Production + Post-Production

Toxeine Interview 1

Content

I recorded an interview with a Sunderland artist, Toxeine, this consisted of 9 questions:

- What made you decide to make music?

- How did you get started with making music?

- Who are your inspirations?

- Do you think living in the North-East has influenced your music?

- Do you have a specific writing/recording process?

- Have you collaborated with any other artists?

- What was the first song you made that you were really happy about?

- Do you think that your music has developed enough since you started?

- What is your current studio set-up?

I decided to use 2 camera angles as I thought both were suitable and wanted to experiment with switching between camera angles during the interview.

During the interview Toxeine's phone rang. I decided to leave this in and even cut out the background music as I thought it would create a comedic moment as well as give the viewer a more personal connecting with what they are watching as it shows imperfections within the recording, both of these things would grab the users attention as well as break away from continuous shots.

Camera setup

First, I set up the studio. I pulled the black curtain across the wall so there would be a plain black outline, placed a chair where the interviewee then had Leon sit in the chair so I could adjust the cameras to a suitable angle and so only small adjustments would have to be made when the interviewee turned up for the interview. I also sat in the chair myself and looked at the camera angles on the flipped camera screens to make sure they both looked right for the angles I was attempting. I also set up the microphone on the primary camera as it would be closer to the interviewee and therefore have better sound quality. See below:

When the interviewee arrived I made slight adjustments to the camera angles so he was central in the frame of the primary camera (cannon eos 700d), this angle was set up as a head-on medium close up. This was in order to keep the camera shot close while also allowing for body language to be seen. See below:

The secondary camera (cannon eos 77d), was set slightly off-centred to offer for a different camera angle. This shot was set up to be a close up, I decided to use a close-up as my intentions with the secondary camera was to focus more on the facial expressions throughout the interview. I adjusted the angle to ensure the interviewee was towards the right of the frame, following the rule of three. See below:

Editing

First of all I put the footage from the two cameras into PremierPro. I edited the first and second camera footage separately (cutting out any of the unneeded footage from each).

I then placed the camera footage on top of each other and used cut out different parts of the video footage to create cuts between the two angles. I only used the audio from the main camera as the audio from the second camera was a significantly lower quality due to it being further away and not having an external microphone. 

I lined the video from the second camera with the audio of the first camera by zooming in and aligning the audio files as accurately as I could and then muting the audio from the second camera to makes sure it was in time with the video before deleting the unneeded audio file.

I then cut out all of the audio of me asking the questions as it sounded out of place with me being music closer to the microphone, on top of that I often stuttered while asking questions so I thought the removal of my voice would make the interview flow nicer and easier to listen to.

I then added title pages that show for 2 seconds which read out what each question, due to the audio of me asking questions being removed.  

Finally I was sent some music by Sean so I then added the melody from one of the instrumentals and looped it, this loop was to be used as background music for the interview. 

The titles, first video footage, second video footage and music were then all colour coded as to make it easier differentiate between them while editing. 

- First Video (blue)

- Second Video (green)

- Title pages (purple)

- Music (yellow)

Due to there now being 2 audio files playing over the top of each other (vocal and music audio)  I had to adjust the levels of the 2 different track lines using the audio clip mixer. I set audio 1 (the vocal audio) to 6dB and I set audio 3 (the music audio) to -16dB. I adjusted these levels multiple times and decided that these levels were the most effective. I didn't use audio 2 as I left the audio 2 track line empty in order to line up the vocal audio (before deleting the unnecessary audio) as well as to make my timeline neater and easier to see. 

After editing footage from my first recorded interview I came across a problem while trying to export the video. An error code (rendering error code 4) kept popping up every time I attempted to export my video. See below:

To fix this I first tried using the 'mark in' 'mark out' tools to select the video and make the export more directed at the video, after this didn't work I checked a forum online to see possible solutions to the error code. Finally, to fix the problem I queued the video into encoder and outported the file into OneDrive as the problem I was facing was that there wasn't enough storage on the computer I was using.

Later (when I was editing the second interview) I had to find a way to still be able to edit both the first and second interviews. I uploaded all the videos to OneDrive a second time and then rather than using the browser version of OneDrive I used OneDrive within the file explorer app. I discovered that, using OneDrive like this, I could download files without taking up storage on my college network account. This allowed me to do any edits I wanted without running out of storage or facing the error code 4 issue which I met earlier on when trying to export my first interview.

I then made a very small adjustment. I went through the audio and done my best to remove my voice throughout the video as during the recording I often said "yeah" and "aye" and I didn't want it to effect the video. I manage to successfully remove the majority of these but some of them I couldn't remove as it would've removed small parts of the interview. I done this by muting track line 2 and then cutting parts of the audio out and moving it into the muted track line and making tiny adjustments until my voice was completely removed while keeping all of the audio from the interview intact.

This is the edited audio:

Feedback

Response to feedback

Question 1: First of all, it is made clear from responses from the first question that the camera angles I used were very effective so this will not be changed and I will incorporate this into future interviews. There were also positive comments about lighting, picture quality and the questions that were asked so these also will not be changed.

Question 2: All of the responses to this question highlight that the mixing of the music and speaking audio isn't done correctly and it is hard to hear the interviewee, this will definitely be something I will fix.

Question 3: All these responses are also aimed at the audio mixing (as talked about in question 2 response). There is also a comment about it possibly being too dark so I will look at some lighting settings although the lighting was praised in a response to question 1 so I don't think I will end up changing it.

Improvements made

I went into the audio mixer and readjusted the audio levels on both tracks making the speaking audio slightly louder and significantly decreasing the music volume. See below:

[screenshot of audio mixer]

Toxeine Interview 2

Camera setup

The first thing we (Sean and I) done was prep the room. We removed all obstructions (mattress, bottles, etc.) and made the studio set up in the background more presentable as we would be using it for the second interview as well as video clips for the introduction. 

Due to being outside of college for this interview I didn't have access to 2 cameras therefore I couldn't record 2 different angles and edit them together like I did in the first interview, because of this I decided to use the camera angle that I thought was most effective in the first interview while also taking into consideration which would be best suited to the environment. I set the camera up in the corner of the room at an angle, placing Sean in the far left of the frame (using the rule of three), as well as making the studio visible. I decided to use a medium shot as it would allow any body language to be seen throughout the interview as well as keeping the interviewee within his surroundings (studio environment). See below:

I also set up the microphone and adjusted it to be suitable to record the interview as it was a small room but also had a high celling, therefore I had to counteract an echo to make the recorded audio sound better. On top of this, because the camera had to record quite close to the interviewee, I had to significantly turn down the microphone sensitivity. 

I first switched the sound recording settings from auto to manual. See below:

                                  Before:                                        After:

I then adjusted the Rec. level to make the sound a better quality. See below:

                                   Before:                                     After:

Editing

This interview portion was recorded in 2 parts. I put both of these parts into the timeline. Like I have with my previous edit, I cut out any unnecessary parts (stutters, pauses, etc). 

After that I rearranged the separate clips so that the interview flowed smoother and made more sense, dividing it into different topics.

Unfortunately there was an issue with the audio recording, it was very quiet upon first listen and after increasing the volume there was quite a lot of background fuzz, because of this I had to experiment with a denoise filter. to do this I switched to the audio tab and opened the audio track mixer. See below:

I then selected a denoise filter on the necessary audio and adjusted the denoise percentage until the background fuzz had disappeared without the dialogue being too effected by the filter. See below:

                                      Before:                                            After:

Finally I added background music and adjusted the audio mixer so the music wouldn't overpower the speaking.

Part 1 Introduction

Camera setup

The first thing we (Sean and I) done was prep the room. As stated previously, we removed all obstructions (mattress, bottles, etc.) and made the studio set up in the background more presentable as we would be using it for the second interview as well as video clips for the introduction.

The first shots we got was the shots of him at the studio working on some tracks. The camera set-up used for these clips was the same as the camera set up used in the second interview. I set the camera up in the corner of the room at an angle, placing Sean in the far left of the frame (using the rule of three), as well as making the studio visible. I decided to use a medium shot as it would allow any body language to be seen throughout the recording as well as making the studio, and any editing, visible. 

See below:

I also set up the microphone (this is the only time I used a microphone during the recording of the montage clips) and adjusted it to be suitable to record the music audio as it was a small room but also had a high celling, therefore I had to counteract an echo to make the recorded audio sound better. On top of this, because the camera had to record quite close to the speakers, I had to significantly turn down the microphone sensitivity. 

I first switched the sound recording settings from auto to manual. See below:

                                  Before:                                        After:

I then adjusted the Rec. level to make the sound a better quality. See below:

                                   Before:                                     After:

We then moved to another location (a bench at a near by park) I set up the camera a fair distance from the bench and adjusted the zoom to fit the frame how I wanted. I had Sean in the centre of the frame at a medium shot with the bench going off to the left, this allowed me to get his full body language within the frame. See below:

We then moved to another location (a slightly forested area of the park). I set up the shot so Sean would be in the centre of the frame with a row of  trees either side. This acted as a sort of tunnel or walkway where different shots were recorded. See below:

We then moved to 1 more final location (a concreate football pitch located within the park). At the pitch there were short multi-coloured brick walls. I thought it would be a good thing to use as a background for a few shots. Sean sat against one of these walls and I adjusted the camera so he was slightly towards the left of the frame (following the rule of three) and so the camera slightly look down on him. I finally zoomed the camera to a full shot so the wall was the only thing in the background. See below:

Editing

First of all I put the footage from the video shoots into PremierPro. 

Upon putting the first clip I wanted to use into the timeline I realised a few seconds into the clip the audio spikes and plays into the red area of the audio bar. See below:

To fix this I cut the clip at the place that the audio spikes. See below:

I then double clicked on the spiked audio to select it and went into the audio mixer to adjust it until the volume until it was below the red area. See below:

                                                 Before:                                  After:

I then began adding the clips that I wanted to use into the timeline, because this is edit is a compilation of clips I only needed small segments from each clip so I separated the parts that I needed from each clip and deleted the parts I didn't need. See bellow:

    Before:

                                 After:

After this I removed the audio from the clips as music was going to be played over the video clips so it wasn't needed. See below:

I synced up the music audio with the audio from the video so the audio from the production would cut into a cleaner, more professional recording of the song which would then be used for the rest of the montage. See below:

I then trimmed back the music audio so it wouldn't overlap the audio from the video as I wanted to create a transition from the "live" music recording into the pre-recorded audio. See below:

The final thing that I done was fade out the music at the end of the video as it is going to then fade into the interview. First of all I went into effects > audio transitions > exponential fade. See below:

I dragged the effect onto the end of the audio clip and adjusted it to fade for the duration of the last video clip. See below:

Feedback

The feedback I recieved, rsponded to and made improvements on are seen below in the feedback secion of (Toxeine Complete Park)

Toxeine Complete Part

I opened the files for both 'interview 1' and 'part introduction' in PremierPro. I then created a new sequence and copied both of the files into the new timeline. See below:

I then color coded the 2 different videos so it was easy to differentiate between the 2.

- Interview 1 (Blue)

- Part Introduction (Green)

 See below:

Feedback

Response to feedback

Question 1: 75% of people think this is an effective introduction for the interview.

Question 2: There were compliments on the different shots and how they were montaged, I might replicate this in later projects or possibly later in this project. There were also comments of the music choice so I think the decision I made for the intro music was the right one. Another comment was that they liked how the music transitioned from the production stage of the music into the finished music with the montage clips over it, I was hoping that would be an effective technique to use in the introduction and this comment proves that it was. Finally, the last comment said that it gives an introduction to the interviewee without using any words which is exactly what I was going for.

Question 3: The first suggestion was that I should add a title to give a little more context, I think this is a good idea and I will defiantly do so. There was another comment about the transition from the live music into the recorded music wasn't smooth, this will defiantly be something I will fix. The last comment was that my shadow was in frame at a 0:27, there is nothing I can do about this without removing the clip completely so I will have to leave this unchanged.

Question 4: 50% of people think that improvements could be made.

Question 5: Both suggestions mentioned the music transition at the beginning of the introduction. As I mentioned earlier this will defiantly be something that I fix.

Improvements made

In response to my feedback I adjusted the audio levels of the 3 audio clips in the part introduction to make the audio transition smooth between the audio spike and the transition from live recorded audio into pre recorded audio, as well as this, I also made the audio levels more suitable with the audio levels of interview 1 making the overall thing more coherent. See below:

I added a title to the beginning of the introduction which faded in then faded out after a short period of time by using the 'film dissolve' effect. See below:

Toxeine Full Part

The first thing I done was create a new premier pro document, open my 3 previous projects (Toxeine Interview 1, Part 1 Introduction, Toxeine Interview 2) and copy and paste those files into a new timeline on the new document. See Below:

I then colour coded each different project.

- Part 1 Introduction (blue)

- Toxeine Interview 1 (green)

- Toxeine Interview 2 (purple)

See below:

The next thing I done was open a new timeline where I added videos which needed to be included in the complete part. These were short videos of myself giving context to the part of the documentary that will be coming up. I cut out any unneeded footage as well as removing stutters and pauses to make the speaking sound smoother and easier to understand. See below:

I then added these short sections into the main timeline where necessary (before 'Part 1 Introduction' and before 'Interview 2'). I also colour coded this, making it brown. See below:

I then added sections into both interviews where short clips from different songs played. Each of these songs played whenever they were mentioned within the interviews. I used the 'dissolve' video transition to make the cover art of each song fade into the video as the interview faded out. I also used the 'exponential fade' and 'constant gain' audio transitions on the audio to create the same fade in, fade out effect I used with the video. See below:

I added titles for each song that was played using the 'dissolve' video transition to cause the text to fade  in and fade out at the beginning of each new track. This was displayed in the top right corner of the frame whenever a new song or instrumental began. See below:

When I was editing through the videos I also noticed that the title and the questions were not centred properly. In order to fix this I selected each title/question individually, opened the 'graphics' tab and used the 'centre vertical' and 'centre horizontal' options to centre the text correctly. See below:

I added a small stroke to each of the titles to ensure they were easy to read as well as making the neater. I done this by selecting each title individually, opening the 'graphics' tab and using the 'stroke' feature to add a black stroke and increase the thickness of it. See below:

Feedback

Response to feedback

Question 1: 100% of people liked 'Documentary Part 1'.

Question 2: One response said that they enjoyed learning about local artists which is good positive feedback as it proves the interest of the topic that I chose for my documentary. There were also a lot of comments about how the documentary so far was both recorded and edited together, this gives me confidence that the way I have put together the documentary so far is effective and keeps the viewer engaged. Finally, there was mention that they liked how I edited in music in relation to the songs that were talked about in the interviews which shows that it was a good idea to incorporate and keeps the viewer engaged.

Question 3: One comment says that it is not the viewers usual type of music but it is presented in a way which is not too overpowering, I will take this as a positive response as it shows the effectiveness of the documentary by maintaining interest of a viewer despite them not having interest in the music itself. There were a few comments about the audio mixing where either parts of the audio was overpowering or the audio volume differed between clips, I will fix this by carefully going through the audio and adjusting the different audio to make sure they are all on the same level. There was also mention that the part of the documentary was a little too long, I have more of the documentary to complete which, when accompanied with this part, might resolve the issue, if this does not work then I will go back and shorten parts of this part of the documentary. Finally, there was mention that the background music during the interview sections was repetitive and can be annoying, I chose this background music as it was a melody from an instrumental from one of Sean's songs making it relevant to the artist as he is speaking over it, I don't think the repetitiveness is too much of a big deal so I will leave it till later in the project and decide whether it is worth fixing or whether it is unnecessary.

Question 4: 62.5% of people thought it could be improved.

Question 5: One improvement suggestion was to balance the audio levels, as mentioned earlier I am going to fix this by carefully going through the audio and adjusting the different audio to make sure they are all on the same level. Another suggestion was to possibly shorten the video, as mentioned earlier I have more of the documentary to complete which, when accompanied with this part, might resolve the issue, and if not then I will go back and shorten parts of this part of the documentary. Finally there was a suggestion to zoom in the video clips in order to remove the black border on the sides of the video, I think this should be a fairly simple fix so it will be something that I will do.

Improvements made

The first thing I done in response to my feedback was balance the audio levels. I done this by carefully going through the audio and adjusting the different audio to make sure they are all on the same level. I made sure that on the audio level at the right side of the timeline all of the audio clips topped out at around 12dB. This made sure that the video in general wont be too loud as well as making sure all of the audio was on the same level and don't overpower any other parts of the audio. See below: