My Chosen Cartoon

I have decided to choose the classic cartoon; Tom and Jerry, Truce Hurts. I will be adding SFX from the beginning up to two minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFxHJ1q0yns&feature=related

Recording SFX's

Footsteps - Newspaper in a plastic bag, then softly tapping the bag creates the perfect footstep

Rain - Salt being poured onto tin foil

A person punching another - A heavy phone book being dropped

Decapitation - Cabbages are sliced into two with a meat clever

Horse Hoofs - Coconut shells are claps together creating a noise like house hoofs on stone

Preparing To Work With SFX

1. Why do we use SFX in TV and film?

SFX can heighten a productions feel, it can give a production a production sound that was captured on the day of recording. Also if sound that was recorded on set was bad or of low quality they can change it with SFX. Some sounds have to be added after filming, for example CGI sounds or a gun shot and those sounds would not actually happen on screen.

2. What are the benefits of using SFX's in TV and film? What do they add to the overall production?

One of the main benefits would is that it is possible to enhance the SFX quality without effecting the sound on the footage. Another benefit would be you don't have to record certain sounds whilst filming, for example an explosion wouldn't be heard on screen so you could add the SFX after and perfect it.

3. What are the disadvantages of using SFX's in TV and film?

One disadvantage would be that the SFX does not work well in the production so it sounds out of place. Another disadvantage could be if a production company puts to many SFX's into a program or film.

4. What is the job description of a foley artist?

The Foley Artist is part of the postproduction team. The artist matches re-created sound to the action on the screen, such as the rustling of leaves or the clacking of horses’ hooves on cobblestone.

Evaluation

My group consisted of me, Edd, Jack and Harry. During this task we recorded Jack and Edd reading from a script. We filmed in three different location, the first being a empty classroom, second was outside in the car park and our last location was in a busy corridor.

In the empty classroom we encountered our first problem which was the nearby computers and the florescent lighting, which created a humming sound although we could not here those noises until we started to edit. When we came back to filming the second time we used a personal microphone instead of using the boom, this got rid of the humming sound.

The second location was in the car park, a problem we came across was the wind and a buzzing from a nearby building. We fixed this by moving away from the building and found a spot were the wind wasn't a problem. Because we moved our location, we now had traffic to del with. But that sounded better than the wind and buzzing.

The last location was in a busy corridor, the problems we found were people talking and walking past and also the humming of the florescent lights. To fix these problems we kept control of the people in the public and asked them to be silent for minimal noise. There was no point moving location because all indoor location had florescent lighting, however we used personal microphones to minimize the hum.

Overall I think as a group we were successful at reducing the unwanted noise, we learnt from our mistakes from he first attempt and made the quality better in the second attempt. We changed simple things from the first attempt such as location of microphones, these made a definite improvement.

I think as a group we worked very well, we completed the filming in short time, this enabled use to get and with capturing in the same lessons. We are all friends so our opinions and ideas were easy to get across as we speak to each other daily.

From what I have learnt from this assignment, I will use in future productions so I can get the best possible sound.