Multitracking:
Excerpt from "The Man Upstairs"
Embedded Files
Pre-production
Pre-production
For Assignment 3, I chose to do something simple and record a scene from one of my favorite short stories, The Man Upstairs written by Jonathan Smith from the 18th episode of the radio drama podcast, The Magnus Archives.
The scene is about the speaker, recalling a time when he encountered a peculiarly-smelling man when he was first moving into his apartment. In order to auditorily show the story's use of a flashback, I used non-diegetic soundscapes to place the listener in the speaker's story. The difference in environment will be achieved through the presence and lack of white noise — wherein, no white noise = speaker's environment and white noise = flashback environment.
SCRIPT
SCRIPT
On the day I moved in, I saw a man smoking, leaning out of the window just above my own.
[SFX: (1) White Noise, non-diegetic] It was a grey, overcast day and the forecast had said there would be rain later [SFX: (2) Thunder, non-diegetic + SFX: (3) Footsteps on cement, non-diegetic], so I was keen to move the last of my boxes inside and start unpacking, and didn’t really pay him much attention.
I remember that he was wearing a hooded jacket, though, pulled up tight and obscuring most of his face. We locked eyes briefly – at least I assume we did – I couldn’t see his eyes but I felt him looking at me – and I could swear I smelled the weirdest odor. It’s hard to describe, halfway between the smell of a pavement after rain on a hot day and chicken that’s starting to turn bad. It was unpleasant, to say the least, but the wind changed, and it was gone as quickly as it came.
[SFX: (1) White Noise, non-diegetic + (2) Opens Door, non-diegetic (3) Carries bags of items, non-diegetic + (4) Closes Door, non-diegetic]
The man in the upstairs window kept watching as I took my boxes inside ‘til at one point I came outside and noticed he was gone.
Production
Production
The following audio tracks for this project were recorded through the use of an on-camera microphone, the Rode VideoMicro (plugged into a Fujifilm X-S10).
Vocals - recorded in a closed silent bedroom
White noise and Footsteps on Cement - recorded outside in the same open area where the Thunder SFX was recorded
Thunder - recorded by hitting a corrugated sheet of galvanized iron (yero) with an aluminum bar from a scaffolding
Open and Closes Door - recorded with the mic placed inside a room while opening and then closing a door from the outside
Carries bags of items - recorded by carrying a sack of cement in an open area
Post-production
Post-production
The project uses a total of six tracks, two for the vocals and four for the SFX. Two tracks are used for the dialogue to allow separate lines to overlay one another, which ensures that there is no dead air in between lines.
A simplified EQ is applied to the vocal tracks through the use of DaVinci Resolve's "Vocal Channel" Effect, I used the Equalizer to remove unneeded frequencies and a high pass filter to remove the really low, unheard frequencies. Lastly, a Compressor is used to minimize loudness peaks from the vocals.
The dialogue (green clips) and the majority of the foley (pink clips) are normalized to -10db for mastering. The blue clip is the "Thunder SFX" and the yellow clip is the remaining "White Noise + Open and Close Door SFX."
I didn't do much post-processing except for level adjustments for the majority of the Foley. However, to achieve the Thunder SFX, I manipulated the clip's pitch down to -6 Semitones, slowed down the clip to 80% speed, and made adjustments to the EQ to create a muffled effect.
I monitored the audio through Samson SR850 and PreSonus Eris 3.5 for quality assurance. I exported the project as an MP3 file and then uploaded it to Soundcloud.
MMS 172 Assignment 3: Multitracking
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse