Soundtrack Analysis

1) The Great Gatsby - Analysis
I've chosen this movie to review because one scene really stood out for me, in terms of music, foley and fx that really put the tension in the movie which made the viewers feel the sympathy and emotion that was gathering round in the movie. The selected scene was when Gatsby loses his temper at the hotel. During the build up, you see emotion on Gatsby face but he's hiding it. At this time, there is no music bed in the background, so it's quite silent (apart from the dialogue being said). There are sounds of cups hitting the table after a person places it down, a fan blowing distantly, wine/liquid pouring into glass(es), footsteps when a character is walking and other distinctive sounds that you won't realise but made a change to the movie if it weren't there - example, the sound of blowing smoke out of mouth (from using cigarette). Since it's a build-up of anger, the antagonist, Tom Buchanan, raises his voice at certain parts but to really sell the effect, they tweak the audio. They increase the volume of his voice for that extra oomph. When he whispers, they lower it for a more subtle effect. The volume of his voice varies of who he may be speaking to. If it were Gatsby, he'd raise his voice on some words to emphasis his speech, or to his wife he'll speak in a calm and gentler tone although he was thought to have been angry.

As Tom is getting on Gatsby's nerves a lot more, there is a moment where Gatsby is breathing heavily and the music bed is becoming louder and louder - using a fade offset. The reason why they used a fade offset rather than just the track starting to play is that it brings a lot more tension into the storyline. As the music gets louder, the scene gets tenser and that's what the Director wanted to achieve. As it has gotten too much for Gatsby, he turns around, knocking everything off the table, and pushes Tom to the chair - having his fist up to punch him. The sound in this part was achieved by the foley artists and the re-recording mixers to make sure the all effects including the wine, plates & glasses on the table had a continuous smashing sound as it changed camera (avoiding audio jumps and continuity errors). As Gatsby is holding down Tom and is about to punch him, the room becomes quiet (in shock) so they only thing you can hear in the music bed in the background, but the volume slowly decreases to a point for where it could be at -20 dB. A shot of Gatsby looking into Tom's eyes, realizing what he's doing also reveals a fan right above his head. They've slowed down they footage, so the characters and objects in the room are a bit slower. During this shot, you can hear the fan slowly whooshing - brings even greater intensity into the scene. A voice-over by Nick Carraway is then heard. You can hear the breaths of the two characters, Tom and Gatsby in this stand off, but Gatsby's breaths is heard louder. As he backs away, the music bed reaches an approximate of -15 dB therefore making it appear a bit louder but also remaining it's quietness during Nick's voice-over.

Overall, in this scene it was quite tense for a viewer to watch seeing how the editor and the Director made the viewer feel the emotion in the scene, increasing sounds like the fans to push the tension a little higher and getting those non-realizable effects of smoke being blown out of mouth, etc. really made this scene a remarkable and successful one. I think the director and editor (as well as the foley artists and re-recorder mixers) did a swell job on building this scene to be a very touching and emotional scene for the viewers. Although no actual fight started, the build up and tension really pushed it to the point where viewers would actually, if put in the same situation, punch Tom themselves. It was a well composed piece, the use of the tensive music turning a calm, subtle level really pushed this scene into an uncomfortable scene.

1) DOA: Dead or Alive - Analysis
After watching this particular scene really impressed me. The massive and unexpected turn-around caught viewers by surprise! The opening shots are of the character Christie Allen taking a shower. You can hear the water pouring and the sound it's making as it hits the floor, but not actually seeing it. This is a job for the foley artists! As a foley artist, they are to reproduce sounds can be anything from the swishing of clothing, doors squeaking, footsteps and glass shattering. Without these background sounds, movies feel unnaturally quiet and sometimes uncomfortable. As soon as she comes out the shower, she is confronted by a detective and two policemen. "You're under arrest" is the first thing the detective says. Next shots are inside a cupboard. Clothes are being parted (left and right) revealing a bag. This bag is then placed on the bed in the following shot, being unzipped, clothes being removed, pocket-knife unfolding, before it pierces the bag which then reveals cash that was hidden away. All when this had happened, the combination of different sounds as it went along with the quick jump-cuts made the scene feel more tense. A sound bed is quietly heard (around -25 dB), the detective tells her about the money that had been stolen from a safe (which Christie has). "Tell me about the diamonds," demands the detective. "They're a girls bestfriend, made from carbons, projected from higher pressure; traditionally a 60th wedding gift... and they're forever," replied Christie. During her speech, the sound track crossfaded from a detective/mysterious track into a slightly happy mysterious track, then returning back to the previous track. This was purposely done to add a bit of humour to the scene, but how this played out made it work quite well!

The detective assures her that spending a few hours in a cold cell will make her more agreeable (seeing as she had failed to give him an answer he was looking for). "Well I will need to get dressed first", replied back Christie - seeing as she is still wearing only a towel because of the detective's unexpected appearance. As she grabs her underwear, an alluring soundtrack is then played. No crossfade, just a straight jump-in soundtrack. As Christie slowly puts it on, you see a close-up of her legs - the sound of the material rubbing against her legs as it she pulls it up was also added by foley artists preferably on a studio rather than a stage (to monitor the audio levels accordingly and to have better and quieter sound).

As soon as she had finished putting on her bra, she asks the detective to hand her bra. The detective walks to the other side of the room (hearing the swishing of clothes and subtle footsteps), the sound of his gun unholstering and using it to pick up the bra is heard. He walks back over to her handing her the bra (as it still as at the tip of his gun) before Christie unexpectedly kicks the gun and the bra, which sends them flying in the air [slow motion]. This sound made a massive 'whoosh' sound as well as the soundtrack turning into a more frantic and upbeat track - striking the tension. She kicks the detective, takes off her towel, flings it to the one of the policemen, it strikes his head and a "ugh!" is heard from him (re-recording mixing artist to dub the dialogue). There is a close-up shot of Christie turning her head back fast to see behind her. As she does this, her hair swishes. She wraps her towel around the policeman's gun before tripping him up over the chair. She looks up, the gun and bra are still falling, she raises her arms, the bra slips into place and she catches the gun. Without turning around, she senses the detective behind him and points the gun at his chest. "Do me up." says Christie, implying for the detective to button-up her bra. As he finishes it, she things turns and gives him a swift hit to the face with the gun, knocking him out. The sound of him hitting the fall, making a tumbling noise, is heeded.

This was a very intense scene. The amount of work that was put into getting each sound effect perfect was incredible. You see what you hear, and in this scene that is exactly what happened! Each sound was precise, the timing, textures, feel was great - it made you feel that you were right next to the action. How close the camera was to an object or person determined the volume of the object/person (the closer, the louder). The dialogue however was was normal. There wasn't much volume change to the dialogue, but they really did use the Pan effectively. At certain points you can hear the mutli-band dynamics as its best. Overall, the director succeeded on what he/she tried to achieve and made the tension and unexpected parts really come... unexpected.

- Anton Lewis

The 26th Day - Short Film

List of Different Animation Applications

1. Music Videos
2. Television Channel Idents
3. Short (and feature length) Films
4. Television Shows
5. Advertisements

Journey - Evaluation

The things that went well in the project are the shotlist, locations and characters. Within the first few minutes in getting the assignment, me and my team had already started jotting down ideas on an A3 Paper. Our final chosen ident was the pixelation animation idea for where a college student is on his way to the college (City of Westminster) but is quite late. He does a variety of different moves such as walking crazy, hovering off the ground, sliding across the floor, etc. This really shows the creative aspects to it as well as the camera shots and angles, it really made shooting this project a blast! We used the Canon T4i (650D) which is capable of shooting 10 frames per second in pictures, which made this a whole lot easier!

The thing that didn't quite go well (or as planned) was the location. We had the opening shot of the character looking into the water. Little did we know that this area was a private residence so security approached us and asked for a permit. Not knowing this was private and we had no permission, we were then told to call the general manager of the residence in order to get the first few seconds of this ident done. The whole process took about 30 minutes therefore pushing our schedule back. Once we were accompanied by security, we shot our beginning sequence!

When it came to editing in the suite, I had to use After Effects to do a mask (for the CWC reveal at 0:47). I had to do this several times because either: it was not rendered correctly, the reveal wasn't as "fluent" or other problems that concerned the actual video itself. We had to re-shoot and shoot additional scenes quite a few times to finally get the finished production (above). Although it was a little stressful, but going that extra mile sometimes push things further. In regards to the pictures and rendering, it was a pain. Not only because there were hundreds of pictures, but on the actual final render as an animation would have a size over 20 GB for a clean 15/fps animation (the video above is 24). I do not have a video compressor so the only way I could upload the video onto YouTube (without having to wait 300+ minutes for an upload) is that I render it as a normal 24 frames per second video as a normal video. Quick, but downgrades the quality by a lot! In fact, one commenter on the video says: "Improvements could be made with the frame rates; more frames would allow the movement to flow a lot better." which is clearly stating the the FPS was not good.

In terms of feedback by other people, they liked the video but there was some disappointments. For example, some say the soundtrack was a bit too loud and others say it didn't fit the storyline. Apart from that, the pixelation technique was quite effective. Personally, I liked the critical feedback people have left because it will help me improve my work in the future. One thing I disagree with is the volume of the soundtrack. A commenter wrote: "...the music is a bit too loud." In my opinion, it wasn't at all loud unless the person had their volume on full blast. From other projects in the past, I have learnt about managing the soundtrack volume levels accordingly to the video and I think that this Ident's volume level did all right.

In conclusion to my Channel Ident, I have learnt now to research on locations to make sure that it's not a private location or if I'd need some type of permit to shoot on a location. Some people do not like photography and videography on their property so it's best to notify them in advance before making plans about shooting there. I'm not much of an animation person but as a first-timer for a movie-like pixelation animation, I think I did moderately well but, of course, there are things I could improve on. 

Music Based Programming

Radio Station: Absolute 80s
Radio Listen Date: 11/04/2013
Radio Audience: Absolute 80s Radio Station is aimed at "reluctant adults" who want to connect with the tunes of their youth.
Typically looking at ages 21 - 45 years.
Radio Frequency: 105.8FM
Radio Type: 80s Hits
Travel Updates: 11:30am | 11:45am | 12:01pm

Time	Track	Artist
11:24	Build	The Housemartins
11.34	Getting Away With It	Electronic
11.39	Sweet Dreams (are made of this)	Eurythmics
Link (Fr: Martyn Lee) - Advert Break - 11.44
11.46	Do You Really Want To Hurt Me	Culture Club
11.50	Cover Me	Bruce Springsteen
11.53	Young At Heart	The Bluebells
11.56	La Isla Bonita	Madonna
Absolute News (Fr: Tanya Snuggs) - 12:01 (Duration 3') | Link (Fr: Martyn Lee)
12:03	Tainted Love	Soft Cell

Radio Station: Kiss 100
Radio Listen Date: 21/05/2013
Radio Audience: Kiss is a UK radio station broadcasting on FM and National DAB, specialising in hip hop, R&B, urban and electronic dance music. Typically looking at ages 13 - 21 years.
Radio Frequency: 100 FM
Radio Type: Dance
Travel Updates: 18:20am

Time	Track	Artist
18:20	So Good To Me	Chris Malinchak
18.23	One More Night	Maroon 5
18.27	What Love is Made Of	Katy B
Link (Fr: Michael & Clara) – 18:30
18.32	I’ve Got That Power	Will.i.am
18.35	Treasure	Bruno Mars
Link (Fr: Michael & Clara) – 18:37
18.37	Talk That Talk	Rihanna
18.40	I Need Your Love	Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding
18.43	Thrift Shop	Macklemore / Ryan Lewis
18.45	How Ya Doin’?	Little Mix
Link (Fr: Michael & Clara) – 18:48
18.48	Waiting All Night	Rudimental
18.51	Just Give Me A Reason	Pink

Radio Station: Choice FM
Radio Listen Date: 27/05/2013
Radio Audience: Choice FM is a brand used by the UK's biggest radio company, Global Radio for its urban music radio station.
Typically looking at ages 13 - 21 years.
Radio Frequency: 107.1FM
Radio Type: Urban Music
Travel Updates: 17:59pm

Time	Track	Artist
17:53	Let Your Body Groove	The Architects
Link (Fr: Abrantee) Advert Break – 17.58
18.02	Fine China	Chris Brown
18.06	2 Reasons	Trey Songz
18.09	Right Now	Rihanna
Link (Fr: Abrantee) – 18.12
18.13	Suit And Tie	Jay Z & Justin Timberlake
18.17	Treasure	Bruno Mars
18.19	Need You (100%)	Nuke Dermount
Link (Fr: Abrantee) - 18:22
18.22	I Wish	Skee-Lo

Radio Station: Capital FM
Radio Listen Date: 29/05/2013
Radio Audience: Capital is a radio network of nine independent contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom which are owned and operated by Global Radio. Typically looking at ages 12 - 20 years.
Radio Frequency: 95.8FM
Radio Type: Pop Music
Travel Updates: 18:43pm

Time	Track	Artist
18:38	I Knew You Were Trouble	Taylor Swift
Link (Fr: Greg Burns) Advert Break – Travel Update – 18.42
18.45	What About Us	The Saturdays
18.48	Goin’ Crazy	Dizzie Rascal
18.52	I Need Your Love	Calvin Harris ft. Ellie Goulding
18.54	Where Them Girls At	David Guetta
Link (Fr: Gregs Burns) Advert Break – News (Fr: Holly Jones) –18.57
19.01	Mirrors	Justin Timberlake
19.05	I Could Be The One	Avicii vs Nicky Romero
19.08	*No Track Name*	*No Artist Name*
19.11	Waiting All Night	Rudimental

Radio Station: BBC 6 Music
Radio Listen Date: 07/06/2013
Radio Audience: BBC Radio 6 Music is one of the BBC’s digital radio stations. It was known officially as BBC 6 Music from its launch on 11 March 2002 until April 2011. 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years.
Typically looking at ages 25 – 44 years.
Radio Frequency: DAB: 12B
Radio Type: Jazz / Soul
Travel Updates: //

Time	Track	Artist
21.44	Second Summer (RAC Remix)	Yacht
Link (Fr: Tom Ravenscroft) – 21:47
21:48	Lignou Mome	Jeri-Jeri
Radio Advert Break – 21:50
21:50	Conversations	Fyfe
Link (Fr: Tom Ravenscroft) – 21:55
21:55	Sonic Rage	H-Sik
Link (Fr: Ben Watt) – 22:00
22:00	My Way	Close
Link (Fr: Ben Watt) – 22:04
22:04	Across 110th Street	Bobby Womack

Programming Evaluation:

Having listen to all tracks from all 5 different radio stations 30 minutes each, it's quite surprising how some radio stations vary when it comes to the Programme Clock. Though they do tend to stick to the important stuff, for example the news every hour, but some radio stations have very little travel updates. This could be because the updates are noted on the Radio Player itself, but if it's not they will mention important updates (for example: crash on the M6).

In terms of advert breaks, there has been quite a few occassions where they will use an advert break. In my time of listening to music, I think I've heard twice as more links than advert breaks... probably even more! Throughout the time of listening to all radio stations, only a few stations used advert breaks at every 10/15 minutes. I've experience about two, or possibly three, stations that did not have a single advert break. Why is this? I'm guessing it's either:
1 - I tuned in at the wrong time (therefore missing an advert break if there was on previously).
2 - They limit their advert breaks.
3 - They want more people to enjoy the music rather than sitting through adverts which leads to having chances of losing listeners.
Number 3 to me seems reasonable, and if I were to be a producer of a radio station, I'd make sure 2 & 3 are of top priority! Although it's not good for the advertising companies, but viewers are what's important when it comes to radio.

On stations that allow Travel Bulletins, they will come quite frequently. Around 20 minutes past each hour there will be a traffic or travel update. Since I was listening to the radio online, it had information about the travel and transportation services. However, for those listeners who are traveling, the updates were frequent / infrequent (depending on the time of day, for example: peak times). News bulletins that come every hour (or some cases two hours) normally lasts about 5 - 10 minutes after giving a brief explanations on the day's top news. After bulletins have finished, we are then rejoined by our radio presenters with their news and sometimes upcoming music tracks & artists.

When the presenter speaks to the audience, they sometimes add a little comedy to keep the viewers entertained. I recall laughing a few times because of the interesting puns or jokes presenters had made about either themselves or the artists (of course apologizing if it was a joke that could be taken in a wrong way), but it made listening a lot entertaining. The presenter would normally speak to the audience every 2 - 4 tracks that are played. However, in the last station I listened to (which was 6 Music), the Presenters tended to speak after each track, which I found very annoying!

In conclusion to my choices of radio stations, they all had specific age groups that they wanted to reach out for. Presenters giving jokes were mainly on stations that had young audiences (12 - 25 years of age), seeing as they can take a joke. Don't get me wrong, middle-aged and elderly people can take a laugh, but listening and understanding the jokes presenter gives about the artists could offend a majority of listeners. Having it be young people, for example, they are more streetwise; knowing how to handle jokes to a manner. Each station had a specific type of music that it generally plays. Absolute 80s played 80s music and Kiss 100, having the younger audience, played more dance and pop style of music.
I enjoyed my time listening to different walks of music because it shows the variety of different songs and what type of audience that radio station attracts.

-
Anton Lewis