At last my final project is done. I am proud of my sound, I believe I have done well on creating a chaos environment. Hopefully people will find it good.

Here it is:

For my sound project I decided to give the image some movement as described in one of my posts (http://waterflu.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/sound-design-create-camera-in-after.html) In order to do this, I decided to create different clips of the same image in After Effects. Every one of them has a different camera movement and is a different part of the image. Unlike some other students, I didn't do it right away from Final Cut. 

After creating every single clip of the project in After Effects, I went to Final Cut Pro and put it all together in there, adding all the sound as well. 

Here is a screenshot of all the different clips I created and used to put all my project together:

Before starting my sound project, I did a lot of pre production. Among that I looked for all my sounds for my project. I own a big collection of effects that I have been saving for years. They are mainly related to explosions, gun shots, smoke, fire and all of that kind of sounds that occur in action movies. I needed more than that, so I got a collection of Warner Bros and BBC sounds from Andrei Allen from our course. I didn't use almost any of them, but they are quite helpful for future projects.

I also got some from youtube, like the news break report, crown scream and hurricane sound. I decided to record some as well, like the breathing, which I needed it to go at the same rhythm as my image cuts.

Here is my main sound, the news break report of a real hurricane:

For my sound project I decided to create a special dissolve for the ending. I wanted to create the illusion that the image was blown up by a hurricane without creating one or doing anything fancy. I thought this one was a nice effect to create and also very simple.

Here is a quick tutorial made by me on how to do this effect in After Effects. Enjoy it!

As part of my project, I investigated about real hurricanes in the past to see the kind of environment that is created in the streets. A lot of rain, wind and chaos. I decided to post a video of a real news break during the Hurricane Irene back in 2011, so people understand a bit more about it. 

Here is the video:

For my sound project I decided to put a bit of imagination on it. Instead of having a dead woman floating in the water, I decided for her to be alive. The picture is going to be set in a modern time in Puerto Rico (where many hurricanes and climate disasters occur.) A big thunderstorm is approaching and there is chaos in the street. Everyone is running and going mad because the hurricane will most probably get them anyway. A lot of gunshots are also heard of people that are killing each other (some rather die quick and with no pain than die in a hurricane.)

The woman in the picture, named Ophelia after the real name of that image by Gregory Crewdson, is floating in the water of her house, just thinking and seeing all her life pass by in front of her, waiting for the hurricane to come and kill her. In the end of the video we can hear how the rain and wind fade out and only the local news report is still on, meaning that the hurricane passed and they are all dead. I also added a Scattered effect at the end of the video to give the illusion that the how was blown up without creating a big FX.

For this unit I got to create a project of 1 to 2 mins long, which must have only sound effects (including voices), but no music at all. The focus is the audio and not the video, which means that we can't change the image we pick. The objective of this is creating a story with only sounds and submerging the audience in an surreal environment without the use of effects, videos or soundtracks.

Here are the options given:

The Picture I chose for my Sound Project is called Ophelia and was take by Gregory Crewdson. I did some research on what the picture meant and a bit of it's story so here it is:

    

Gregory Crewdson created a series of twenty large scale photographs titled Beneath the Roses. One of the photographs in this series is Ophelia. Crewdson is known for creating images of surreal suburbia. The production of these works is very expensive. Crewdson creates elaborate sets that some critics love while others say make the subjects appear lifeless and flat. I find that he creates an atmosphere and feeling of awe that is unattainable without constructing a movie set like environment. Crewdson uses both interior, private spaces such as home interiors and exterior spaces comprised of up to multiple city blocks when creating sets for his photographs.

In Ophelia, Crewdson takes the setting of a flooded suburban house and introduces a floating female corpse. The furniture and style of the interior of the house is very plain and could be almost any older middle income suburban home. The introduction of water, as if the neighborhood has experienced a flood would make for an unsettling photograph, but Crewdson takes the process one step further and introduces a floating corpse to the composition. The introduction of the corpse should make the scene demented, but in a strange way it matches the calm water and adds a weird, all be it morbid, tranquility to the scene. Crewdson divides the aspects of his set for Ophelia into an upper half and a lower half. The upper half of Ophelia is mundane and normal suburbia while the lower half, defined by the water level is mysterious, surreal and sinister.

Source: http://donaldbullock.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/ophelia-by-gregory-credson.html

For my sound design project I decided to add some movement to my image. As Simon said, we are not allowed to alter the image, but we can play with it as long as it stays the way it is. I am doing crops but also including movement.

Some people might thing that using a Ken Burns effect in Final Cut Pro will be an easy way to add movement to an image, but the truth is that you don't have full control of it by using that effect. In order to get a more exact movement and a change of perspective in my image, I decided to create a virtual camera to move it around as if the image was not a still, but actual clips. Giving that sensation is a bit hard since nothing is really moving, but if done well, you can create a different perspective for it.

I made a tutorial on how to create and use a camera in After Effects to show how I did it. It is not a hard task and even if it is simple, it can be used for a lot of movements, giving sensations of a real camera moving around the clip.

Here is my tutorial:

The pictured I picked for my Sound Project was the Flooded Room. It is a picture that can create many different stories since nothing in it is really limited. The woman seems to be dead, but at the same time there is no blood or cuts, which means she could be alive. Why the flood? What happened there? Here is the image.

A Journey Through Sorrow

Characters

Alexander Hoover: Long hair, around 1.75m tall, average body, a bit muscly and bad looking with a beard. He is a mid 20's man with a sad story in life. His bride to be left him for a rich man, because her ambition for money was bigger than her love to him. Trying to make her stay with him, he borrowed a lot of money and then forced to sell even his own house to pay those debts. He ended up with nothing at all but a pair of clothes and a tent. Since then, he has been living in a park inside his tent and cleaning it. He used to own a floristry, but lost in by betting it once. After being dumped by Katherine, he found a job as a formal florist and he has been saving money to rent a room in a descent place, but before that he has one last meeting to attend to.

Katherine Porter: Long hair, tall, skinny, white and classy. She is a mid 20's woman. Having a BA in Accountancy, she has never worked formally, but has developed a big ambition for money. Previously engaged to a florist with his own business, Katherine felt that she needed more and more money and her fiancée wasn't getting it for her. After he tried everything to give her the best, she met a new man, Arthur, who happened to be a millionaire. She decided that money was more important than love, which led her abandon Alexander and marry this new guy. She will have her last meeting with her ex-fiancée to give him back her engagement ring.

"Home"

It will be a tent, with duck tape on one of the sides as if it broken. Probably green since he is a naturalist and happens to be Alexander's favorite color.

Other locations

A wood path by a dockyard.

Package

Engagement ring with chew gum.

I have decided to look for actor for my new short. In order to do that, I decided to create a post in a website called Casting Call Pro (www.castingcallpro.com.) As a signer of the Protecting Actors Casting Agreement (PA), I have successfully posted the job and been getting some people interested in it. As soon as I get around 10 to 15 people for each role, I shall make auditions for it. Here is an image of my post and my certificate of the PA.

Mini Project for Direction Unit. Enjoy!

Director - Chris Sarmiento
Editor - Chris Sarmiento
Actor - Ruby Rogers
Camera Operator - Andrei Allen