A Likely Story, the small film production group I’m involved with shot a test movie (which is very funny) called Two Girls and a Bathroom. The film explores why women go to the bathroom in pairs, hilarity ensues.

I was out of town in New York for the making of Two Girls and a Bathroom, when I got back I viewed it online but the encoding was messed up. There was no sound and the speed was about 140% of what it should have been. At first I thought my group had done something extremely artsy and strange. Later I found out that it was an encoding error.

I thought the sped up version was really cool so I took it into iMovie and messed around with it. Then later I made a dance track for the audio. This is the result.

Film competition starts today. I think we’re pretty prepared. Our team of about 12-14 will be getting the genre tonight. We start filming and post-production I assume right away. Director handles that part, I’m on music, sound effects and helping where I can with Final Cut Pro.

We had a ton of good, developed and organic ideas in our practice sessions. I think the production company I’m with has a good “art filter”. This is very useful imho. For example filtering out rogue and premature ideas:

“Wouldn’t a game where you’re the owner of a toy factory be cool?”
“How about a movie where something drastic happens to that person and now they’re all like, damn!”

We don’t have a lot of that going on in our group. Usually when someone pitches an unpolished idea the person is very excited about their idea, think it’s unique but fails to put enough effort into it to include ideas to cut out. Think about baking an apple pie. There are many things that don’t make it into the apple pie. So the sum of what you bring to the baking table needs to be much bigger than the pie itself. I definitely don’t claim to be a writer but I think I have a pretty good “art filter” on all the time. The thing that I fail at is prejudging everything way too quickly. A few ideas seemed very lame at the pitch but then reading the script later changed my mind.

It doesn’t have to even be something I’m working on. A story about a guy stuck on an island sounds pretty lame (“What is that survivor again?”) but I loved Cast Away. Someday maybe my art filter will mature into something more subtle so I don’t sound like a pretentious asshole all the time.

All of this effort is done to have fun. But also to get a demo reel polished. Get something in a portfolio and generally to learn something. GameDev and video (this is not film) post-production to me is the same process. They differ in more ways than they are the same but essentially where I come in on the video end for sound effects is the same process where I come in for event sounds in interactive media.

To that end, here’s something pretty frightening. A horror track.
Download audio file (A%20Likely%20Horror.mp3)

1. Got Dungeon Theme sheet music pdf off web
2. Practiced for two weeks
3. Recorded tracks in Cubase
4. Rendered to mp3
5. Recorded a couple fake play-along tracks
6. Imported all into iMovie
7. Added some cheesy transitions etc
8. Downloaded NES commercial
9. Uploaded to youtube

I need to fix the aspect ratio and rebuild the entire movie. I shot it sideways like a video-nub. Serendipitously, a post on a blog came around on how to rotate (with black bars) a movie that was shot sideways. What luck.

So following the guide I was able to rotate the movie back with some black matte on the left and right. Eventually it all came together, except the middle part is still stretched and I just put some cheesy bloom effect all over it to make up for the stretchy.

Saved off all the source video and mp3 files to my external firewire drive. My mini’s disk is full. It’s a sweet box but not expandable. Even firewire ports are at a minimum. I dunno what the next step is. Mac Pro? Home NAS? Fuck it?

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Download audio file (styrofoam_beatbox.mp3)

Maybe less annoying is something that developed out of it, a real beat with real instruments.

Download audio file (Styrofoam%20Break.mp3)

The morning after is likely to bring the question, “What the hell was I think with the squeakin’?” but at least a decent breakbeat came out of it (only one sample used, 1/2 the drums).

Download audio file (what%20in%20gods%20name%20is%20this%20shit.mp3)

Zoink:
Download audio file (zoink.mp3)

Zoy Milk:
Download audio file (zoy%20milk.mp3)

Titles are meaningless.

Also is a stripped-down demo of that wavvy effect that I’m really happy with. You should be able to hear a small and slow bend/warping thing going on in this thing:

No Regrets – Warping
Download audio file (No%20Regrets%20-%20warping.mp3)

Download audio file (imp.mp3)
Ok this one I poured my heart into. It’s super long and I’ve spent weeks rearranging and trimming it down. I’m proud of the solo in the middle. This might be the best thing I’ve done in a few years, dunno.

Ah damn it, that wasn’t nearly long enough to act as work-ear-plugs. >_<

I’ll have to bring in the regular-type. Certainly many would think it’s weird or self-serving to listen to my own tunes. But, it helps in solidifying the idea. You sleep on it. You redo something for 2 hours and then your ability to hear that ‘something’ is gone. You sleep on it again. Listen to it somewhere else, or have someone else listen to it. Really helps.

Anyway, free music. Who can complain.

This weekend I’m meeting up with an audio engineer to talk about mastering and production. He has a project himself that I might get involved with. We’ll see if I can produce a complete disc or have something more polished and organized…

Download audio file (add_dirt.mp3)
This is just a short downtempo tune. It’s called add dirt because I started out striving for a 70s analog sound, something wavvy, distorted, dirty. Came out ok, no big idea in there.

TL sent me this totally rad video he did. I ripped out the music (although awesome as it was) and replaced it with my own thingy. Somehow, the timing worked out really great, like when the drums drop out on THE END. Awesome editing, awesome idea TL.