sound, however, this time my role is completely different. Whilst on Wired. I did Sound Design which was post-production sound, this time I'm the boom operator, which is production sound, and I know which role I prefer. Being the boom operator is a very important job, however, since I want to be a director I have all this creativity in me that wants to escape, something which holding the microphone doesn't let you do.

I didn't mind doing it at first, but I'm starting to get a little bored of it now, as the only work I have to do is when we go out on shoots, and so far we've only done five days of shooting out of a whole month. We've got some more shoots lined up but not a whole lot.

Since I've not had a chance to really be all that creative on this project I've been writing more ideas for possible future projects. Something which I find very fun to do, although unfortunately I tend to think beyond the doable, which can be a bit frustrating when you want to make a film and realise that you don't really have anything that you can film without a budget that is over a grand.

We wrap up on Distant Donors in the middle of January, so I'm not going to be able to be all that creative until after then, which is when we start narrative films. Hopefully for that I will actually get to direct, because I'm not sure I can handle doing production sound again.

On a side note, I've started work on another project with a company called Suited & Booted. I'm not the director of it, but I do get to do more than just sound which is good. It's a long term project, which is a promotional documentary for a hotel that is being refurbished. The project should be finished in October next year, so we'll be out shooting a few times a month so we can document the process. I've already been on one shoot and got to have a proper go on camera, which was really fun, because it meant that I got to be creative again as opposed to just holding a microphone.

Don't think I'll be up to much this month, with Christmas coming up and all, but I'll try and nab some rough cuts of Distant Donors to look at.

Wired.

I chose to do sound design on this film, since it wasn't my idea and if the director's chair wasn't filled, then I wouldn't have really known how to direct it anyway.

However, we were barely a week into production before it was clear that our director didn't know or care what he was doing. Which left a crew of 2 producer's, 2 camera operators, myself on sound design, an editor, and no director. I kind of stepped up here. I didn't really know how we were going to make the film, all I knew was that we needed to film something. And boy did we. Our editor was being given a tape a day to capture for the first couple of weeks of shooting. Only in the final week did it actually become clear what film we were making when I sat in the room with the editor discussing the film.

The editor had to essentially search for meaning in all the stuff that got filmed, and once we had a film that was coming together told the camera operators to go off and shoot specific shots that would fit well in the film. Therefore, he got a director's credit as well.

In between all the editing that he was doing I had to edit the sound that I had recorded myself, as well as some sounds which I took from a sound library. Since the footage we filmed was recorded without any sound, it was up to me to design the soundtrack for the film. I had major ideas for it at the start, before the film evolved into what it is now, although I've managed to keep in as many of those ideas as I could, as well as coming up with new ones.

I ended up manipulating a lot of the sounds to give them a more unique quality. And taking my inspiration for such artists as composer Max Richter and writer/director/composer David Lynch, I've managed to create what I think is a very original soundtrack.

You can also view the full video here: http://vimeo.com/7436933

I'm very pleased with the sound design that I've done on this film and whilst I might have accidentally typecast myself now as a sound man, my passion is still for directing.

University

I'm back at university now and since this is only my 3rd week back I don't have anything to show. However, this year I'm going to push the boundaries and see if I can enter some festivals.

The film I'm working on now is an experimental documentary. I'm doing sound design on it and boy have I got a tough job ahead of me. The film won't be finished until the end of the month at the earliest, but I'll try and get at least something up for next month.

Work Experience

For the last 2 weeks I've been doing work experience with mycornwall.tv.

Day 1 (1:00pm - 2:30pm): Was a very short day and I spent just over one and a half hours at a meeting with the head of production (who I would be working with). It was quite an informal meeting where we disgust what/who I would be working on/with throughout the week. Although it was also subject to change. We also brainstormed some ideas for possible future programming and different formats of programs for the website.

Day 2 (9:30am - 2:30pm): I spent day 2 at a documentary shoot at Pengersick Castle. I spent most of the day observing the crew working (which consisted of a presenter/director and two camera operators) and helped out with carrying equipment. Whilst I didn't get to operate the equipment I did learn a lot about the way the crew worked together and shot different stuff. The presenter/director was really interesting to watch as were the crews methods of shooting. It will be quite interesting to see the finished piece. However, I don't think it will appear on the website until October.

Day 3 (4:00pm - 6:00pm): Finished off a short documentary at Gwithian Towans Beach that had been started the previous week. It was about how teaching people from the forces to surf can be a great way for them to deal with post traumatic stress, by helping them to forget about it and just enjoy the waves and the ocean and also by meeting other people dealing with post traumatic stress. I ended up helping with sound recording and held the microphone throughout the interviews. Hopefully I did a good job.

Day 4 (10:00am - 11:00am): We were supposed to be filming at Fifteen today, which is Jamie Oliver's new restaurant near Newquay. However, when we got there it turned out they didn't know we were supposed to be shooting there. So unfortunately we'd made a wasted trip. Although I did get a free orange juice!

Day 5 (9:30am - 2:30pm): Spent today filming on Tolcarne Beach in Newquay. We were filming this piece on this girl who won a bronze medal in open water swimming at the 2008 Olympics. I can't remember her name unfortunately but she was the "celebrity" of the day. The event was to raise awareness for the surf life saver organisation which helps young children learn about the dangers of the sea and how to look out for them and avoid them. I helped with sound again and held the mic throughout all the interviews that we did. The rest of the day was spent following the "celebrity" around and filming the different activities and races that she was in. Unfortunately I ended up in the sea as when we went down to film by the sea again later in the day the camera man forgot the mic lead was still attached and so when a wave came he just stood there, and since I was holding the mic which was at the other end of the lead I ended up getting wet too. The annoying thing was I knew the mic wasn't going to be picking up any important sound, so I kind of got wet for nothing.

This marks the end of the first week. Unfortunately I was unable to work the second week because I came down with pretty bad tonsillitis which I'm still recovering from. I enjoyed the experience though and whilst I would have liked to have a done a bit more, as a lot of the time I was just stood around watching, I did learn quite a bit. I'm definitely going to be getting more work experience in the future, but I'm going back to uni this month to start work on documentary making. So expect some more videos in a couple of months.

A Remote Idea

This is the first comedy that I've done. I didn't write the script for this one and just directed. However, the main actor didn't want to learn his lines and wanted to improvise. It terms of content it worked, however a lot of that content we had to cut from the final edit because it just didn't fit in terms of continuity. Arms and heads were jumping around and nothing really flowed. As a result we ended up having to cut all the stuff that flowed together, although unfortunately this wasn't the funniest stuff.

Watching the film back now I don't really find it funny at all. Whilst I did enjoy making it, I'm not sure I'll be having another go at a comedy any time soon. I can't write comedies myself, but if a very funny script landed in my lap then I would definitely do it. Although I would have to be rolling on the floor with laughter, because even at the script stage this film was more of a chuckling quietly to yourself more than a laugh out loud comedy. And those are the types of comedies I hate. If it has been classed as a comedy I want to be laughing out loud throughout the entire film. If not than it's not worthy of the term comedy.

As a result I wouldn't class A Remote Idea as a comedy. More of a light hearted film.