What you are about to read was written before the sudden change of subject due to the new lockdown:
Pre-unit Prologue
Ok, so the reason I'm starting this blog post early is because I wanted to mention that in the half term, I'd actually been starting to design a new character (it's been a while since I've done that), currently he's called Detective Griswold but much like his design, this could change. Speaking of his design, I've currently done two designs for him. (which I ended up doing for Petra Popstar and The Drawgaxes from The Colypsia Website I made back in level 2)
Part of the reason I'm doing something new this time is because one of my teachers decided to give me a challenge which stipulates that I can't use a certain blue Cartoon Sheep (to be fair though, I have used him for two projects in a row)
So after a brief session of goofing off while doing goofy voices (I tend to do that a lot, not gonna lie), I ended up coming up with the name "Detective Griswold," so afterwards I figured "Hey, since this is the 'Missing' unit, why don't I turn that into an actual character," so during the half term break, I decided to start designing Griswold early so that I wouldn't have to worry about it later:
For this first design, I decided to make him a human being. The reason I chose to do this was so I could distance him from the Super Sheep characters. (who are mostly all animals but there are a couple of humans in there)
I chose to try and take some inspiration from Characters associated with Noir and Detective work such as Eddie Vaillant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and to a lesser extent, Spider-Man Noir (particularly the one from "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse")
Here, Eddie and Spider-Man Noir (but mostly Eddie) wearing a fedora and a snazzy suit (perfect for filing paper work), similar to what I decided to give Detective Griswold this time around (although I didn't want to subconsciously steal Eddie's style, so I decided not to look up any reference images while doing this)
Looking back however, I feel like giving this design a brown hat might accidently make people think about Indiana Jones instead of Eddie Valliant and at that point, people might think this is more of a high octane adventure rather than a detective story. (but then again, Eddie's hat is also brown, and nobody compares him to Indy at all)
Overall, I'm actually starting to think this one might be the better of the two designs, mostly because I feel like him being a human would help him be more of a separate entity to that of Super Sheep while still being on brand with what I do best (considering my cartoony art style as well as the other human characters I've made):
But enough about the human version of Griswold (which I might end up going with in the end, if I don't decide to replace Griswold with someone else), as now I've got to discuss the second version I designed:
As you can see from the image above, Griswold's looking quite different from the first one. (probably because he's a bear now) The reason I decided to give this one a whirl is because I wanted to see if it was worth changing the name to "Detective Grizz-Wold." (yup, a bear pun inspired me to experiment with the Idea of turning him into a bear instead) The name and spices weren't the only things that changed about Griswold this time around, as I also made his clothes much more casual as well as having the shirt, hat and gloves be torn up slightly to communicate that this bear lives below the poverty line in this universe, this is also the reason why he has a honey stain on his shirt and his "shirt pocket" is a completely different colour from the rest of his T-shirt. (with the lines protruding from the pocket making it seem like it was cheaply stitched to the shirt itself, this extends to his cracked glasses that need sello-tape because they were designed to be worn by humans)
of course, looking back on this design I feel like I might have gone a bit too far in a few places, mainly in making this version a bit too casual because now instead of a down and out detective, people are instead going to think he's a discount Indiana Jones wanna-be (much like that pesky Dex Dog-Tective from 2012's "Food-Fight")
While I was doing this blog post however, I did end up getting an idea as to how I could use both designs (thus meaning neither of them will be rejects), I could theoretically repurpose the bear design to be the villain but I'll have to wait until I've actually done some research into the subject matter of this unit before I can make any other developments (because I don't want to get too far ahead of myself)
and with that, everything from here on out will actually relate to the new subject matter:
Lockdown Shock Down
In a shocking turn of events (similar to what happened to the faceless portraits from the photography half of this course), the whole country has gone back into lock-down for the third time. (curse you COVID-19) This means the tutors have had to change what this unit is all about, so instead doing a unit on the theme of "Missing" (which would have included making a video at the end, which is why I started work on designing Detective Griswold in the first place), now we're gearing up to do a unit on "Lockdown 3.0" (which from what I've read, it seems to involve an online gallery of stills that also features some audio):
Unfortunately for me, this means I'll have to save Griswold's story for later (and what stinks is that I could have used Griswold to also explain the origins of a certain space clean-up guy I created back in Level 2):
So now that that's been cleared up, now I can get started on this unit properly when the time comes (which will either be this Wednesday or next Monday due to a conflict of information)
Where to begin
Ok, so since this project will involve a photo gallery, it's only natural that we'll start off with how a typical virtual gallery is presented (to be honest I was having a difficult time figuring out where to start until Monday's "teams" meeting)
So how are typical virtual Photo Exhibitions presented?
During today's "Teams" meeting (yup, my worst fears since the first lockdown have now been realised), we learned what sort of research we'd need to do as a starting point, this would mainly revolve around looking at some virtual galleries ourselves and reflecting on what we either do or don't like about them and even which parts we'd steal (their words, not mine) for use in our own exhibitions (luckily we were given 5 links to use in order to get started):
With that out of the way, let's dive right into our tour. Today I want to start off with The Peabody Museum's "Fragile Memories" exhibit (because the top link is just a list of other online exhibitions):
In this first screenshot, we can see that each section of the Exhibit is listed off to the side of the image, the reason this is so helpful is because otherwise, people might think this is the one image they have for the entire exhibition.
Just below the image, you'll find a few paragraphs that usually exist to give (what is in this case historical) context to the image (or images) in question, in our case, it's explaining what the entire Exhibition is all about since this is technically the introduction page. in most cases, this exhibit will have something in between the image and text. In the case of the screen shot above we can see there's a YouTube video where various people are reflecting on putting the physical exhibition together:
Of course, this gallery of images is more indicative of the rest of this particular exhibit (because the original expedition back in 1891 had managed to capture so many images beck in the day):
Here, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the types of images that are on display here, the most prominent type (at least in this section about the community of Copan Village in Pueblo Penueno) are group shots, as you can no doubt see from the screenshot above where there are at least 4 group shots. one of them is of the explorers arriving at the local area, one is of the local workers said explorers enlisted to do a little bit of digging and the other two are of the locals and their culture. Meanwhile, sandwiched between the shot of the explorers digging and the shot of a local family outside their hut, you'll find a lone shot of the surrounding landscape with no people (or in other words, a landscape image)
Now for this next part, I'm not sure if the Peabody museum did this intentionally of if it was all a coincidence, but the way the images are arranged allows the viewers to connect the dots as to how this story happened (I.E: first the explorers discover a big totem pole, then they enlist the help of local passers by to help find ancient artefacts for the museum, afterwards the locals offer to take the intrepid explorers back to Copan Village where they spent the next year or so until it was time to head back to Harvard University to haul back what they found)
A lot of the people that contributed to the documentation of the various expedition were people such as Felipe Deisderios, Marshall Saville, Edmund. Lincoln and even George Gordon Byron. (these are only a few of the people that took the various photographs) All of these people (at least if my assumptions are correct) were students of Harvard university at the time.
Of course, this particular layout for the Peabody museum seems to borrow quite a bit from the format of an online news article such as this one about how schools are now suggesting PS4s for home learning, thus validating my methods (thanks to a kid named William suggesting the idea to his school):
But I'm getting off topic, as we need to take a look at a more modern way an online Exhibition would present itself (no offence to the people at the Peabody Museum) by looking at how some people from the British Guild of Travel Writers:
Well the first thing I should note before we begin is the fact that this particular photo exhibition was specifically created to be viewed on the internet (as a pose to being created for a museum and then being forced to move online due to the pandemic) due to the fact that this one's actually more of a photo essay that's meant to shine a light on the various photographers that are a part of the aforementioned guild:
For this one, I'll be putting in the images directly and using it as a jumping off point to talk about the photographer in question:
This landscape picture was taken by one Alex Green, a woman who's work has actually been featured in such notable magazines such as France Magazine, Voyage Magazine and even West Magazine:
So from what I could gather by glancing at various pages (I.E: her website and her twitter), she seems to have been taking photographs since at least April 2009 (since that's when she joined twitter) and seems to have had quite a flair for travelling around the world (mainly France but all that was before lockdown crippled the UK for the third time):
She's also quite a passionate travel writer (what with how her current pinned tweet serves to announce her collaboration with France Magazine and mention a small titbit about where she'd been in her early 20s and the fact she's even a part of the British Guild of Travel Writers in the first place)
As I was preparing to give up and move on to the next person in this line up, I realised that the images she used in her pinned tweet could relate to that French Magazine collaboration, thus meaning I've potentially found the images that were featured in that collaboration (all images in the following gallery are sourced from her Twitter account):
And from what I've learned, I now firmly believe she specialises in taking landscape shots (due to all the samples I found happening to be landscape shots) now that my bacon's been saved, let's move on to our next photo:
This picture was taken by one Bill Birkett:
Now billy here loves doing three things more than anything in the world, he likes to write books (as I found out when trying to get to his website via an ad for one of his books), go Rock Climbing and take photographs professionally (luckily, he's able to make a living doing all three of these things at once)
In a similar vain to Alex Green, this man likes photograph the various landscapes he comes across (although unlike Alex, all of his pictures are either of various hills he found note worthy, or they're of the summit he just climbed up (all images in this gallery are sourced from Bill Birkett.Com:
This obsession with rock climbing seems to also run in his family, as his brother will often join him on their rock climbing expeditions:
And with that, we'll move on to our 3rd (and final) Photographer from the guild, one Gary Arndt (because I don't have time to do everyone else justice):
This man has a passion for travelling all around the world (as you can no doubt tell from the screen shot above where he demands you follow him as he continues his "13 year trip around the world")
So it seems this guy's quite prolific when it comes to his work, or maybe he just does really good marketing (I mean, why else would he be featured in so many places), speaking of which, let's take a look at some photographs he's taken previously (All images in this gallery are sourced from Everything-Everywhere.com):
Now, you're probably wondering, "why does Gary take these pictures instead of working on his mod?" well you see, the reason he's taking these particular photos is for the purpose of then advertising those places to the people that come and visit his website:
So while this man might not have the rock climbing skills of Bill or even the city expertise of Alex, this man is able to cleverly fuse his passion for travel writing and photography with a hint or marketing (well, I say that but what I really mean is he does MORE marketing than his contemporaries) in order to not only get more work than them, but due to the fact he's travelling around the world more often than them, he'll gain more clout among the Travel community.
Before we go, I'd just like to quickly mention another aspect of the British Guild of Travel Writer's Photo Exhibition, that being how it technically also promotes the Photographers, not just by giving them credit for their work but by also directly linking to their actual websites (although saying that, I'm technically doing the same thing by linking to all my sources), thus allowing people to view more of their work. (and even hire them out if the option's available)
Our last example of a photo exhibition for this section will come in the form of British Photography.com:
The reason this one's so different from all the other exhibitions we've discussed thus far is because of how it attempts to convert the physical art museum experience into a virtual website (meaning each of these boxes will take you to a different page where you can take a gander at the various images):
In this image, we can see that the introductory image is placed to the right of some paragraphs. Those paragraphs serve to entice the reader into wanting to see the rest of the exhibit by describing the context of all the photos and artwork (because this exhibition is hosted by an art museum) on display:
In this section, we can see that this section takes a similar approach to the that of the links to the actual exhibits (boxes you can click on to see the art in question), except when you click on the boxes in this section (we'll use the "Sleeping Beauty Performs an Operation" by Sarah Maple), you'll see the art is given a completely different formatting style:
Unlike the introductory page where they'd need to write some paragraphs to introduce the theme of the exhibit (while trying to entice the reader to come check out the rest of the art there), in this section the art ends up taking centre stage (due to a combination of how big the picture is and the fact it's literally placed in a central location on the page)
Meanwhile, over to the right we can see that the text has gained a new role, and that's mainly to credit the artist (or in our case photographer) who created the image and sold it to the museum. (as well as tell people when the museum acquired the art and the actual size of the printed piece)
In a similar vain to a large chunk of P.I.X.A.R's film line up, there's more to this text that what's on the surface, as when you click "more details," you get this:
and as if that crediting the artist wasn't enough, there's also a link that takes you to a page that actually details who the artist is (although I did think it was a link to the artist's personal website at first rather than simply another page on this one):
I assume the reason this museum does this is because they want to gloat at other art museums about how many artists have sold things to them (which they'll then sell for exorbitant prices to other art collectors)
as you can see from this little deep dive, there are lots of ways one could format a photo exhibit on the internet (and that's not even mentioning virtual tours of some of these places where you get 360 degree views of each room through the power of panoramic images), from photo essays to full on exhibits (and even more that I didn't cover here)
alright hot shot, so how are images used to tell a story?
much like any other visual means such as movies and video games, pictures by themselves can be used to tell a compelling story, for example, back in the Peabody Museum, I couldn't help but point out how the way some of the images were arranged (whether it be intentional or not) could help tell the story of how a group of explorers found a little village while they were enlisting the help of some local workers to help dig up some ancient artefacts:
in fact, being able to tell a story in stills is often why people tend to do storyboards before they film and/or animate anything in order to see if a film's story can work visually before needing to commit to anything as seen in this animatic from the movie Toy Story:
this example (while it is different in places such as certain shots and a little bit of the dialogue) comes from a scene they ended up using in the final film:
video uploaded by Gordon Logsdon (even if it's only one piece of the scene)
of course, this is from the finalised version of the movie where Pixar didn't have to deal with Katzenberg's edge filled demands, because Toy Story was originally going to be a whole different beast as seen in the infamous "Black Friday" Reel:
video uploaded by SlashMan.EXE. You can also see that this one is a lot more sketchy (in the literal sense) compared to the one that got used in the final film (for example, Buzz Lightyear looks quite different and sometimes Hamm will walk on two legs in this version)
the reason this storyboard even exists is because originally, the first Toy Story would have been a whole lot edgier than the film we ended up getting (think of the original tone as being like the movie "Antz" from Dreamworks but the main character isn't very likable)
Of course, this is just one way a story can be told via stills (and even then I'm only inserting this example in order to tie this section back to Creative Media) as quite a lot of photographers (especially those that work in the news and documentary industries) will often have a specific reason for taking certain pictures because they'll often be used as part of a larger story, whether they be documenting real life events or telling a fictitious story.
One example I found actually comes from the website Britishphotography.org (a website we've actually discussed previously), and it comes in the form of "Sleeping Beauty Performs an Operation":
in this image, we can see that some surgeons are performing an operation on their patient, all the meanwhile Sleeping Beauty is trying to lend a hand despite (presumably) not possessing the correct qualifications for the job (she doesn't even have her hair tied back for pete's sake), but none of the other surgeons seem to notice her presence.
In this case, there are a quite a few ways one could interpret this particular image, because while I believe the most likely reason they don't notice Sleeping Beauty is because they're all too busy focusing on the actual surgery, but one could also assume that since they don't seem to know Sleeping Beauty is there, she may very well be a hallucination the patient is having thanks to the anaesthetics they're on containing some kind of hallucinogen. (because otherwise, I'm sure someone like Sleeping Beauty would get kicked out of the surgery room based on the way their dressed alone)
But this particular story is only told in a single image with not a lot of accompanying text (and even then, none of it provides further context besides which online gallery this image is a part of), which does help give meaning to the phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words"
Another example of images that tell stories on the internet comes from another website we've previously discussed, that being The British Guild of Travel Writers (because pulling at straws is fun):
Of course, the image (which in this screen cap you can only see the top of) below the text tells the story of some rock climber with only a single image (again), but what makes this one different from "Sleeping Beauty Performs an Operation is the fact that the text above actually provides further context to the actual image by mentioning it takes place "above Wastwater in the Wasdale Valley, the location where the sport of rock climbing began."
This extra bit of insight actually helps to enhance the story behind the image as now, the audience viewing this image can interpret this image as being of a guy going back to where it all began and taking the same voyage as the first rock climbers and thus following in their footsteps. The beauty of this context however is that you don't really need it to understand what's actually happening in the image. (like I said it helps to enhance and elevate the story)
Photo+Sound Experimentation
ok, so much like with the foley task, I couldn't actually finish all the actual research (which means every bit of research that gets added after this point will have been done retro-actively)
Some Reflection
but first, I need to present the images that made up this whole thing:
ok, now that that's all been established, now I can move on to the actual reflection.
The theme I decided to go with here was an empty Universal Studios (specifically the new Super Nintendo World as it's still not open and I can use images from various different angles), I came up with the Idea during the Microsoft Teams meeting when we were giving examples of possible themes. After the Teams meeting we all got started on our task:
and then I exported the new sound onto my pen drive (which I named after the character of Penfold from Danger Mouse) and then it was time to edit everything together
afterwards, I hopped on to my PS4 and booted up the share factory, only to end up running into issues importing the photos as some of them ended up having a higher resolution than what's supported (never thought having too high of a resolution can), although I didn't have any trouble importing the music (thanks past me)
afterwards it was take two on the editing as now all the images were able to be imported with no issue. (well, after a little bit of fumbling around on my part) The only major caveat I ran into was that the images were imported as overlays, which meant I'd need to get some footage in order to even put the images in (so I added some footage from my old Final Major Project in order to save some time):
afterwards it was simply making sure each image lasted the same amount of time (in this case it was 5 seconds) and add in the music and hey presto, I ended up using sound to add meaning to the images:
although mine ended up being parallel (where the sound re-enforces the what's being shown) instead of Contrapuntal (where the sounds used contrast what's happening on screen) like the task asked for (maybe I should have given the task list a proper read instead of diving in head first)
If I wanted the sound to actually be contrapuntal instead, I probably could have kept the visuals of Super Nintendo World but instead of the Mario theme, I would replace it with Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1 (thus creating a situation where the visuals would make people think of Mario Bros while the audio makes people think of Sonic The Hedgehog):
although something like that would probably have worked even better in the 90s when Sonic and Mario represented two different consoles (unlike the present day where Mario's still the same but Sonic's console is gone and now he appears on all consoles... including Nintendo)
what is Sound
Well you see dear reader, sound is a very important component in creative media production, as it constitutes everything one can hear throughout a particular production (and it's also what's helped us as humans survive for as long as we have)
There are 5 main sound types that get used during the production of most media that exists out there, Those being Foley which refers to the sound effects you record yourself (mostly using little more than whatever random objects you can find), this is almost always diegetic (which means both the characters and the audience can hear them) and they're most often recorded in specialised rooms such as this one:
Another type of sound is Music, which refers to things such as the score or even licenced songs that might get used as part of your work's soundtrack (an example would be when I used the song "Escape From The City" from the game Sonic Adventure 2 to make a music video starring Super Sheep and friends):
I'll admit, I didn't think that it would end up being Hex Moother's first appearance, but it is what it is.
Sound (but Detailed)
for each type of sound we'll be discussing an example of each sound as well as going into further detail as to how said type gets made (by using a modified template I stole from my Microsoft Teams class), starting with...
Foley sound
For this one, there exist various videos that can explain the nuances of what can be done with foley sounds, one of which I've stolen from our Microsoft Teams class:
This video goes in to great detail about how the various foley artists go about making sounds for movies. It mostly goes into the weather and water effects though, which while they're both important, I managed to find a second video that I believe does a better job at explaining the concept (especially for younger viewers), and that's this DVD extra from Tom and Jerry: The Fast And The Furry (and yes, this is due to my personal biases striking once again):
In short, the foley process consists of the foley artists (who are associated with the sound department) coming into the room with all the random props. (which is referred to as the foley room) in that room, there's often a screen which plays a version of a scene from the movie without any of the actual audio implemented. once the scene starts, the foley artists then spring into action by making noises in sync to the action on the screen (they do this next to a microphone that's been set up in the room so that the sounds get recorded)
After the scene is over and recording's finished (due to the nature of this part of the process, the foley artists may need to do multiple takes in order to get the sound right), it's then up to the people in the mixing room (like the ones you often find in music studios, it's all connected) to then mix the various sounds into the footage (almost like layering the instruments in a song) so that all the sounds line up with the action on screen. (whether it be a boat going through water or some grapes falling on the floor) then it's rinse and repeat for every single scene in your production and presto, your production can go on to sound it's absolute best.
Unfortunately for me, getting an example that features just the foley sounds is a little bit difficult to the point where you'd need to somehow posses an editable copy of any given piece of media (and by that I mean a version you can remove the music from), and those are usually locked away in an archive somewhere within the studio that made it (either that or they deleted it after they were done with it)
with that being said however, I would like to present my main example, that being the beginning of the straight to DVD movie "Tom and Jerry: The Fast and The Furry" (because I grew up watching this movie):
The reason I'm bringing this particular scene up is because of the fast paced, chaotic nature of it all (in this context, it's being done to introduce the audience to Tom and Jerry's typical shenanigans), thus meaning there're lots of opportunities for funny sound effects.
For example, near the beginning when Tom and Jerry briefly whip out a pair of toy cars (which foreshadows the "Fabulous Super Race" that takes centre stage for the rest of the film), Tom ends up falling down the stairs, causing his car to make multiple thud sounds as he falls. (which results in a massive crash at the end of the stairs) For the last crash, my assumption is that they had to combine multiple smaller sound recordings to create the larger effect because once those sounds get recorded, they technically become sound-bytes that can then be edited, which means multiple sounds can still be combined. (as shown in the "Make Some Noise" bonus feature from earlier)
even though foley is used throughout the clip (and by extension the whole movie, but even then you can still find stock sound effects sprinkled in there) comes when ever any of the characters get hit by an acorn (this only happens to a random Squirrel Jerry passes and the dog, Spike):
the reason I bring this part up is to emphasise the importance of having multiple recordings in order to give the sound some slight variant (which granted, they do actually do here, but for the most part you can tell they were on a budget and had to re-use one recording multiple times), as if you don't do this, you're sound design will sound a little bit samey.
Dialogue
Dialogue is quite easy to explain as it's simply the spoken words that get said by a character. (whether they be the protagonist, antagonist or even a background character) Dialogue often exists to help guide the audience on what the story of your production is (but one usually tries to make the dialogue as natural sounding as possible for whatever the given situation may be), my main example of dialogue is the therapy scene from Dreamworks' "Antz", because of how it establishes the tone of the whole film (and spoiler alert, it's nothing like P.I.X.A.R's A Bugs Life):
in this scene, we get introduced to the character of Z via a voice over (which in this context can help the audience get to know the character before it's revealed he's an ant), afterwards he goes on about how his troubled life within his ant colony, which ends up serving as the foundation for the events that transpire throughout the rest of the film. (as well as his initial character motivation of getting to the legendary "insectopia") this part also serves to give us Z's entire backstory with his abandonment issues stemming from the fact he was a middle child in a family of 5 million.
The fact that this scene is a therapy scene makes it much easier to get away with expository dialogue due to the often expository nature of a person's average therapy session (not that I'd know anything about that)
unlike foley sounds after the end of the silent era, dialogue isn't actually necessary to make a story work (especially if the story is of a more simplistic nature as often the visuals, music cues and sound effects will be enough to carry the whole thing):
heck, one of the best character introductions that doesn't use dialogue (at least in my opinion) is with the character of Knuckles from Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (mainly the "Sonic alone" and "Sonic and Tails" versions, because choosing "Tails alone" just starts the game with no cutscene at the beginning):
in this intro sequence, we can see that Sonic and Tails are using the tornado to get to Angel Island while some pleasant music is playing in the background (which turns out to be the theme from the first level) and Sonic decides to go Super Sonic so that he can get there fast. Once Super Sonic gets to the island however, the music changes to a simple drum beat as Knuckles The Echidna burrows through the underground to knock Sonic out of his super form like it was nothing. Afterwards Knuckles steals the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, does a quick chuckle (despite what his theme song in Sonic Adventure implies) and then leaves as the game starts.
This moment is special because even without the dialogue, you can tell that Knuckles is quite a powerful character, and to me, his ability to knock Sonic out of his super form (which at that point would have been his most powerful form yet) says to the player "alright chump, you're in Knuckles' domain now, so stay vigilant" (after this the next time we see Knuckles is when he presses a button that destroys a bridge, thus sending the player to Hydrocity Zone, this establishes that you'll be seeing Knuckles a lot on this adventure)
But I'm getting off topic, now you might be asking "how's the dialogue created?" well that can depend on what type of film you're talking about. For animation, they get the actors into recording booths and get them to speak their lines in character (which can often take a lot of attempts to get right):
after all the cast are finished recording the lines, the animators can then animate the characters mouths in order to make it look like they're actually saying the actors lines:
of course, when it does come time to translate the movie to other languages however (because animation is expensive and takes effort), companies will often just change the audio without adapting the characters mouths for the new dialect (in some cases the visuals will get re-cut due to certain laws in other countries):
if you're doing a live action film, the actors do all say their dialogue on location, but often times they'll need to re-record the lines in order to separate the dialogue from the ambiance, but in cases such as Darth Vader, they'll record his scenes with one person (in Darth's case it was David Prowse) but replace his voice with someone who could pull off a more menacing sound (in this case it's none other than Mufasa himself, James Earl Jones):
Musical Score
The musical score (which is a subsection of the music audio track) is a piece of music that often plays in the background of a movie scene in order to heighten the emotions (and sometimes the suspense) of a given scene. (whether it be a suspenseful scene with lots of action or a calming scene with lots of backstory)
much like with the creation of foley sound effects, the score is often created after the visuals are already finished thus meaning it's easy to sync the music with the footage on a big screen while the composer also gets their own smaller screen for reference (although in the case of films like Toy Story 4, the lighting department will often still be adding the final lighting to some scenes):
while the musicians are all playing their instruments, there are also people in the mixing room trying to balance the volume of the music with the rest of the sound effects (which are often still being worked into the film) as well as the dialogue.
A lot of films will often go for a generically whimsical sound (with the big blockbuster style orchestra):
video uploaded by Junkie XL (in my opinion Sonic's film probably could have benefited from taking a few cues from the actual games like they did in the starting logos)
but certain films like The LEGO Movie and Into The Spider-verse (while they still do use that sound) will take a more creative spin on it (mostly by either changing certain instruments or playing with different musical genres like electronica and hip-hop respectively) in order to try and stick out:
of course, these film scores are quite good to listen to on their own (same goes for the soundtracks of video games), so usually what tends to happen is the soundtrack tends to get sold on their own alongside the film because one can make a profit selling a film's soundtrack as a separate album, but thus far we've only discussed them on their own as a separate entity from the films they're made for, so without further ado, lets see how this chase scene from Sonic the Hedgehog benefits from having a score attached to it (yes I know I've brought up this chase scene once before but trust me, I have a reason for bringing it up again):
in this scene, you can hear that the score starts to kick in once Sonic gets his warp rings and dashes off to get away from Dr Eggman. (or Dr Robotnik if you're old school or only know Sonic from watching this film) The score here helps to communicate the frantic nature of this chase scene (with all the instruments moving to a rather speedy tempo) which sneakily tells the audience that things could get hairy for our little blue blur if he can't lose Dr Robotnik quickly. (even if we all know that Sonic will win at the end of the film)
when the scene later cuts to France the music briefly switches gears to give us a stereotypically French flair (with the accordions and everything) before building back up once the giant ring portal shows up, then afterwards when Sonic and Robotnik barge through the music picks up the pace again to communicate the return of the high stakes. (which it takes of until Eggman fires his laser at Sonic while he's on the Pyramid in Egypt)
the way this scene is scored is very important as if they were to give this scene a more mellow and relaxing score it would contrast heavily with the action that's happening on screen (not to mention the audience might not feel as tense because they'll be too busy processing how the music and the action just don't mesh together at all)
while I do think the score itself does a fine job at escalating the tension that's built in this scene (which I discuss in greater detail in the "Tension Building" unit from earlier in the year), I just feel it's a little bit too generic for a Sonic The Hedgehog movie, as a result of this I feel like you could take out the score entirely and replace it with something similar and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
Now I'll be the first to admit, I'm not much of an expert when it actually comes to music (or music making for that matter) so under normal circumstances I'd probably end this section by wishing the soundtrack took more cues from the games. But luckily for us, there's another reason I'd picked to specifically bring up the final chase scene from Sonic The Hedgehog
to make a long story short, some dude on twitter called demonic had managed to get their hands on a version of the film with 6-channel audio, this meant that they were able to isolate the music channel in this scene (and other scenes too) and then effectively remove the music entirely. they then posted this onto twitter.com where after showing it off for a bit, they linked a page where you could download the video:
now that the back story to that clip's been done we can get into the good stuff by discussing how the tension changes as the music gets swapped:
in this video, Animdude's gone ahead and chosen to replace the music with the musical score from the 2002 Spider-Man movie.
this demonstrates what I mean when I say that you could replace the score with that of any other movie and it wouldn't sound too out of place (although I'll admit this score doesn't fully fit the "chase scene" mould but it still works in place of the regular music in my opinion), while I think the music doesn't sound all that different, it does change the scene ever so slightly by making the villain seem more like a looming threat rather than the big bad guy that's chasing our hero all around the world (oh, and in the video, once it cuts to France, we do get a brief bit of Team Fortress 2 music before cutting back to the Spider-Man music), but other than that, if you were to view this scene with the Spider-Man music in there (without explicitly being told it was there) you'd probably assume it was the original score meant of this scene (yup, that's how replaceable the actual score from the 2020 Sonic Movie is), but enough dilly dallying. let's see what happens when we replace the music with something that's actually from the games:
with this scene, SuperSaiyanSonic has taken a more "Unleashed" approach to the soundtrack, as all the music used in this version of the scene is taken from the soundtrack of Sonic Unleashed and in my opinion (as a huge Sonic fan) I think it works way better than the original soundtrack because it fits well with the style the film's going for (which in this scene is a hyper active chase across the world) all the meanwhile it takes cues from the games (well in this case it's lifted straight from the games but you get my point), I especially love it when Sonic and Robotnik are on The Great Wall of China and they change the music to Dragon Road (Day) because it keeps up the hyper active chase while also expressing how Sonic's glad to have some "room to open it up." where it does falls apart however is when Sonic goes to Egypt and they switch the music to Arid Sands (Day), (don't get me wrong it's a good track on it's own and it fits well in the context of Sonic Unleashed) because it's there where the music stops feeling tense despite the fact that this is where Robotnik eventually gets the upper hand on Sonic at the pyramids. (personally they should have gone back to the opening cutscene theme again in order to re-establish Robotnik as a bigger threat)
Other than that however, I'd prefer this soundtrack for the entire movie. (heck, I'd even bring in music from other Sonic Games like Sonic Rush, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Heroes, ext.)
What Happens When Certain Sounds Get Removed-
ok, so discussing the chase scene from Sonic The Hedgehog (the 2020 movie) has turned out to be a nice seg-way into this section about what happens when you forget to factor in the importance of sound in film (well, film trailers to be exact but you get the general gist), but before we get into this, I'd just like to credit the YouTube user known as Random Videoos - No requests, read descriptions (yes that's their name on YouTube, and no they don't take requests) because every video from here on out (that relates to trailers that are missing certain sounds) will be uploaded by that guy.
now, the main example I want to go with in terms of sound removal is the trailer for the upcoming (at least as of writing) Tom and Jerry movie:
the reason I'm going with this trailer in particular is because it has a hand in how I even discovered this channel in the first place.
the first thing we're going to remove is the music (because I believe it's often the most noticeable part when it gets taken out):
one thing you should immediately notice is how the trailer suddenly feels quite empty due to a lack of music because a lot of the time, the trailers are built around the selected music (whether it be an original score or a licensed track), in the end of the trailer, where there'd normally be a brief tonal shift thanks to the inexplicably serious music that briefly kicks in, we don't get that tonal shift at all thanks to the absence of the music (between Tom and Jerry and Sonic The Hedgehog, it really goes to show how the choice of music can really help set the tone for both film scenes and trailers), thus meaning the end of the trailer carries the same tone as the rest of the trailer (which ruins a pretty good juxtaposition when you consider what happens to Tom afterwards)
another point of note is that (at least in this trailer) without the music, the soundscape is actually quite empty with very minimalistic use of sound effects and foley (because these trailers aren't usually reflective of a film's final sound design), although you might not have noted just how mininalistically sound effects are utilised as the music and dialogue would usually pick up the slack in that regard, so you know what's getting cut next (bye bye dialogue):
here, you notice the minimalistic(ish) sound design even more because whenever the characters would usually be talking, there's no usually no ambiance except in the very beginning (because the most of the ambient sounds get used in the actual film)
of course, removing the dialogue also gives us some insight as to what the movie studios even consider as part of the "dialogue" track in the first place. For example, things like Jerry's smelling and gulping noises are actually considered sound effects while laughter is actually considered dialogue because the laughter is coming directly from the actor playing Jerry (speaking of dialogue, let's see what it's like with ONLY Dialogue, just for funsies):
ok, forget what I said about the sound effects being minimalistic here, THIS is where the emptiness becomes apparent (although given this is a movie starring Tom and Jerry, it's to be expected I suppose) because while the sound effects were surprisingly minimal here, there were way more of them than there were spoken lines of dialogue, yelps, huhs and even gasps (because those are also part of the dialogue track), now that we've established the winner of the "emptiest version of the trailer" award, now's the time to discuss the music only version:
in this version of the trailer, while it does feel pretty full of sound (considering how again, a lot of trailers are often built around the musical choices), there is at least one seemingly odd aspect we should discuss. On occasion, the volume of the music will turn itself up and down at seemingly random points. The reason for this is because under normal circumstances, there'd be either sound effects or dialogue that need to take centre stage (hence why the music turns itself down), without either of those elements however, the music just looks like it's turning itself down for no discernible reason which would be weird for someone who happened to find this version of the trailer first. (although given the obscurity of the channel it's on, I doubt anyone has actually done this)
so as we've learned from this deep dive, it's important to have music, sound effects and foley, and dialogue (if your movie has any dialogue) because as we saw from the trailer for the new Tom and Jerry film, if even one of those tracks is lacking in some regard, whether it be a poor choice of sound or outright forgetting to include a particular audio track, your audience will end up being quite confused. (the latter actually happened once with IGN's upload of the first trailer for Dreamworks' Mr Peabody and Sherman where there was no Dialogue: click here to check that version out)
Diegetic & Non-diegetic Sound
In creative media the term "Diegetic" refers to any sound (mainly in terms of music but it can happen with sound effects and voice overs too) that the characters of a particular work can actually hear within the story (for example, things like clanks, crashes, most dialogue and sometimes even licensed tracks that play in the background)
When a sound is "non-diegetic", that means that only the audience can hear the sound (whether that be the film's score or a characters inner thoughts) and not the characters in the story (so in other words, those sounds aren't canon to the characters)
you can usually tell whether or not a sound is diegetic by the way the characters in the environment react to it, an example of this comes from the movie "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse" in the scene where Miles is getting ready for Brooklyn Visions Academy (which happens right after his universe's Peter Parker introduces himself):
here, the main piece of Diegetic sound comes from the film's main song, Sunflower by Post Malone and Swae Lee, which Miles listens to with his headphones while he's making those stickers you see all over New York.
one thing that I should note is that when Miles is actually singing the song, it sounds fairly loud (as in the audience can explicitly hear it along with Miles), but then once his father shouts loud enough to snap Miles out of the zone, the music suddenly becomes more like what an outside observer would hear if they weren't wearing headphones (that way the audience get the same jarring experience of being kicked out of the zone as Miles)
at first I thought "Sunflower" was the only piece of Diegetic music in the whole scene, but then I ended up listening to the background noise when Miles is in the police car with his dad getting driven to Brooklyn Visions Academy, I ended up finding one song that I was confused about for ages, that being Invincible by Amine. I was honestly wondering where that song played during the movie after I discovered it because I couldn't think of an obvious sequence where it would play (and it turns out it was just playing on the radio this whole time), and that's not all I ended up finding out, because beforehand, I originally wanted to discuss how the song Memories by Thutmose was an example of the film switching between Diegetic and non Diegetic sound, but as it turns out, I was wrong again as just before the audience can properly hear the song, Miles' dad actually switches to that song on the radio (and it took until now for me to even notice), so that's that example of supposedly non-diegetic sound out the window.
Luckily for me, I happen to know an actual example of non-diegetic music in a completely different film, that being Dreamworks' Shrek:
Unlike Sunflower in Spider-verse, here we can see that the song All-Star isn't diegetic as Shrek and the other characters never acknowledge the song's existence through this scene and there's also no discernible source where the sound could be coming from. (Shrek doesn't even have a radio in his swamp) Just because the song isn't diegetic however, doesn't mean the song doesn't have influence over the action, as some of what Shrek does in this scene happens to align to the beat of the song. For example, at the start of the scene, Shrek opens door in his outhouse just as the instruments kick in. Another example is when he's getting his fire going via burping as the song switches its main instrument after the second chorus. (so even though the song isn't diegetic, it still influences the action in the scene)
The third example (and most obvious) I'll discuss today comes from the movie Guardians of The Galaxy (and yes, it's the exact sequence you think it is):
in this scene, the diegetic audio is once again handled by the music (which in this scene is the song Come and Get your Love by Redbone), which Star-Lord is listening to through the power of his walk-man (because nostalgia is hot right now) as he dances his way towards a temple to steal one of the infinity stones (because cinematic universes dag nabbit), the reason we can tell this song is diegetic is because it happens to start up as Star-Lord activates his walk-man.
Unlike Miles however, Star-Lord never has to leave the zone because in this scene, Star-Lord's on a different planet filled with alien rats. (one of which he uses as a microphone at one point in the scene) This scene also serves to re-introduce the audience to a grown up Star-Lord after years of going on space bandit adventures, so the character gets to have fun dancing to the song and doing certain actions to the beat (such as kicking a few space rats), the song ends once Star-Lord reaches the purple infinity stone (which is incapsulated in a white ball) because now the storyline needs to take centre stage.
Parallel & Contrapuntal sound-
in terms of your production's soundtrack, you can go about it in one of two ways, you can take one of two different approaches, these two separate are called Parallel sounds and Contrapuntal sounds.
The Parallel Approach
Most media tends to take the parallel approach, which means that the sound design exists to re-enforce the meaning and location of a specific scene. (I.E: you'd have rather eerie music if a character finds themself in a precarious position, or you'd have intense chase music for intense chase scenes) The reason lots of media will go for the parallel approach is because usually, they're trying to immerse the audience into the world of the story. (and that usually means making sure all the scenes have the right music going on, or else they won't be able to immerse the audience)
There are many examples of this kind of sound design all over the media landscape, but for today's example we'll be going with the opening cutscene from the game Sonic Unleashed:
This opening cutscene is quite action packed because Sonic's trying to stop Dr Eggman/Robotnik from taking over the world using his "Eggman armada" while Eggman's trying to prevent Sonic from stopping his evil scheme to summon Dark Gaia.
Since this is the case, I'll be breaking down the scene piece by piece
Here, we can see that the musical score is grand and ominous at the same time, this is to re-enforce how vast Dr Eggman's fleet is and makes the audience dread what a mad man like Eggman's going to use that fleet for. (it even references Eggman's theme from 06 which was the game that came before this one) Of course, this is all happening while the camera is travelling towards where Dr Eggman actually is as after a while, we start hearing Eggman's maniacal laughter, which tells the audience that whatever Eggman's doing, it seems to be working (and if you know the Sonic series, you'll know that's no good):
once Sonic shows up, the music then decides to restart in order to accommodate the blue blur, except this time, they replace the ominous vibes from before with more triumphant vibes because Sonic is the good guy (in a series called SONIC The Hedgehog)
As at that point, we then get a drum beat added in order to make the music seem even faster than it already is (to re-enforce Sonic's speed and prowess as he runs through Eggman's robots as if they were nothing), the music continues like this for a good while until after Sonic goes Super with the power of the Chaos Emeralds and enters Eggman's secret weapon
at this point, the music calms down as Sonic taunts Eggman (not realising this is all an elaborate trap)
from that point on, the music changes to become more ominous again (this time they bust out the piano to really give the ominous vibes a boost) in order to help the audience realise "oh no, this was a part of the plan all along!" The music continues to build until Eggman decides to go ahead and blow up the earth (and then things get even more ominous as he turns Sonic into a Were-Hog)
While Sonic's falling through the void of space (because being unable to breath in space is for noobs) and as the title of the game appears, we get to listen to a soft version of the theme from the title screen, suggesting that Sonic's going to go on a world adventure in order to restore the emeralds and fix the planet.
in this scene, we can hear that the parallel approach to sound design (well, more specifically the music) helps to capture the audience and hook them into wanting to play the rest of the game (which sadly includes the Were-Hog stages) to find out what happens next, thus engaging them in the game's story, unlike Sonic Forces which doesn't even try. (you don't even fight Chaos or Shadow)
Now doing things the parallel way is all well and good, but what if you wanted to be a bit... Contrapuntal.
The Contrapuntal Approach
The contrapuntal approach is the exact opposite of the parallel approach because while the parallel approach is all about re-enforcing the meaning of a scene, the contrapuntal approach is all about contrasting the meaning of the scene in question by subverting the audience's expectations. as such, the contrapuntal approach is only meant to be used every now and then (that way you can REALLY subvert their expectations)
a pretty good example of contrapuntal sound (at least technically) is actually the voice of Buttercup from Toy Story 3 (as well as 4):
before you play the video, I want you to picture what you think Buttercup would sound like (given his physical appearance)
If you haven't already seen Toy Story 3, Buttercup would probably end up sounding quite different from what you'd expect given how he's a unicorn plush in a little girl's bedroom (you certainly wouldn't expect it to be The Captain from Wall-E), as typically one would expect a more feminine voice to come out of his mouth, hence his voice being contrapuntal in nature. (although after the initial shock, you do get use to it quickly)
a place where contrapuntal sound is surprisingly common is the music industry, one particular example is actually the song Hard Times by Paramore. (no, not the one by The Jetzons that went on to become Ice Cap Zone's theme)
The reason I want to bring this song up is because of how the lyrics and the beat come together. So similarly to the exercise we did with Buttercup from Toy Stories 3 and 4, I want you to imagine what you think the song would sound like based solely on a sample of the lyrics:
"All that I want. is to wake up fine. "to tell me that I'm all right, and I ain't gonna die." "all that I want, is the hole in the ground" "you can tell me when it's alright, for me to come out"
So, based solely on the sample I gave, you'd probably think the song would sound really dark and depressing (at least that's my assumption), so let's take a listen and see:
so here, we've got a bit of an opposite situation to Buttercups voice where instead a typically cutesy creature is made to sound like the captain from Wall-E, it's lyrics that you'd typically expect in a darker sounding song juxtaposed with a more marketable pop sound. Either way, the result is the same due to the tonal whiplash. (so in other words, Contrapuntal is a lot like jebaiting someone auditorily)
Although before we go, I should mention that in the case of "Hard Times" by Paramore, it does actually fall into a similar trope to that of songs like Pumped up Kicks by Foster The People where they'll hide dark lyrics behind a cheery beat so that they'll still be marketable.
Sound Experimentation
Unfortunately for me, I couldn't actually finish all the sound research before this task came up (so everything I do after this is going to have happened after this was already done)
Reflection
ok, I'll admit, I didn't think I'd be able to get it done by 4:00pm but by some miracle I did (even better, I actually screenshotted the whole of production so that I could annotate each image)
after that, I used my phone's camera app in order to record the actual sound effects (and dialogue) which would be used to create the one minute piece
originally I thought it was a good Idea to simply import them all at once, but after I saw all the sounds would each take up their own tracks, I simply decided to go with the "one at a time" approach, since it was easier to keep track of. (but even then, it got pretty chaotic after a while) unlike with the Stairdevil radio drama, I decided to actually place the final sound so that it would end on the 1 minute mark (because that was the length we were aiming for), this ended up being majorly helpful in the end as I somehow, miraculously didn't end up ruining the whole thing which is certainly an improvement from LAST TIME despite it having been a while since I did anything with audacity. (well, besides pitch shifting every song in my playlist to sound like what would happen if they were all on a UK DVD)
Although I had a surprisingly easy time doing this project (considering it was done on a major time crunch from 2:00PM to 4:00PM), where the real challenge came in was surprisingly, actually presenting it during the 4:00pm Teams meeting. the reason for this is because whenever I'd try and present it, nobody (not even the tutors) could actually hear it. I tried every which way I could think of (mostly screen sharing and trying to play it through the microphone) but nothing seemed to fix the issue (thus meaning mine would end up going unheard), and what's even worse about it is that the computer I've been using at home can't even emit sound on its own anymore (basically meaning the only way to get sound is to plug in a pair of headphones, this has been an issue for years but I never thought there'd ever be a reason to care about that issue until now), so now I'm afraid I'll end up getting in trouble over something I can't even control (thanks COVID):
With that out of the way, here's...
...The Finished Product
Some Establishments
Now then, before jump in and start developing Ideas, there's an old friend I'd like to re-introduce:
you're probably wondering why I don't have "take pictures" anywhere on this chart, well you see I ended up jumping the gun a bit on that front:
although if it's any consolidation, I can at least still plan out how I'll be integrating characters like Griswold
Some Idea Development
ok, so a while ago, I'd mentioned about how I'd started working on designing my latest creation, Detective Griswold, back when I thought this unit would revolve around the theme of "Missing." After the third lockdown was announced however, they had to change the unit to be "Lockdown 3.0" instead, which at first I assumed would mean I'd have to scrap the character entirely. (although it is still true that I had to scrap the original story I was developing)
later, I had an Idea where I could sneakily use this lockdown project to secretly continue developing Griswold, but when I told one of my tutors, she ended up mentioning how I could still use the character which meant I could integrate him into the real world similar to that of Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
So what's the big idea you've got cooking up this time?
Well as of right now, I'm thinking I could probably integrate Griswold into the photos and use the power of dialogue in order to elevate the photo gallery into a story where Griswold gets lost in the real world during the pandemic (which he slowly discovers over the course of the story because he's also lost in time), as such he'll need to find a way to get back to his own dimension. (as well as his own time period)
I came up with this idea during the research phase of this project (much like I did with the City Escape music video) after I'd been told I could integrate cartoon characters into the real world for this project. (which meant the time I'd spent designing Griswold wouldn't have to go to waste)
Of course, I'm still deciding which medium I'll use to integrate Griswold (and potentially other characters) into the real world. My current choices (which I'll have to decide fast) are to either use Dreams PS4 to make a new model for Detective Griswold and use green screens, or I could pull a Roger Rabbit and draw Griswold into the image, although I am leaning more and more towards 2D because I believe it'll allow me to pull off more expressive poses than I can with Dreams PS4 at this current moment in time. (although either way, I'll be using it to do the voices of the characters)
One alternate Idea I could do is simply leave Griswold out and focus solely on the environments and audio, but I feel like that would be a little bit cliché.
For the next section I actually want to do a list of the pros and cons with both 2D and 3D (and then afterwards I'll decide if I want to go with one of the other)
Pros (2D/Pixlr)
When working in 2D, you can get ridiculously expressive with both the character design and the body language (allowing for really exaggerated poses and facial expressions)
another pro with doing 2D (at least for me) is that I can draw characters relatively quickly given how experience I am with drawing stills (with times usually ranging from half an hour to 2 hours), and it just so happens that I've also already tried integrating cartoon characters into real life previously (so in other words, relevant experience):
cons (2D/Pixlr)
the only real con I can think of is that I'm not all that good at consistency (as in whenever I draw characters (especially Super Sheep), there'll always be small elements that end up changing (like nose sizes or even the ears)
Pros (3D/Dreams PS4 & 5)
in terms of pros for working in 3D, the main one for me is consistency, because once I make the model for a specific character, I can then use that model over and over again and I don't have to worry about things like Super Sheep's nose and ears changing between animations. (unlike in 2D) another pro of working in 3D rather than 2D is that I can simply get a lot done quickly (at least in Dreams PS4) and still have it look relatively good:
another major pro is that in a 3D environment, you don't need to do any clever chicanery in order to fake depth, as you can simply place your characters and props anywhere within your space (although that benefit is mitigated when you're integrating the characters into real life)
cons (3D/Dreams PS4 & 5)
I can't really think of any major cons for working in 3D other than not being able to mess with the lighting when plastering the 3D green screens over the photographs in Pixlr, although I should mention that I don't think my 3D models will ever be as expressive as my 2D drawings (mostly because I'm still an armature when it comes to 3D animation and can't distort models much in Dreams):
So which medium am I going with them
after much deliberation and wanting to make sure I can get this done in time for February 10th (which is the new deadline, although I do doubt I'll even meet it), I've decided to actually gun for good old fashioned 2D, mainly because I feel like having expressive characters is going to be really important given the cartoonish nature of the characters I typically make, plus it'll give me the authentic Roger Rabbit experience (even though I'm doing this digitally rather than by hand because I don't have any Cels on hand)
but before we begin...
I just wanted to say that I do actually have some kind of a plan for a few of the images (and by that I mean I have a good Idea what I'm going to put in them):
for example, I plan for the image you see above you to have 4 characters entering this cafe I snapped, who are these characters going to be? (or rather, who would those characters be if Copyright law was still like it was way back when), well let's just say it'd be a rather odd team up indeed, because it consists of Sonic The Hedgehog (image sourced from Olympic Video Games), Z from Antz (Image sourced from the "Yuna's Princess adventure" wiki [no I'm not making this up]) as well as Scooby Doo and Shaggy (Image sourced from Pinterest):
of course, I can't just use those characters all willy nilly because they're still protected by Copyright thanks to Disney and their lobbying team (Sonic, Scooby and Shaggy would've been in the public domain by now) so I'll have to make at least 4 more characters. The reason I want to team these characters up is because sometimes when I'd go on walks with my mother, I'd do the voices of these specific characters as they talk about movie and tv related nonsense. (and one time they even had a hand in getting SpongeBob thrown in jail because he planned on taking over the world after getting less than favourable reception from Sponge on The Run) Although knowing my luck, I'll probably end up designing the new characters while integrating them into the scene, so let's not waste any more time and get scripting
writing a script
the reason I'm choosing to write a script for this one is because I actually want to have Griswold narrate his experience:
of course, a normal scripting format wouldn't call for plastering pictures all over the script, buuuuut...:
Well in this image, I'm actually applying something I learned fairly recently while watching a video about formatting screenplays created by Indy Mogul (because randomly internet surfing is fun), for you see, I ended up learning that when you first introduce a character in your script that you actually have to capitalise their entire name so that it sticks out from the rest of the text. (but then every other instance that name is used you don't have to capitalise the whole thing), so here I'm finally putting that titbit to practice. I'm surprised I wasn't taught this in college (or maybe I was and I just forgot that specific detail):
hold on there my screen-capped friend, as while yes I am putting in the dialogue into the script with the proper formatting (with the character name capitalised above and the text being aligned to the centre), but I've also added a pair of stars around the "sudden realisation" part in order to signify that this particular part isn't actually dialogue (although these are still images)
I'm afraid I have some bad news boys
today's Sunday, and I still haven't written the entire script, which by my estimates would take me until this coming Wednesday to finish, which would put me way behind schedule (and that's no good), so after making that sudden realisation in bed last night (as well as accounting for the new February 10th deadline), I've decided to shelf Detective Griswold in favour of just making this a regular old photo gallery but with sound. I find it funny how I originally created Griswold for a missing unit, scrapped him once the unit changed, came up with an Idea that would involve the character and then less than favourable circumstance have made me scrap him again. But I digress (and no, this isn't getting re-made after the semester ends, that'll probably be reserved for giving Griswold a proper debut debut if I don't decide to do that for the final major project)
Asset Listing
of course, just because Ol' Grizzy's out the picture (for now), that doesn't mean abandoning the asset list (because how else will I know which sounds I need to get):
the reason I'm choosing to do this approach is because it allows me to split the assets into different tables (thus saving time in the long run)
when it comes to certain miniature melodies I might compose, I want to see if I can use that as an excuse to slip in some sneaky hidden Easter eggs (I.E: I could re-use the Captain Cartridge theme somewhere)
aaaaaaaaand I've finished the asset list, here's a download of the whole thing (because I can do that now):
so how was making this asset list?
to be honest, I had my doubts about if I'd even be able to finish it today, but I think having separate tables for certain pictures (due to how most of the images will sound rather similar with some of them adding in extra bells and whistles) really helped the production of this thing move along and it'll help me speed up the asset gathering process. (because I'd be checking multiple smaller tables rather than one large table)
I'd say another reason I was able to get this image done was because I ended up making the decision to cut Griswold out entirely (which meant I wouldn't need to stick him on the asset list, which in turn also meant I wouldn't have to worry about missing the deadline while integrating Griswold and friends into the real world because drawing takes time, especially when you also have to evidence it), of course now I'll need to take some time to actually gather said assets.
Gathering the assets
for a production like this, I'll be sourcing assets from all over the show (not just Dreams), so expect to see different types of evidence (screenshots, "Dreams" Streams, Source Videos that sort of thing):
Asset 1: Z's Dialogue
Source Video:
why this video?
because this scene from the movie actually contains a nice long stretch where it's just Z talking with next to no other sound involved (apart from the odd impact sound)
so how'd I get this?
I simply copied the link and pasted it into a video to MP3 convertor:
for some inexplicable reason, it seems the download button just doesn't want to work today, so unfortunately I'll have to come back to this one.
Asset 2: Thinking of you by Sister Sledge
How'd I get it?
well luckily for me, I already have the song in my playlist, so sticking it in the new folder was a piece of cake:
we interrupt this program to bring you a project management update
so you're probably wondering how I'm doing on this one, well unlike with the animations which tend to go off without much of a hitch, this project (with me having jumped the gun on taking the photos, having to change the idea and scrap the cartoon integration entirely and now, issues even getting the audio files via video converter) I'd say this clip form The Simpsons perfectly describes the current situation:
Asset 3 (And Knuckles): LittleBigPlanet Gardens ambiance
Source Video
How'd I get this
Ok, looks like I may need to come back to this one too
Asset 4: Game Audio
So what game will you be using?
ok, so the game I plan on using to source the audio is a tie between Dreams PS4 and Sackboy: A Big Adventure (also on PS4), although I'm leaning towards Dreams PS4 due to the "Art's Dream" story mode, one second I'll be back
ok I'm back, what's the update?
so Streaming the game thus far has gone without a hitch (in fact it ended up being much shorter than I anticipated, but it'll be enough, as I only need a few seconds):
of course, all I did in this stream was record the first 14 (ish) minutes of the campaign (that way I don't end up spoiling the game during the gallery), but this isn't the entire story, as once I'd finished up the stream it was time to get the gameplay recording (which was happening at the same time because the PS4 always records gameplay in the background):
Ok, so that so didn't work (we're doomed), looks like I'll be needing to do a hasty alternative work around until this converter decides it wants to cooperate again. (which knowing my luck, will either be AFTER this project is already done or never again) Unfortunately, this work around won't involve any video editing software, because any method I try to use to get the audio will just lead right back to using the converter that currently does not work (at this point, I think it would actually have been EASIER for me if the unit didn't change because then I'd be creating an animation in Dreams PS4 rather than creating a photo gallery), as such I may have to paste the some of the videos the sounds come from directly into the gallery next to the co-inciting images (where as I'll need to use Dreams for the rest)
luckily for me, there is still one piece of software I can import audio into:
Ok, how's the game going to save me THIS time?
well during the Christmas period, I managed to get my hands on a special male to male auxiliary cable that essentially allows me to record audio into Dreams (I.E: Sonic voice lines and even that reverse ricochet sound effect I'd been trying to find for ages):
let's give audacity a whirl
if all goes well, I may even have a new method of stealing audio
so I was browsing the Audacity User Manual on the internet:
so after browsing around for a bit I then went to check audacity, only to be surprised by what I found. remember when I said I didn't have stereo mix? weeeeeeeeellllll...:
basically, what "stereo mixing" is is getting software such as audacity to record directly from your computer. (so if you're watching YouTube for instance, you'd be able to record the audio) The only problem is that it'll also record whatever notifications come up at that time (I.E: E-mails, Skype calls and system errors), so let's see if this option works out:
turns out I also needed to set the "Speakers" tab to be "Microsoft Sound Mapper" and turn the volume all the way up (which mean YouTube Poops are out of the question)
cue the celebratory Sonic GIF
Ok, celebrations are over, back to work
Well now that this method's been established, it'll be the method in which I gather all sound from now on unless I'm making an animation in Dreams PS4 (meaning FLVTO and it's danger zone adverts can go do one)
So for example, if a video were to last 3 minutes, you'd have to wait for 3 minutes (as well as any potential amount of time between you hitting record on audacity and pressing play on the video you're trying to record) for recording to finish (unless you could somehow mess with the flow of the space-time continuum), so for most of the assets, I'm only going to record a small sample so I'm not waiting around for massive periods of time (save that waiting for any potential personal projects)
So there's at least some time being saved (even if it's a rather miniscule amount in the long run)
now that I've finally gathered those assets that were giving me so much trouble earlier, now it's time to finally start gathering new assets (now where was I?)
Asset 5: Half-Life 2's Airboat Gun/Garry's Mod's Tool Gun sounds
How'd I get this?
the video in question included all the weapon sounds (not just the air-boat gun), so I simply recorded the audio until the actual air-boat gun sounds had finished (that way I could separate from everything else)
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