The Magic of Movies

What are 2 things that the filmmaker did that are controversial?  Why were they?  Do you think the film was "authentic" after reading this article?  Why are why not?  Why is this film so famous? Flaherty's film suggested hunger and starvation, and times where they were nearly lost. These suggestions soon became real in the aftermath. Nanook, lost in a storm, died of starvation two years later after Flaherty filmed him. Another controversial part of Flaherty's film was they never showed the seal actually being pulled up to the surface. Was the quarry shot with a gun? Flaherty did not want to show, because that would affect the purity of his images of man against nature. The film to me wasn't authentic because it was real, but it did contain fictional elements. It's famous for debating documentary ethics. 

Imagine you are talking to a person who has never before seen or even heard of a documentary film. How would you describe it? What are some essential elements of a documentary film? What distinguishes a documentary film from a narrative (Hollywood) film or a broadcast news story? A documentary is typically an hour or more long you could say feature length, that documents the life of someone or something and what they do or what they did. What distinguishes it from a regular film is that it's documenting what certain things happen or happened in a certain period of time. It's factual, informational, and its dramatic. I'd say those are they key differences unlike a movie or TV show its not fictional, it is purely non-fiction. 

Revisit your earlier blog posts about sound.  What are 3 things you learned during this unit?  What did you learn about them?  Explain in detail.  What are two things that you still feel you need to learn more about?  Why?  What was one thing that you found the most interesting?  Why? I learned about different microphone types, such as dynamic, condenser, omnidirectional. I learned how dynamic is less sensitive and easy to work with you just need it close to your mouth, and it uses a coil of wire and a magnet to induce the electrical voltage. A condenser is very accurate, fragile and requires powering to boost the signal. Omni is a is type of microphone that is equally sensitive to sound from all directions. This means that it will pick up sound from any direction regardless where it's facing. Two things I feel I need to still learn is how to properly lav people with non button up shirts, and secondly how to operate a mixer manually. One thing I found ...

Watch the following parody video from Wierd Al.  Pay close attention to what he is parodying in the video.  Take a look at the original Coolio video of Gangsters Paradise and compare. Compare and contrast Amish Paradise with Culio's Gangsters Paradise video.  What is Wierd Al making a parody of in this playful video?  What kind of mood are the filmmakers and Wierd Al creating in the video?  What are 3 techniques that you noticed they used to create this Parody?  Use what you've already learned so far in the class to craft your response. Weird Al's video is about living in a amish paradise rather coolio's is gangsta paradise. Amish has to do with no trffics, cars, cops unlike Coolio's talking about the opposite. Weird Al's did did some shots for shot and paid homage to the original music video. They're talking about the tough life they have to live in the hood and being educated. In amish paradise they speak about overall being in peace etc, unlike gansta pa...

What are the artists in this video creating a parody of?  What kind of mood did the filmmakers and the artists create in this video?  What are 3 techniques that you noticed they used to create this mood?  Use what you've already learned so far in the class to craft your response. They're making a parody of the band and making fun of their dramatic style. It's a fun, funky mood/vibe that they're going for. You can tell they paid close attention to detail with costumes, props, and sets. The mood they were able to set for the viewers was done by the lighting they did with the stage, the different shots angles, and the overall vibrant colors of the costumes. The framing of the talents and consistent cuts of each scene.  

After watching this video, what do you notice about the importance of sound design in film?  Why is it so essential? The importance of sound design in film is it enhances the film experience. Sound brings your project to life, sound is more important than visuals. It brings you more into the film like a trance it also builds more emotion. Sound can make you feel the visuals more and it seems way more impressive, dramatic, and immersive. Sound design is also a learning experience/skill practicing sound can help your projects look, and feel even better than it already is. It's an essential craft/practice in film because it's what makes your film a true film. 

In your own words, explain what audio normalization is and how it's achieved. Why is it so important? Audio normalization is practically using settings to adjust the audio gain. If you're dealing with audio issues there are different effects you can use on audition. One of them being "peak normalization", you go to the effects menu select amplitude and compression and normalize it. The way you normalize it is by raising the tallest peak as many dB as needed so that it sits at -1.5dB. Raise every other sample by the same number of dB. You can also measure the loudness and the loudness units full-scale which is the ITU, the average amplitude is 18. Audio normalization is important because audio matters in your videos and whatever it is you're trying to record. If it sounds poor, it won't be enjoyable and it won't deliver the way you want it to. 

Explain the process of using the EQ to enhance your dialog.  Why would you want to use this process? Even with high quality microphones, some dialogue audio can still sound a little harsh. To open your EQ/equalizer you need to go and open it up on effects. There will be a filter and EQ option which you're going to want to select and there will be a bar of other options and you will have to click the parametric equalizer option. This choice gives you a lot of flexibility to adjust your frequency settings that you want and need. You can soften the harshness of whatever the audio you're working on may be. Equalization comes in when your audio isn't being picked up the way you want it to be, EQ solves your audio issue. This is why you would want to use this process. 

What are three common issues you might encounter editing your audio?  How could these be fixed? There four steps to fixing/checking your audio. These steps are 1.background noise, 2.unwanted dialogue sounds, 3.inconsistent audio levels, 4.dull sounding audio. Make sure you wear a good pair of headphones so you can hear the difference between the audio examples before and after. With background noise you're more likely to encounter wind on a gusty day, the buzzing from a cable that you didn't hear while shooting. More sounds like that will mess with your audio and you probably won't pick it up. You''l most likely need to use noise reduction software to get rid of these audio issues. 

Summarize the steps in editing your audio for video?  Why are each important?The first thing you want to do is take care of file management. When you create a new project give it a new name. You should always choose the best take it saves you a lot of time, in the editing stage. It's important to save time for your editor and make sound editing easier by using a mic on your camera to use the camera audio as a reference to the real audio. You often need to clean up the noises/hissing, you can do this by fading audio/sound mixing. 

Explain how the different kinds of fades affect the sounds in your edit.  How are they used?  How does loudness affect your film?  How are they used in the overall mix? Fades are audio transitions and they can be any length you want. There's three basic kinds when a sound goes from not being there at all to full volume. When you do a full volume sound to no sound at all that's a fade-out when you blend one sound into another that's a crossfade.  Sounds are usually never perfect so they will contain clicks and pops, you can use a fade one frame or even less to smooth that out. It's often best to put a fade right before or after someone delivers their line, you're less likely to notice shifts/cuts. Fades are overall used in mix to blend the sound.

The group of people elevate the music video, showing their excitement to be there enhances the experience. The stop motion they play with adds a fun artsy element. They only had two separate locations and had a film strip filter effect. You can tell not much budget was put into this music video but they managed to make it fun regardless and it's just a good time/vibe.  

What are the benefits of recording audio on your camera vs. an external recorder?  Why would you want to use one verses the other? Different cameras give you different setups and different features. It's definitely convenient to record audio directly from the camera.  Your camera will need a greater amount of inputs. External audio recorders have several advantages. They're built like tanks and durable, they usually come with pre-amps. Audio on camera is more useful outdoors, meanwhile external is more convenient for a professional setting. 

What are the key points that you learned about setting our audio levels from this video? Some key points I learned were that the number one rule is never ever hit zero or go above zero when recording audio. What happens is we're going to have audio distortion and it's not going to sound very pleasant to the ear, it is very difficult to fix and remove that and it should be avoided. Pick a volume thats comfortable for you. When it comes to the levels on a recorder device most of them will have standard settings. You're going to want to make sure they're correct depending on the device or camera. 

What are some challenges with recording audio outdoors? What are some ways to get around them and record great audio? Recording audio outside is difficult thats why shotgun mics are preferably. Shotgun mics pick up sound in only one direction, so if you need to record or interview someone at a train station, airport, store, etc. You're able to without having to worry about unwanted background noise drawing out your subject's voice. You're going to want to have good equipment for the best sound quality. Some great way to get around audio issues is ADR. 

What are the benefits of using a microphone on a boom vs a lav vs on the camera? What are the differences between single and dual-system recording? Without well recorded audio your video will sound bad. The benefits of using a boom the audio is automatically synced to the video as you record. The biggest downside is you have to be very close to everything for best results; long cable or wires often needed. Lavs are useful for interviews, field reporting, documentary, tripod shooting. The biggest downside is it can be awkwardly balanced and cumbersome with DSLRs and less control over levels with certain cameras. Dual is wheb your audio device is plugged directly into a digital audio recorder and /or sound mixer, circumventing the camera.