It's back to film school! This semester I'm taking non-linear portfolio editing and sound design. The first class will be where I'm editing the short film that I shot last Spring. Hopefully it will be done by Christmas. The second class will be about shooting and editing sound. I believe that in addition to working on the Nagra analog sound recorder that I used for my film shoot, I will also learn how to use the DAT recorder (digital audio tape). I'll also be working on Pro Tools.
You can learn more about Pro Tools right here at:
http://www.digidesign.com/products/le
During my sound class, my instructor played a clip from the film "Unbreakable" (2000) with Bruce Willis. She played the scene in which Bruce Willis walks into a terminal and anyone who bumps into him, he gets a glimpse into their lives. There were flashback scenes of a young guy walking into the bedroom where a drunk girl is sleeping on the bed and you could hear a party in the background. There was also a very strange scene where a man answers his door at home and a stranger is at the door saying "I love your house, can I come in?" and when one person in a party of three on the street is sucker punched with a bottle. My instructor played three versions of that scene. The first one is where you only hear the music and nothing else. The second is where you only hear the natural background sounds in that scene without music and the final version is the final cut in the movie in which you get everything, the music, the natural background sounds and ADR dialogue (automated dialogue replacement). We were to analyze the kinds of sounds that we hear in that scene. She also showed us a scene from "What Lies Beneath" (2000) in which Michelle Pfiffer steps on a piece of broken glass and removes that piece from her foot, both of which made a sound.
For both the portfolio editing and sound design class, I would need to purchase a LaCie d2 triple interface hard drive.
You could find it right here at:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10058
Think of it as a large-scale floppy disk or a portable hard drive in which you could save your video work in that drive and carry it with you to class to do your presentation. It is 160GB big and each hour of digital video footage takes up 13GB. It's also good for computer back-up in the event your computer crashes and loses all your information. I was told that the Apple Store sells them for $150-$200, but I got a good price for it by ordering it direct from LaCie at $130 plus $10 shipping.
I will be doing a class presentation in my sound class on Wednesday in which I'm supposed to pick a four-minute clip from any movie and write a 4-5 page essay on it with regards to its use of sound. Geez! I'm not so sure I can even write one page about it! My instructor told me it could also be an example of bad use of sound like those Bruce Lee Kung Fu movies or Godzilla movies with the bad English dubbing or something good like the scene from "Unbreakable" and "What Lies Beneath". Right now I'm trying to decide on either the concluding scenes from "The Grudge" where Sarah Michelle Gellar confronts the ghost in the haunted house or "The Ring" in which that evil little girl climbs out of the television set. Another possible is the fight scene between Uma Thurman and the Japanese girl in "Kill Bill Vol. 1" or I might pick a fight scene from a Bruce Lee movie that I have! ("Fists of Fury", aka "The Big Boss")
With regards to my recent trip to Los Angeles, I attended a taping of CBS' "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". The leading guest for "Late Late" was supposed to be actress Sharon Stone promoting the new Jim Jarmusch film "Broken Flowers" (also stars Bill Murray), however, she had a scheduling conflict, so she taped her interview the night before and I never got to see her! Bummer! I had to be content with an interview with Mo'Nique. On "Jimmy Kimmel", the guest was Johnny Knoxville of "Jackass" fame, promoting his film "The Dukes of Hazzard".
Finally, just last Thursday, August 25, marked ten years ago to this date that I arrived in Phoenix from San Francisco.
You can learn more about Pro Tools right here at:
http://www.digidesign.com/products/le
During my sound class, my instructor played a clip from the film "Unbreakable" (2000) with Bruce Willis. She played the scene in which Bruce Willis walks into a terminal and anyone who bumps into him, he gets a glimpse into their lives. There were flashback scenes of a young guy walking into the bedroom where a drunk girl is sleeping on the bed and you could hear a party in the background. There was also a very strange scene where a man answers his door at home and a stranger is at the door saying "I love your house, can I come in?" and when one person in a party of three on the street is sucker punched with a bottle. My instructor played three versions of that scene. The first one is where you only hear the music and nothing else. The second is where you only hear the natural background sounds in that scene without music and the final version is the final cut in the movie in which you get everything, the music, the natural background sounds and ADR dialogue (automated dialogue replacement). We were to analyze the kinds of sounds that we hear in that scene. She also showed us a scene from "What Lies Beneath" (2000) in which Michelle Pfiffer steps on a piece of broken glass and removes that piece from her foot, both of which made a sound.
For both the portfolio editing and sound design class, I would need to purchase a LaCie d2 triple interface hard drive.
You could find it right here at:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10058
Think of it as a large-scale floppy disk or a portable hard drive in which you could save your video work in that drive and carry it with you to class to do your presentation. It is 160GB big and each hour of digital video footage takes up 13GB. It's also good for computer back-up in the event your computer crashes and loses all your information. I was told that the Apple Store sells them for $150-$200, but I got a good price for it by ordering it direct from LaCie at $130 plus $10 shipping.
I will be doing a class presentation in my sound class on Wednesday in which I'm supposed to pick a four-minute clip from any movie and write a 4-5 page essay on it with regards to its use of sound. Geez! I'm not so sure I can even write one page about it! My instructor told me it could also be an example of bad use of sound like those Bruce Lee Kung Fu movies or Godzilla movies with the bad English dubbing or something good like the scene from "Unbreakable" and "What Lies Beneath". Right now I'm trying to decide on either the concluding scenes from "The Grudge" where Sarah Michelle Gellar confronts the ghost in the haunted house or "The Ring" in which that evil little girl climbs out of the television set. Another possible is the fight scene between Uma Thurman and the Japanese girl in "Kill Bill Vol. 1" or I might pick a fight scene from a Bruce Lee movie that I have! ("Fists of Fury", aka "The Big Boss")
With regards to my recent trip to Los Angeles, I attended a taping of CBS' "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". The leading guest for "Late Late" was supposed to be actress Sharon Stone promoting the new Jim Jarmusch film "Broken Flowers" (also stars Bill Murray), however, she had a scheduling conflict, so she taped her interview the night before and I never got to see her! Bummer! I had to be content with an interview with Mo'Nique. On "Jimmy Kimmel", the guest was Johnny Knoxville of "Jackass" fame, promoting his film "The Dukes of Hazzard".
Finally, just last Thursday, August 25, marked ten years ago to this date that I arrived in Phoenix from San Francisco.
