The Executive Summary

 This post acts as The Executive Summary of the whole blog so far and also is the last post before Christmas. This Executive Summary will cover points on the Pre-Production of the Dissertation Project. Topics will include:

• Ideation of the Dissertation Topic
• Research Undertaken to Support the Project
• Identification of Skills required to carry the Project
• Identification of Skill Gaps that need to be addressed
• Supporting Evidence

 The coming up with the idea for the project and its ideation was a very long process. Those ideas had a long journey before the current project idea was formulated - it took almost 3 months. This has its disadvantages, mainly because of the time spent thinking of ideas for the project, instead of doing a focused research and creating practical based research and supporting evidence. Nevertheless, this is something to look for in future projects - better time-management is advised, but also being more confident about my ideas and sticking to one plan instead of chopping and changing and general all over the place thinking.

 The very first idea for the project topic stemmed from research done for Year 3 Audio Production Methods module. During writing of the blog for that module extensive research and film analysis was carried out and some interesting concepts were discovered, mainly the 'sound modality'. Having the advantage of all the leg-work done last year and also because of a huge interest in this concept an idea for the Dissertation Proposal was developed:

Modality in film sound.

 Some of my big problems that I have had this year was coming up with rationales for each of the different project ideas. In academic writing and in academic research on a scale of a Honours Project one has to think very carefully why a project would be considered academically viable research. Pretty much all of my project ideas had a big problem with coming up a well formulated rationale.

 Over the course of those three months I have had a slew of different ideas ranging from film sound design, video game sound to creating a plug-in. Some of my ideas were not very thoughtfully thought out and looking back I can see I wasn't thinking clearly and not thinking about the bigger picture. My idea of recording gun-shots at a military base for the reason of it being "cool" and a "great photo opportunity" seems rather silly now.

 At early stages of project ideation I have created a reading list of books pertaining to my first idea of doing a project based on sound design. A list of fourteen books was developed as basis of research for the project and in order to carry out the Literature Review for the Dissertation Proposal. However, in the first two months my research into the dissertation question was rather fruitless. "Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound" by David Yewdall, while a really great book, it didn't provide me with an idea that I could base a Dissertation around. It is a book filled with anecdotes, stories and history of film sound and old technology like tape-based recording and cutting facilities. While I was doing dialogue editing duties on my latest film "Jam" I started reading a book called “Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures” by John Purcell. It is an amazing book on the well under appreciated part of sound design - the dialogue editing, yet it is filled mostly with practical based approaches and didn't offer anything I could expand in a Dissertation Project. 

  While I was in this limbo and finding it really difficult to come up with a really thoughtful Dissertation topic I did run a couple brainstorming session. Some were rather silly and centered around having fun in the studio recording foley for a horror movie. I then had an idea of recording a realistic gun-shot and comparing that to a gun-shot from a Hollywood movie. However, as noted before, I rejected that idea because of silliness of its rationale.

Possibly my most out-of-the-box idea was sound design tool/plug-in, that also came about as a result of an all-night brainstorming session. The idea behind this project was to create a tool that would randomly generate sound effects based on a pre-recorded sample library. However, after an extensive email discussion with the tutor, the project took a very unexpected 360 degrees turn and it seemed like I was back to square one. Instead of my original project idea of 'Modality in film' the new idea was to look into "The Principles of Sound Design in Film."

After the rather fruitless research done before, the biggest breakthrough in terms of ideas came after reading "Film Sound". The chapter in the book entitled "Fundamental Aesthetics of Sound in the Cinema" provided me with enough ideas and is the basis on which the current Dissertation Project idea is based on. Together with film analysis done last year and with the ideas form the books like "Audio-vision" and "Analysing Popular Music" a Dissertation Project was developed:

"The Fundamental Principles and Aesthetics of Sound Design in Film" 

 I have a very big interest in cinematic sound design for film and also have some experience in this field having worked as sound designer/editor on a couple of film productions. Identifying skills required to carry out this project should be fairly straightforward. A big part of this project will be film analysis according to existing sound theories. Then, an analytical framework on how to approach film sound design analysis will be devised. I have already read substantial amount of publications on the subject, but the hunt will continue for any books that might have been missed. Also, more practice in analysing film soundtracks would also be a good idea to get even better at unpicking little details and nuances in sound design in film. Lastly, studying current case studies on film sound analysis would be a good choice as well.

 The practical part of this dissertation will focus on creating sound design to sequences from movies to demonstrate sound design principles. A practical framework on how to approach sound design in film will then be devised. Having experienced working as a sound editor on films before I roughly know what to expect, however my experience is still limited. Field recording is one field where I could benefit from extra knowledge, skill and experience. Finally, in order to implement and test the principles of sound design like 'worldizing' will require to go out in the field and record so be a perfect way of gaining that valuable experience and also some further reading on this subject could help in addressing the skill gaps.

Practical Research Ideas - Modality, Worldizing and Layering

 While working on the Concept Development Document for the up-coming hand-in I have introduced three concepts about film sound design that I have been of a big interest to me and in the document I expressed that I will be approaching those concepts in greater detail during the Practical Research part of the Dissertation in semester 2. 

 I have some experience with worldizing, as I used that technique to rerecord a music track playing through an old radio in a room, to capture a reverberant version of the track. I have tried using a convolution reverb plug-in for this task, but for some reason the director didn't like the plug-in sound, with the comment being that it sounds too much like a score, and here the track was meant to be diegetic - some music playing in the back of a cafe from an old stereo. This will be interesting to explore in more detail and take it out into the field to capture and compare the results.

 Layering is a fundamental principle of cinematic sound design, and I have used this technique in all of my films that I worked as a sound designer/editor. I have used it mostly for sound effects like punches, gun-shots, explosions etc. and the idea here is that the authentic recordings of those sounds simply don't have the 'weight' and 'impact' of what are now considered cinematic Hollywood standards in film sound design. Again, layering will be explored in great detail in Practical Research part of the Project.

 Modality is a concept I have got least experience with. Before I even knew about this sound design principle I was designing dynamic ambiences and to some extent modality can apply to that. I am particularly interested in interplay between high and low modality, which can greatly enhance the dynamics of the soundtrack, which in turn should make the film more enjoyable for the viewer. I will be exploring the idea of sound modality as well.

Dissertation Proposal Hand-In

 Today, I have handed-in my Dissertation Proposal. Below I present extracts from the document, mainly pertaining aims, objectives and tasks of the project. I also present a timeline of the project.

Proposal Topic:

    The fundamental principles and aesthetics of cinematic sound design in film.

Project Aim:

Even though many filmmakers claim that sound is as important as the picture, the topic of aesthetics of film sound is still not adequately documented and there is a large absence of books on cinematic sound design. Similarly, the few great books on the subject available are decades old now and feature reference to obscure films that, although work great as supporting examples, for a modern reader and sound professional can be hard to identify with. This project aims to explore the existing theories, concepts and aesthetics on cinematic sound design and create a set of outline principles about how sound works in film and reference them with examples from modern cinema. The developed analytical framework will be used to analyse scenes from films to demonstrate key concepts in film sound design. A practical framework on creating cinematic sound design in film will be created that could work as a tool for sound professionals interested in gaining more insight into the subject. Because sound can actively influence how we interpret the image, by redesigning sound in a film sequence we can demonstrate a deeper meaning about the way sound is used in film.

Project Objectives:

1.     Identify and review the existing literature on key principles and aesthetics of film sound design. Find suitable examples of film soundtracks in modern cinematography that could serve as examples to demonstrate the key sound design theories.
2.     Analyse and review the sound theories found in books and create and develop a framework for analysis of sound design in film. Using selected examples of modern film soundtracks analyse the sound design in chosen scenes.
3.     Devise a framework on how sound works in film based on previous research. Using the developed practical framework redesign the sound in chosen film sequences to show how sound affects the way we interpret visuals and use the created soundtracks as well as the original clips as supporting evidence.
4.     Analyse and evaluate the created soundtracks and reflect on the results. This will involve a selection of qualitative methods, self-reflection etc.
5.     Document the findings and outcomes at every stage of the dissertation which would form the basis for the dissertation, the blog etc. Demonstrate the outcomes of the project at film screenings, end-of-year showcase etc.

Project Tasks:

1.1.    Select appropriate literature.

1.2.    Perform a literature review.

1.3.    Research film sound theories, principles and aesthetics.

1.4.    Identify films that could be used as supporting examples based on certain criteria, e.g. Oscar-nominated, favourable reviews etc.

2.    

2.1.    Research film sound analysis methods

2.2.    Develop an analytical framework for analysing film sound.

2.3.    Analyse chosen clips from films using the developed framework.

3.    

3.1.    Develop a practical framework for film sound practice.

3.2.    Select films to redesign sound.

3.3.    Redesign sound in selected film sequences using the practical framework.

4.    

4.1.    Perform a self-analysis on the created clips.

4.2.    Conduct a qualitative evaluation of the created movie clips and the developed practical framework.

4.3.    Summarise the evaluation

5.    

5.1.    Write the dissertation.

5.2.    Write the blog.

5.3.    Present the current state of the project at progress meetings.

5.4.    Prepare and demonstrate the outcomes of the dissertation at the end-of-year showcase.

Project Timeline:

 

 

"Soundscape" - Another great book with plenty of inspiration!

 "Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001" is, similarly to "Film Sound", a collection of reflections and experiences of sound practitioners and academics. There are few really interesting chapters in the book that gave some well needed inspiration boost for my Dissertation Project.

 In the chapter entitled "Touch of Silence" Walter Murch, the pioneer sound designer, talks in detail about creation of sound design for a cult film "Apocalypse Now". The 5.1 surround standard was just been invented and the film helped shape and popularise it greatly. Murch takes about a few interesting concepts, like 'worldizing'. This is a concept that Murch helped to develop during his career. The idea behind is to take the sound out of the studio and into the field, and rerecord it capturing the reverberant sound. This technique has been used to great advantage in "Apocalypse Now", for example by recording Wagner's 'Ride of Valyries' through megaphones attach to military helicopters. This technique produces a very realistic sound of the space is trying to capture and has been used a lot since it was created. With the advent of digital technology and high-quality realistic convolution reverb plug-ins it would be really interesting to see how the results between 'worldizing' a sound and using a plug-in compare with each other.

Sick Note and Assignments Extension

Unfortunatelly, I have fallen ill. I have been to the doctors and managed to get an extension fo my assignments. I will need to take a good few days off rest.

"Film Sound" and why it might possibly be the best book I read this semester!

 "Film Sound: Theory and Practice" is a collection of editorials, articles and essays that broadly talk about different concepts around film sound design. The editors of the book complain that film sound design is vastly under researched subject and claim that simply not enough have been written about the subject, especially compared to film msuci scoring. This general consensus seems to repeat itself in other publications on film sound as well. This makes a very interesting point, because it provides me a very strong rationale on why to do a film sound specific Dissertation Project!

 There are many great texts in this book, but possibly the next biggest breakthrough came after reading a chapter entitled "Fundamental Aesthetics of Sound in the Cinema". This is the exact idea that I want my Dissertation to be! In this chapter David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson present us with some very engaging writing. They claim that sound can actively shape the way we interpret images in film. They give an example of an obscure film 'Letter from Siberia' from 1957. The director Chris Maker demonstrates how powerful sound can be and he it affects the way we interpret scenes in the movie. In the film, we see a sequence of scene that repeats three times, each time with a different sound accompanying the picture. A full detailed analysis per-scene is presented in the book and provides a very interesting concept to explore further in the Dissertation.

 Furthermore, in ths chapter, there are presented criteria according to which we can analyse sound in films. Authors make a classification of properties of sound, like Acoustic (loudness, pitch & timbre), and also Rhytm, Fidelity and Space. They also talk about sound diegesis, which is explored in an even more detail in "Audio-vision" by Chion.

All in all, I am very happy that I started reading this book. This is the first time all semester that I really feel like I am making some progress!

Final Reply from Kenny. Back full circle?

 So, I received final feedback from Kenny yesterday and after a discussion this is one of the last emails:

"Why not just study the principles and aesthetics of cinematic sound design and apply them to film?" - Wow, we are back full circle here!

 Yes. It seems that first ideas that I had about film sound design being the best topic for the dissertation for me were indeed right. The shame is that it took me almost 3 months of work only to arrive at the zero point, the point where I was at the start of semester in September. I am really running out of time, and have to think quick. I decided to start reading "Film Sound" to hopefully get those ideas going. 

Feedback on Proposal Draft Ideas

 So, I got a reply from Kenneth yesterday with a very detailed feedback to the Proposal Draft that I sent in. I present his comments, below with a few lines of commentary from me. Overall, he didn't liked my idea that much. Read on to find more.

Your initial aim (...) looks okay, although I would still like to understand more about the context and the research problem that you’re trying to address (why investigate sound design principles like this?). You go on to give an expanded version: Create a VST like software (or plug-in) to generate customised ‘bigger-than-life’ Hollywood style punches and hits out of a library of pre-recorded and synthesised sounds and based on a set of user defined parameters, to demonstrate sound design techniques and principles in the title. This isn’t really a project aim, this is really a task, I think - it’s about creating a VST plug-in. One question, though - what sort of experience do you have in software development? Could you realistically expect to create a functional VST plug-in by yourself? If the answer to that is no, then why give yourself the added complication?

Take a step back and think about what your project, as expressed above, is actually about - it’s about the principles of good (sound) design. By specifying that you’re aiming to create ‘larger-than-life’ film sounds, what you’re really doing is giving yourself specific  design goal and a framework for assessing your work. What you’re also doing is specifying the context in which those sounds are going to apply - in film. With that in mind, I think you have to take on board the idea that you’ll need to demonstrate/evaluate those sounds in a filmic context.

So am I right in thinking that what you’re planning on investigating is the process of how you design and create sound effects? If so, think about how you evaluate and compare processes. Part of that will be the end result. What else is important? How long the process takes? How much effort is involved? Whether there’s a pattern to the work, or if it’s different every time? It would be an idea to try and find some supporting literature on design in general and see if you can apply some of the thinking to your own project.

Or, are you planning on looking at how you automate adaptive sound effects (which seems to be what you’re suggesting in your rationale)? If that’s the case, it’s not so much about the process of sound design at all, it’s about using/developing sound tools that will take a raw sound as input and manipulate it according to a set of parameters. This is really a project about interactive and adaptive sound, and it would be worth, then, having a look at some of the existing tools that are out there (Wise, FMOD, UDK etc), and then development environments like Pure Data or Max to see if you could develop the sort of thing that you’re after. If this is the path you’re keen to go down, I think you’ll need to adapt your aim to reflect this. Something like:

Many forms of new and interactive media use sound effects as an important method of feedback. Because of the demands of interactivity it is common to use procedural and other automated methods to adapt a small library of sounds in real time for different situations. This project aims to explore the use of real-time adaptive sound as a mechanism for feedback by (for example) creating a series of real-time adaptive patches in Pure Data (or working with UDK, FMOD to create and implement a real-time adaptive sound engine). This will be evaluated by…

That aim has a sentence or two of context, which provides the rationale, a statement of the project aim (to investigate how sound can be adapted in real-time to provide feedback), and states how you’re going to do it (create your own software patch or use an existing engine).

In your expected outcome section, you raise exactly the query that I would have - if, in something like film, you have a need to design specific sounds for specific situations, why would you choose to use a tool like the one you’re describing, which takes the professional control from the sound designer and gives it to a piece of software instead? On the other hand, if you’re planning to use it, as detailed above, in something like a game, why would you redesign a system when there are already tools out there that you can use?

Also in your contingency section, you say exactly what my advice would be: either make this a project about the design principles that underpin good sound design (which would be a perfectly fine project) or make it a project that explores how you can apply adaptive methods to manipulate sounds in real time for interactive feedback. Don’t try and do both.

 Kenny has raised some few interesting issues. He asked can I realistically code a plugin? Well, at the moment I can't, but I was going to use visual plug-in creator tools like MaxMSP anyway. Kenny then went on to suggest that I possibly use FMOD for this task. I'm confused now, when I had a meeting with James he said I shouldn't do a FMOD project... I like the idea that Kenny came up with and the project aim he proposed by my main worry is that all of the research that I done on film sound design will go to waste now. I have sent him an email expressing my worries and I am waiting for a reply.

Proposal Draft sent for Feedback

 So, I spent most of weekend developing my latest idea. I present the results below. This comes from a document that I sent to the tutor for feedback.

This is the main idea that I came up with, which would serve as the topic (title?) of the proposal:

The use of sound design techniques and principles (like layering) and recording techniques in creating bigger than life film soundtracks.

I very well understand that this is a very broad topic which could cover everything relating to film sound. However, I would mainly want to focus on sound effects here, but I want to leave myself a sort of open door here in case something goes wrong during my research, so then I wouldn’t have to change the whole topic. (But more on that later...) (Also, I could substitute the term ‘bigger than life’ with just ‘the film sound’)
 

 Therefore, I would introduce a sub-heading here, which could also serve as the aim, something along the lines of:

Create a VST like software (or plug-in) to generate customised ‘bigger-than-life’ Hollywood style punches and hits out of a library of pre-recorded and synthesised sounds and based on a set of user defined parameters, to demonstrate sound design techniques and principles in the title.

Going back to what I said earlier about not wanting to just simply re-score or re-design clips from movies, my idea here is to take it all a step further. Instead of doing what’s been done a million times over, I came up with a concept of creating a VST plug-in, in which I could dynamically generate sound effects in real-time, and then use this plug-in to re-score scenes from movies in MIDI.

Basically, I would focus here on punches (maybe gunshots even), but my concept is as much about the software itself, but also about the sound design principles and recording techniques behind it as well.

Now, I am almost 100% sure something like this doesn’t exist yet. The closest thing is the Kontakt Foley Collection which you can see here: http://www.foleycollection.com/sample-page/ but that is mainly footsteps. As I said, I want to take it that one small step (excuse the pun) further.

This is where things start to look interesting to me, because, as I said earlier, with previous project ideas I was REALLY struggling to come up with my aims and objectives, and mostly the rationale. With this new idea however I can see the project clearly, from conception to the end. Also, I think it helps that this is a more practice-focused project, and as much as I love sound design theory, I think I’d rather focus on doing, or rather creating something. I am going to take a bit of a side-stepping route describing this in detail, so please excuse me if it seems backwards, but it’s proving the rationale which has held me back from all of my previous projects, so let’s start with it:

PROJECT RATIONALE:

I want to create a simple to use plug-in/app/software for beginning sound designers, film makers, animators, video-casters... anyone who does any sort of video projects. Instead of relying on stock sounds (and most libraries don’t have many variations on each sound either) I want to develop a tool which will create on-the-fly professional-sounding effects. Every punch or hit would be different from the other because of randomised sample selection and could range in scale from small hits to big cinematic knock-outs. The plug-in could also be used in low budget film productions and or video games, where there are budget limitations in hiring a professional foley stage and again, to not to rely on stock sounds.

EXPECTED OUTCOME:

Now, I do understand that there are reasons why software like this doesn’t exist. It could simply be a matter of that it just wouldn’t work! Especially in linear visual medium, where every effect like a punch or  hit is hand-crafted to match exactly what is needed in that shot. However, I believe that the principles that I will apply in creating this plug-in could easily be translated into the world of video games for example, and therefore I will have...

CONTINGENCY PLAN:

That is why I would have the main topic of the dissertation being more broad and general, so in case if something goes wrong I could change the sub-heading and re-focus my existing ideas into a different medium like video games. Heck, I could even just scrap the idea of creating the plug-in altogether if the results are sub-par, and just focus on more theory based approach and write about sound design principles (like layering) to get that ‘film’ sound. Half the job (i.e. research and recording) would be done anyway so I could then possibly look into differences of authentic sounds with their Hollywood counterparts. As an extreme example, I could multi-mike and record someone punching me, and then use this recording to compare it with how a punch sounds in film. (I could also do the same with a gunshot, explosion... the possibilities are there but the important thing is, with all this I have the Plan B, C... and so on!)

Now, let me backtrack a bit and talk about the idea itself:

As I said, this project would be as much about the theory and principles of sound design, but also about creating something. However, the difference in this project is that the ratio would be split into a more even 50-50, instead of a more theory-based approach of my previous ideas. I can clearly see the steps needed to carry out this project: from research about sound design techniques, learning to develop the plug-in, carry out recording session to gather the samples, then develop the plug-in and then use it in action.

Some more ideas about the plug-in itself in bullet points:

• Simple VST plug-in that creates a sound effect each time a MIDI key is pressed.
• Combine elements of real-life recorded sounds (newspaper hits, vegetable abuse, face slaps etc) with synthesised sounds (like bass hits and claps for adding low end and transient respectively)
• All samples would be phase aligned and matched to remove possible unwanted cancelation
• Samples would be played randomized each time creating a slightly different variation to the sound (so that for example Fruit 1 would have 10 samples playing in random order, Fruit 2 would have 10 samples and so on...)
• User can decide the volume and other parameters of each layer, therefore creating unique combinations of sounds
• A simple GUI where the user can make all the selections.
• My main area of focus would be to create presets based on a certain film or a genre (so could have something like a ‘kung-fu’ preset, or ‘Hollywood’ preset...)
• At the output stage there would be a limiter, also a stereo-width tool..

I have started prototyping in Ableton to see what can be done. If I get this project OK’ed, then the prototype will go into the Concept Development.

OBJECTIVES:

• Discover the principles behind sound design
• Research recording techniques
• Develop the plug-in that uses the discovered principles
• Demonstrate the use of the created software on a series of clips from existing films, and re-design fight scenes in film examples raging from Raging Bull, Indiana Jones to Ted and/or kung-fu movies.

TASKS:

• Identifying the potential software to use and learning it (Max MSP, Kontakt, SynthEdit, SynthMaker)
• Researching the bigger than life Hollywood sound and principles behind it
• Learning the plug-in development in chosen programme
• Recording the sounds
• Create the software
• Re-design existing movies using software
• Feedback
• Evaluate

DELIVERABLES:

• The software, the plug-in itself
• Re-scored examples of film using the created software
• Everything else we discussed in class like the search list etc.

DISSEMINATION:

• Plug-in can be tested and played-about-with in a real-time demo
• Demonstration and play-back of clips

Some final notes: I do understand very well that this could all go tits up and that the created plug-in could simply suck. One of my reasons for creating this is so that film-makers wouldn’t have to rely on stock sounds, but then this plug-in could prove a one-trick-pony where it’s good only at creating one type of sound/punch, so the whole idea behind it would kind of become moot. However, I do like the ratio of work split on this project: there is research to be done, software to be learned, but then there are thousands of sounds to be recorded and edited, so I would be getting enough ‘book-time’ and enough studio-time; enough balance to help me stay sane!