Crunch time

Recording some ADR with my good friend Justin.
Getting ready for the premiere of 8 films!
Check out the trailer and be on the look out for new and exciting things. :)

Experiment 213

Hello Moto

It's been awhile since I worked on Post. Finishing this project felt good.
It was a lot easier to work on than my last projects. Knowing that I want to do post in the future has definitely driven me to work harder in this class, and finish those 7 movies for Project X213. I've scheduled extra time at school to work on those so I can actually hear what I'm doing when I put them into surround, and working from home has proven to be too distracting.

Anyway, here is my latest project:
Hello Moto - And just like the rest of them, taking out all the sounds and designing your own.



Hello Moto from DJ on Vimeo.
Project for Audio Post Production 1.


In other news, quite unexpectedly, I've started recording an album for the beautiful and talented Orchid and Hound. It's coming along quite nicely, and I'm lucky enough to be working with two musicians who know exactly what they're doing, what they want, and (hallelujah) come into the studio ready and rehearsed. Music recording was never something that I thought I would do, or wanted to do, but working with them has been great. And it's been great knowing what I'm doing, choosing mics that best interpret what the artist wants, and working with a band that's willing to work with and trust me and my ideas.
It also doesn't hurt that I absolutely ADORE this band. I get their songs stuck in my head all the time, so I have no problem listening to their songs over and over again when mixing. They're gonna go far, and I hope they take me with them.
They're going to SXSW next month and need a video to submit. My friend Mike and I checked out two HD cameras from school and recorded a recent show, as well as recorded the whole show into my laptop through 2 mic splitters and a DI from the club's monitor console and a little help from Mike's M-Audio Project Mix IO. Stay tuned for that, I hope to be done with it soon...

Midi 2

Although I am not completely satisfied with the results of my Midi 2 final project, I'm going to post it anyway and post it again when it's time to put it on my reel.

Thinking back on it now, I would have done many things differently.

• I would have started earlier. I spent the first couple of weeks gathering my voice actors and working on the music. I should have spent more time on the foley. Instead, I waited to do foley at the very end and didn't end up using a lot of it. Unfortunately, this is noticeable. There are many footsteps and landing sounds missing. 
• I would have recorded my voice actors sooner. I knew that this was the movie I wanted to work on before the class had even started. I asked my girlfriend and my roommate to play Penny and Dr. Horrible and asked them to memorize their lines. They'd all seen it multiple times so I probably could have recorded their parts sooner. Instead, I waited a little too long to record Jessica and when it was time to record her, she was sick. Fortunately she has a great voice and you can't tell all that much.
• I would have done more with the music. A MAJOR shout out to Moses Lei  from whom I got the sheet music. Having only taking Music Theory and learning how to read music for the first real time last month, reading and playing the music was a real challenge. Thankfully inputing the notes into Logic wasn't all that hard. I asked my friends Sean and Alex to come play Bass and Cello, and having two low end instruments was a real challenge to mix. I asked my friend Tilesha to play the trombone, but there wasn't enough time. 
• I would have spent more time with my voice actors. -- My third voice actor, a friend from school, played Captain Hammer. He of course was busy with his own Midi 2 final project, and didn't have a lot of time for practicing for the part (he had also never seen it before.) I should have watched it with him and gone over his lines with him. I wanted him to do the part because I knew he'd enjoy it and also I knew that he'd do a great job. However in the future I think I'll hire actual voice actors.

All in all, it was a lot of fun to do. I thought that by the time I was done, I'd be sick of Dr Horrible, but I can watch it again and again and it will always be so good.

This video doesn't do the original justice, but I hope you enjoy it none the less.

Midi 2 Final Project : Dr Horrible from Dina J. on Vimeo.

Again, taking all of the sound out and replacing it in Logic 8. In this project, I focused more on ADR and music, and less with sound effects. I tried to record more of my own sound effects, instead of using the library like I did with my Midi 1 final. There are a lot of things I would have done differently with this, and added some things had it not been for the 5 week limit and my other class to worry about. I'm hoping to work on this and my last project more for my reel.

Many thanks to my voice actors: Jessica Jewel, David Minard, and Sean Price.

To my Instrumentalists: Sean Michael Rau on Cello, and Alex Culang on Bass.

Logic Certified & Sound Design

This was one of the most fun and most challenging projects I've had for school.

I worked on this almost every day during and outside of class. The most challenging part was coming up with and composing the music myself. I left that up until the last minute, and I'm pleased at what I was able to accomplish under pressure. 

There are still things I want to play with. The Wallace & Gromit trailer needs a lot of work. I need to record sounds for the egg rolling around and the movement of the plate/silverware, and I'm not sure if I like the sound the mallet arm makes. You can definitely tell that I spent more time working on the sound effects for the first trailer, and the music for the second.. But those are things I'll worry about until I'm ready to work on my reel. For now, I'm just psyched that I am Logic Pro 8 level 1 certified, and am excited to get my second and last certification next term. 

I hope you enjoy the trailers and please let me know what you think!

Final Project for Midi 1 / Logic Pro 8 level 1 certification from Dina J. on Vimeo.

The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning. (Image heavy, click on photos for larger versions)

Well, my internship is done. 

It was an intensely short 20 weeks. And as such, I am no where close to being done with the film. In fact, I am only now beginning to fully be thrown into the design aspect of the audio. 

I am somewhat irritated that I am only now learning the skills that I will need in order to work in this industry, but I am humbled by the experience, and am grateful for the opportunity.

I am hoping to learn as much as I can while I finish working on The Point, especially because last night I was asked by my film maker friend to work on the sound for his latest film, Zombpocalypse. 

Zombpocalypse - Sample Footage from Justin Oliphant on Vimeo.
I'm super excited but a little stressed over the timing of everything. Wesam is dropping off the cut for The Point tomorrow and it needs to be done by the end of the month. Justin is dropping off Zombpocalypse on Sunday and I'm not sure when he wants me to be done with it. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have crazy amounts of projects due in school, especially one that involves building one of these from scratch... But! I am still excited about all these things, and I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere about time management. I hope that I am able to do well with Zombpocalypse, because I would really love to work on Justin's films in the future. 
At any rate, the whole reason I started this blog was so that I could post photos and blog about production. Production was so hectic however, that I didn't really have time to process or even start writing until it was done. So I'm going to post a couple of photos of the shoot, as well as a couple of photos from the day we went looking for stuff to sound proof the sound design room (it hasn't been done yet, but when it is I'll take a picture of the final result.) Enjoy!
These are from the first and second days of shooting. The second day was one of my favorites, it was our first time shooting on a busy street, and the actor who played Uncle J was so fun to work with.


I can't remember what day this was, but it was absolutely my favorite. It was a 13 hour day. It was the most tiring, the most frustrating, and the most fun. At one point or another, EVERYone was there. It was hot and stinky and dark (despite it being super bright outside [see pictures of jose covering the windows]) This is also the day that I had the most troubles with the mixer. To this day I don't really know what the problem was, but I was ready to cry/kick something.




This is us going to scrap and not finding anything except a bin of awesome chevy's sombreros. Fortunately, we found a foam store that gave us great scraps for super cheap!

there is no hidden message here.

And this is what it looks like to work on post sound at Wesam's place.

Thanks BAYCAT!

I'm sad to lose old co-workers, but look forward to hanging out with new friends.

Last week, BAYCAT's graphic design intern Latoya had the opportunity to direct a photo shoot for the poster she's working on for The Point. Ken (I forget his last name) came in to take some photos of the main actors. It was a lot of fun being able to sit in on this since I'd never been to a photo shoot (Not even the ones my friends had in High School.) I can't wait to see the Poster!

No seas antipatica.

Work is slow and fast at the same time.

There's a ton to do, but the footage from the film hasn't been edited yet.

So, I'm just doing a little media management, which means I'm just re-naming files, identifying if certain sound pieces are useable, converting those files from .mp3 to .aiff, and turning those into stereo files. It's a lot, and it's.. boring. 

That's a picture of my work station. They converted their equipment room into a small sound station/recording booth. It's still in the process of being transformed, and I'll post more photos of the transformation when it's complete. 

Anyway, the space is optimal for working on sound, but it's also lonely being isolated from everyone else. I'm sure I'll be more glad to be in there once the actual editing begins, and I won't want to talk to anyone or ever leave my post.

Wednesday I decided to stop editing a little early, and go with Jose and Wesam while they went to shoot some b roll of the neighborhood.

We got access from a liquor store owner to use his roof, and got a couple of beautiful shots from up there.








I can't wait to start editing and finishing this thing. I've got new ideas I want to start working on.
Here's a small (seriously, it's tiny) teaser of the film:

Once I start mixing, the first thing I'm going to do is take out that awful screeching bus sound.