A Rush of Blood to the Ed(iting)

    It's time to start editing the opening! After removing the blooper clips, I sorted them into 3 scenes. This was easy because I knew that I filmed scenes 1 and 3 a day before scene 2. When sorting into scene 1, I made the actions on camera match up with the music. For example, when the clone on the piano asks for some drums, the camera shows Oliver on the computer playing the drums using the keyboard. I color coded the clips to match the scenes so it would be easy for me to visualize how long each scene would be and which clips belong with which scenes. Also, I tried to be neatish.

    For the clone shots, I made a mask of a frame with one clone in the frame and overlayed it onto another with Oliver. This works well, but you have to hide the mask edges well. Here, I hid mine on the edge of the window and wall.

    For the title, I decided to rotoscope it in the last scene. I would walk from the right to left, and have the title show behind me. That took some time, but it wasn't too tedious. However the second part was very, so very tedious. I would have William come in front of the title. This meant I had to rotoscope not just his back but his front. It was so frustrating and tedious. This took me almost an hour to rotoscope 3ish seconds of 30fps footage.

Developing my 2nd CCR

    For my 2nd CCR, I decided to make a podcast. This is a continuation of the story in the 1st CCR, where I was calling into this podcast. To make it more funny and engaging, I decided to use the new trend of American presidents like Obama, deepfaked audio into my podcast. I created the script, which reflected the last 2 questions of the CCR. I recorded myself speaking the entirety of it, even the parts where Obama was supposed to be speaking. This is for reference audio, where the AI will convert it into Obama's voice. I found a website that allowed for deep faked audios of celebrities and used reference audio, called uberduck.ai. The best part was that it was free! I cut out the parts where I was speaking and saved them into another audio file for later. I used Ableton, the music software I used to make my music, to form the podcast. I listened to Obama's questions in it, and I noticed how many times it was almost stuttering on a word for almost 30 seconds. Thankfully, the AI fixed itself so I can cut out the stutters. I realized that most podcasts have some intro music that sets the podcast's tone. I didn't want to make another song because of how tedious it was and time constraints, so I went onto the YouTube Audio Library. This has songs that are non-copyrighted and allows anyone to use them for any use. I searched for songs under the bright tag and found the song "Fun Kid" by Quincas Moreira. The intro was playful and informal, which was perfect for the podcast. I used about the first 10 seconds for it, because the music would be too distracting if I kept it for the entirety of the podcast. With my audio where I answered the questions, I put them into an Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech program, which would reduce the amount of noise. The program was very good at removing noise and hums. I put this into the timeline in Ableton and made cuts where I was "waiting" for Obama to question me. I made cuts to Obama's audio where he finishes answering questions. With this, I just had to order it all so that when Obama was asking a question, I was answering it. This was a fairly straightforward process but it took some time to make it all. 

Here is the script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qrCQoh-TOUUXSbfYdMt0j5Gf7B3ajLvUXKvGJe5_h_w/edit?usp=sharing

Developing my 1st CCR

    My first CCR will be a directors commentary in the style of a Discord Q and A. With this, questions 1 and 2 would be broken up and would come from people who viewed the film opening. I used an old Discord server and I sent the questions. The way I made it look like it was from different people was by changing my profile picture and nickname.

    Originally, I wanted to have my clone be a talk show host and being arrogant. But I felt like it would be too long if I made the clone have arrogant remarks, so I cut it out. I didn't change the script much, because of time constraints. Before, I wanted to use my Dad as the host, but since I used him as Dad in the opening, it would feel weird having someone who was against Oliver in the I added some references to some famous musicians, like Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd.

    I recorded it today. Here's a funny blooper! One of my friends online is JasmineFox, so I accidentally said her name instead of Jasmine.

Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gzzQaythqxJj1iBj7ysqdTrmbBZc65jCwqQCatLRYxs/edit?usp=sharing

Another Film(ing session) in the Wall, Pt. 2

    I finished filming today. I was filming part 2, where Dad catches Oliver making music and not focusing on his job at Macrosoft. I had my actual dad be Dad, because why not?

    I used the same makeshift stand to hold my phone. This time, its taller! It's even more jankier but it somehow didn't collapse!

Now I am gonna start editing the film. I'll be implimenting the clone editing technique in it.

Filming!

    Today I finally filmed my opening. I had the help of Noa B, who's actually in A level of this class. Anyways, the recording went very smoothly. Recording parts with him only took less than an hour.

I filmed parts 3 and some of 1 with him and filmed the rest of part 1 afterwards. I used my Google Pixel 4a phone to film the video. I don't have a proper camera, so I settled on using my phone. Plus, Pixel phones are commonly called to have the best camera in a phone.

    Here's a photo of the (kinda) DIY stand I made in 10 minutes. I took the giant stand from my brother and taped my smaller stand to it with what I think is electrical tape. It looks very janky, but it does the job of holding my phone good.

    Here's a blooper from today (featuring Noa)!

Script

 I started to work on my script. At this point, I would say that it's 50% done. Tomorrow I will be fully finished with it, so I can film on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Here's a section of the script.

    There's a bit of a small problem. My friend that I texted to act as my friend in the opening hasn't responded yet. I am praying that they respond. If they don't, then there's always just asking the neighbor or my brother but that's not ideal.

Music Production Day 3: Vocal Chop's (kinda) done, and little adjustments

     Today I figured out how to create a vocal chop. I learned how to use a built-in plugin, called Simpler. It allows for sample chops to be made. I put in the song files for my friend's song. I went away with trying to find some interesting sounds, and I found a couple. I added some pitch bends to make the samples more interesting since they don't last long. I pitched them up by a semitone to match the relative key of D#minor that my song was already in. To be honest, I should have started out with the vocal chops and built the rest of the song into that, then made most of the rest of the song and fit the vocal chops into it. It's still doable, but I could have achieved a better result from that. I'll have to see until I finish the song to see if the end song is good with the vocals.

    I also added some little adjustments to other aspects of the song. I made the lead/synths flow more with them lasting longer and being less sparce in the mix. I removed the hi-hats from the drums because they didn't make sense and stuck out like a sore thumb. Not a big fan of those, and they pulled too much attention to them. I also modified one of the percussion sounds because it pulled too much attention as well. With this the other parts are mostly cleaned up.

Video Permission

    In the opening, my friend is gonna show a video of the DJ set that will be taking place. I decided to reach out in advance to find a video of Fred Again's Boiler Room set. I found a handheld video on Instagram. I reached out to the original poster, and thankfully, he said yes!

    I'm gonna repost this onto an Instagram story. This will make it seem like this was taken on a random fan's phone that my friend is gonna show me.

    Also here's the full video. I'll trim the video so it only includes the "drop".

Music Production Day 2: Drums are done!

     Today I created the drums. I wanted to model them after drums used in ambient productions like the ones by Burial and Four Tet. The drums are moody and were mostly inspired by Burial's Untrue album. I followed along with a video I found on Youtube, but I changed some stuff. I added some reverb because my percussion sounds were too piercing. I wanted the kick drum to be mostly "stable" because it sounds like a heartbeat. I found an organic drum pack, which I used most of the drums from. The video below has a snippet of my drums. 

Youtube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp89uJASruY

Organic Drum Pack: https://hellosamples.com/sound-packs/free-organic-drums-foley-percussion/

Music Production Day 1: Synth/Lead's done!

     Music production is going well so far! Today, I have made the main synth/lead. I'm not sure really what to call it. For creating them, I used a plugin on Ableton called Vital. It uses different shaped sound waves like sine, square, and triangle waves and modifies them to create new, original sounds. On Vital, I found a really interesting preset. The effects applied like compression and distortion make the synth sound almost like a distorted guitar in a grunge rock song. It gave some very interesting texture to it. There was some reverb and delay on it, which made it sound too echo-y and the phase shifter almost was like a wah-wah pedal. I changed the distortion settings to be a hard clip, which increased the "harshness" of the distortion and decreased the dry/wet percent, which reduces the overall volume of the distortion effect compared to the original sound. I didn't change the compression effects much, just decreased the amount of low frequencies. I added an equalizer filter that removes some high frequencies. I added a little touch of glide to make the notes almost glide into each other. Below are some screenshots of what I did. 

I want to automate the decay, where I start the song with the decay being very short, making the synth sound more like plucks. Over 8 measures, I increase the sustain time, which makes them fade out less and sound more like synths compared to plucks. The effects will be more noticeable with more decay time.

In my next post I will work on the drums

Storyboard

    I got the storyboard done! It definitely isn't the best storyboard, but it does the job well. I was planning on making it digitally but I found that storyboard websites aren't as versatile for what I want and it was jankier compared to just drawing it on paper. Turns out storyboardthat.com doesn't have a good graphic of an upright piano, which is the one I have. 

    At first I wanted to use a drum machine, but then I realized I can use my keyboard for the drum machine. Plus, it has cool lighting effects so that when one key is pressed, it can light up and radiate throughout the keyboard. That's gonna look really cool on camera. I'm still deciding for a title, but I don't want to wait until the last minute or during filming. By the next post I SHOULD have a perfect title, otherwise I'm gonna call it "DJ, Turn up the Tune" after a lyric in Skrillex, Fred Again and Flowdan's song "Rumble".

Musical influences

     Today, I didn't have time to finish my storyboard. I was out shopping because tomorrow is my birthday! So instead I want to talk about some of the songs that influence this.

    Recently, I've been getting more into an electronic/synthpop artist called Porter Robinson. His song dullscythe (that's the correct spelling) features a lot of "random" sounds that don't make sense in the beginning. Later in the song all the elements come together to make a masterpiece. One element, the panning of the beginning piano melody from right to left repeatedly could be used in my song. It's important that I don't overdo it, because it could sound bad in a bad way, and not bad in a good way like in dullscythe.

    In a lot of electronic songs with vocals like Follow by Martin Garrix and Zedd, Mumbai Power by Skrillex and BEAM, and Language by Porter Robinson, the first "verse" is purely instrumental. The second "verse" has vocals. I really like this song's structure, and I will incorporate it into my song. When the kid is originally jamming out, the song can be instrumental. In the last scene with a friend getting the kid out of doing internship work, I can put some vocal chops or normal vocals. Also, I got permission from my friend to use their song! I'm just chilling with this for now.

I'm making my own music!

I've been looking everywhere for some good royalty free electronic music, but it all seems cliché and not really what I am producing. Also asking for permission can take a lot of time, time that I don't have. Instead, I have decided to make my own little song! I know what you're thinking: you are making your own music? Do you even have the tools? And yes, I infact do. About a year ago I got Ableton, which is a digital music workstation that actual producers like Skrillex use to make songs. I have some rough ideas laying in the "recycle for a new song" bin that I made but haven't been made into a full length song (they're just a 4 measure motif) so I can expand and develop multiple ideas together to make a coherent song! 

One thing I don't have are vocals to make vocal chops. My friend (who is also in my Media Studies class) makes music that's genuinely so cool. I asked them if I can use vocals from their song to remix them into my song. If they say yes, then I'm chilling with the song. If they say no, then I'll have to find royalty free vocals, which will be a bit challenging, but doable. Speaking of vocals, I was thinking of sampling vocals from a copyrighted song, but I can't do that because the song is copyrighted. Samples for other stuff, like drums and ambient pads are easier to find.

Unless I find the best electronic song on No Copyright Sounds, I'll stick to making my song. Also the storyboard is almost done, so I should finish it by tomorrow hopefully. Homework has been pushing that off.