Gone Too Far:

Lockdown Sound Journals

Week 1: 04/01/2021

04/01/2021

Had a Sound Meeting with Andy and the Sound Team for this terms Dramas.
Wrote AAP for Sound Operator/Mic Runner Role
Had an Actor and PA Meeting at 5.30

05/01/2021

Had a follow up Actor and PA Meeting at 5.30

06/01/2021

Attended World of Work with Punchdrunk at 11.00
Had a PA Meeting ar 13.30

07/01/2021

Theatre Technology Meeting at 14.00

08/01/2021

Individual Meeting with Andy Taylor at 11.00

Reflection of the week:

Nothing to Add

Week 2: 11/01/2021

11/01/2021

Meeting with Andy and Sound Team at 9.30. Sound Ops will be mixing/editing what the Sound Designer provides. Will also be there to assist finding sound samples and content. We will choose a scene from our allocated Drama and use this for our project (Gone Too Far).
Changed AAP once more to tailor more to being in Lockdown with this new project goal.
Amended my Journal Hand-in (This Website)
I replyed to Molly Barrons (PSE) email about voicovers. Recommended that we try to get actors involved.

12/01/2021

Messaged India Mason-Mills (Sound Designer for 'Gone too Far') about any progress to the project. She sent me over the Script and her notes (screenshot). Looking at it being set around Notting Hill Festival. Having Nigerian/African tone with a fusion of Grime and RnB. India reckoned the fight in Scene 3 on page 15 onwards is the most interesting part.
I researched into Somalain, Nigerian, and Yoroban Music. As well as Grime and RnB music. Two videos are attached to what I was looking into.

13/01/2021

Attended a World Of Work meeting with Head of Workshops at the National Theatre

14/01/2021

No Progress

15/01/2021

No Progress

Reflection of the week:

After contacting India, I haven't been notified of any progress on the project whatsoever. Because of my role, I cannot do 95% of the work until there is voiceovers to use as a basis for making an atmosphere around. I do feel a bit lost and I think having some protools/Logic/Q-Lab online lessons would have been nice to fill up some of the 5 weeks and completing this project wont take very long. I also feel quite leftout and left in the dark about what to do.

Week 3: 18/01/2021

18/01/2021

I researched more that we can use for sampling just to do something in the meantime. The youtube videos I sourced relate to the notes India has. Such as African Music, Carribean influence, Reggae and 2000s RnB hits.
Had a tutorial with Andy at 17.00

19/01/2021

16.00-17.30: Had a Protools Mixing Session with Andy and team. Wrote down loads of notes that I either didn't know or would be helpful to remember. Such as making sure your mix has the settings of: BWF (Wav.), 44.1kHz, 32 bit-float and Interleaved box being ticked. To make sure your mix is in Slip mode and that you can untick the grid option. Remembering that you can change where the sound is coming from in your playback engine settings. The speaker symbol is the scrubber tool (which I didnt know!) and to make sure that in the Hardware Buffer Size is the largest you can opt for. Cmd Key opens mixer window. Choose track-New-Stereo-Master Fader. Try to make sure you make sure everything is balanced (stereo). If there is one stand alone track- duplicate it-change the timing slightly and then add EQ. Add extra reverb channels.

20/01/2021

Attended World of Work with Marcus Hall Props
Sourced several Sound Effects from the BBC Library. Such as: Police Cars, Helicopters, Crowds, Street and Seasonal Atmopshere. And more sound effects from youtube such as: Steel Drums/Bands and a Police Whistle.
Had some good news from India that the actors who were cast to be in 'Gone too Far!' are doing the voice overs for scene 3, but we wont be getting the samples till Friday.
Practising my mixing skills with a 37 track peice of 'Last Night of the World' from Miss Saigon. However my Protools isn't allowing me to add more than 12 tracks. I have reached out to see why this is an issue and for now we can't figure out the issue. Hopefully when i get to mixing my piece for 'Gone Too Far' it won't involve more than 12 tracks.

21/01/2021

QLab class with Andy Taylor. I have downloaded the license for QLab and have learnt about more of the settings and niche things Qlab offers. Such as; the general settings, audio outputs, volume limits that can affect fades, the target button to change audio files but not the editing, auto continue, auto following, audio levels, trims and effects. As well as Hotkey triggers, timing, loops and fades.
Ideally I would have continued practising my mixing but I still can't have more than 13 tracks on protools.

22/01/2021

We have our voiceovers from the actors, but can't mix anything until India is done cutting the voices and placed what she wanted where. So I starting thinking about my grad project and used Protools to experiment with soundtracks and sound effects.
India got back to me and said to make a backing track for the dialogue and to try and loop some of the sound effects that I compiled. Without knowing how long the dialogue will be, I didn't know how long to make this loop. I also don't know where the dialogue falls, so I can't properly determine what the volume should be like at certain points. I did a little bit of EQ-ing, such as panning the certain sound effects if there was two tracks of them and making sure the crowd noises had an ambient sound rather than within a room. But because we have only learnt how to EQ instruments, I'm unsure on sound effects just yet.

Reflection of the week:

I feel more productive this week even though it still has been very slow for me. It has been nice to have had online lessons with Andy about mixing with Protools and using Q-Lab. I am putback by the fact that my Protools mysteriously wont allow more than 12 tracks in one session. Because of this I eventually ended up looking at my grad project just to become re-accoustomed to using Protools, but EQ-ing sound effects and pre-exisiting mixed tracks still elude me somewhat. Now that we finally have our voice recordings from the actors, me and India can now team up to do some proper work on this project. I am looking forward to hearing it, and seeing how it all comes together.

Week 4: 25/01/2021

25/01/2021

TT Pathway chat at 11.00
I WeTransfered my backing audio for the project as a WAV file to India for her to hear. Now we are just waiting on audio files for the character 'Paris'. Until then I need to wait for any feedback and possibly get Indias WAV of the voice recordings so I can work my mix around it.
I didnt' have anything else to do for the day so I started on mixing 'Aint no mountain high enough' that has less than 12 tracks.

26/01/2021

Had a 2 hour mixing session with Andy and learnt about what compression really does- limits dynamic range, and can add hard and soft knee compression. It can also bring quiet parts up in volume and bring loud parts down in volume. Then all can be brought up in gain once done (EQ-Dyn3 Compressor/Limiter) As well as using an Audio Gate that can help in getting rid of unwanted noise (EQ-Dyn3 Expander/Gate)
I continued mixing my Aint no Mountain high enough track and got as far as the vocals. I am playing around with D-verb, Compressors, Gates and EQing but i'm not sure if what I am doing sounds good? I played them altogether at the end and it sounds bad but I can't figure out why.
Got the finished voice over edits from India and downloaded it as a protools file as well as the original audio. However, I had some trouble re-linking the audio files to the existing tracks. Luckily I eventually got it fixed and then managed to copy and paste my backing ambience underneath. I began by EQ-ing the voices, but I wasn't sure on how to do this as they are talking rather than singing. So I found an article for some guidance. Using a high pass filter is standard EQ for things like audio books and podcasts. Setting it after 85hz and the dB at its fullest of 12.

27/01/2021

Edited more of the Scene 3 track. I added women chuckling before Armarni and Paris enter. Added D-verb to police cars, Helicopters and Ambience to make them sound like they are more outside. I added to the panning by making sure the vocals of the four characters sound like they are standing at different points. The males more to the left and the females more to the right. Added quite a high frequency shelf on Yemis vocals as his audio was more muddy than the rest. This cleared him up a lot so I added a small amount of this to all the vocals, and is a great imrpovement to what it was before. The rest of the editing was mainly trying to use the automated volume tool for all tracks to balance out the volume. I didnt want the sound effects to overpower the vocals but make them present enough to be heard.
I then bounced it out as an mp3 and sent India and Andy. India said she is working on a soundtrack and plans to send it in the morning

28/01/2021

Edited more of Scene 3. Added some more sound effects such as footsteps for Ikudayisi and Yemi as well as footsteps for Paris and Armarni. I then tried to make the sound effects pan depending on where they were walking too and from. I also added in a thud for when the fight begins also. I added more EQ to the voices too to make it more ambient- but it still doesn't right? I'm not sure how I can really progress with it. Most of the day was taken up by small tweaks here and there. I ended it with Stormzy in this version as it links the popularity of grime music with people of colour, as well as it shifting the tone from traditional identity to modern identity. The mumbai band and steelband music keeps the traditional tones throughout and I like that it ends on grime as its a nice and important change.

29/01/2021

Edited more of Scene 3. India said to get Armanis line of 'None of your buisness' to inturrupt Paris' line before it. I changed this just to the point where it inturrupts naturally and isn't messy.

Reflection of the week:

I felt very productive this week, I learnt more about Protools and just being more confident with the software in general. Knowing you can pan sounds manually underneath the track so the sound moves in the space is really useful to know how to do. Understanding what makes a voice clearer and what makes it more bassy in the 7-band EQ feature is also useful. On the other hand, I dont think I am heading in the right direction for some of it, I think it takes time to really learn what things are meant to sound like. I genuinely feel that I make the 'Aint no mountain high enough' track sound so much worse than what it was originally. I am just looking forward to mixing in a theatre space and doing it on a desk.

Week 5: 01/02/2021

01/02/2021

I haven't achieved anything today apart from bouncing out the final version of the session onto MP3. This is to be listened to in earphones as it hasn't be mixed for speakers.
I havent got any feedback from Andy Taylor on the V2 I sent out with Stormzy added at the end, so I just assumed it was alright? The voices could still probably be EQ'd better but I am not sure how to determine what exactly sounds good? I feel its a talent I haven't achieved yet

02/02/2021

Nothing to add

03/02/2021

Had a relative listen to the finished product. Feedback was: Ikudayisi was too quiet, Paris too loud and the footsteps could have been quieter when the girls approached the scene. Liked the voice acting overall. Thought the ambience was really nice and the choice of music. It felt realistic and atmospheric. Thought adding grime at the end was a nice modern touch in comparison with the more traditional african start.

04/02/2021

Made changes to the track from the feedback I was given (screenshots) and re-bounced it out as Version 4.

05/02/2021

Meeting with Molly and Sound team at 12.
Had a feedback email from Andy- all is really good, and not much change is needed. I could reconsider the 'thud' sound as it sounds like someone falling into a microphone. So I could try and find another effect that would fit that better.

Gone Too Far Scene 3 (v3) Eve Clayton

00:00 / 07:35

Gone Too Far Scene 3 (v4) Eve Clayton

00:00 / 07:37

Reflection of the week:

Opposite of the week before I feel very unproductive. Because I have finished the project given to us- I am not sure what to do. I understand that I can continue mixing 'Aint no mountain high enough' but what I have done already sounds dreadful and I am relunctant to continue with it. I have also had some family issues crop up in the week and any uni work has taken a backseat. Yet again I just feel a bit lost and not being told what I should be doing? I realise that I should be sending emails on my part, and asking questions but at the moment I feel down about the current situation we are in, and cant bring myself for doing any more work, especially without a deadline attached.

Week 6: 08/02/2021

08/02/2021

I have written my evaluation of this project.
Contacted India about finding an alternative sound for the thud noise. She found two videos for thud samples. The first one is at 1.47 in the video. I went to open my protools and my license has expired. I feel that with one week left and with the task finished- there would be no point to go to the trouble to reinstate it now. So these are the two possible options we could have gone for:

09/02/2021

TT Pathway chat at 17.30

10/02/2021

Sound World Of Work Zoom Meeting

11/02/2021

White Card meeting for the REPS at 13.00: I have notes on where speaker placement could be? The whole set is in Magnolia so hiding black speakers will be tricky. Could hide them in the two structures of the set or hang them from the grid.
I have sent Molly Barron the final version of the mix.

12/02/2021