Progress on Two New Videos - 2022 January 16

I worked on two more videos based on my writing exercises this week; “The Sad Lady and the Hesitant Father-in-Law” and “The Fortitude of the Adventuresome Husband”.

I recorded those exercises earlier, but I want to get more experience in creating videos in NAWMAL before I embark on my big project.

·         https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/the-sad-lady-and-the-hesitant-father-in-law

·         https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/the-fortitude-of-the-adventuresome-husband

I experimented with a different approach to creating a video using NAWMAL. I didn’t keep a detailed record of how long it took me, but I certainly felt that the videos came together faster.

In the past, I built up each scene line by line. I would add a line of dialogue and then set all the actions, movements, and camera setups. I used that approach when I made “The Barrier”, but back then, I was writing the scenes as I created the video. That has some advantages in that I can change the lines as I see how they fit in the scene.

With the videos I’m doing now, I already have the dialogue written, so I lose that advantage. Most of the scenes are quite short; less than a minute each for “The Fortitude of the Adventuresome Husband”.

What I did was to enter all the dialogue text into one dialogue line, then use the split feature to break it into the individual lines. I had to go back and change who was saying each line. That made it easier to import the pre-recorded dialogue. So, very quickly I had a first cut of the scene.

I set up a single camera that showed the entire area of action. Then I added in the physical actions and facial expressions. I had to play around quite a bit with the timing of the actions so that they matched the dialogue. I had to run the animation each time I made a change to check if the timing worked.

My final step was to do the camera set ups. Which, again, involved some trial and error to get the timings right. I tried out a camera move in one scene. Back when I made “The Barrier”, I had tried that in one scene, but couldn’t get it to work. This time it worked quite well.

I’ve put the two videos to the side. After a few days I can look at them again with fresh eyes. That would allow me to see any opportunities for improvements.

The dialogue all comes from the recordings I did earlier for these writing exercises. My “female” voice just doesn’t sound right to me. I used an Audacity plug-in called Rovee to adjust my voice to sound female. It is distinct from my voice. It doesn’t sound all that female to me though.

I have talked to an actor about recording the female voices for me. She said she would like to do it, but I haven’t arranged a recording session with her yet. After I replace my voice with hers, I expect I’ll need to fiddle with the timings again.

After I have that taken care of, I still need to add sound effects and titles before I can call it a day.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Vocal Recording for “The Barrier”

One of the issues I have with recording a lot of voice work for “The Barrier” is the cost of renting a studio and recording engineer. I wonder if I can do that on my own.

I did my own voice over recording for “Who Shot the President”, “My Next Film”, and the original version of “My Most Difficult Case”. I was happy with what I got, but I know that I am not really a professional sound person. I don't have professional quality equipment either. Nevertheless, I think I might be able to put together something that will give me what I want.

I have a small room in the basement, that I think I could modify to use as a sound booth. A previous owner built it as a cold storage room, but I never used it as such. It has insulated walls to keep the heat out. While mainly intended as heat insulation, it also does work as sound insulation.

Now, I think it would need to be modified. Two of the walls are concrete. I would need to add some kind of sound absorbing material to reduce echos. My current thought is to get some old drapes and hang them along the walls. I use the room to store some of my film gear and files. I don't think I would need to remove them, especially if I do use drapes to control the sound.

As far as recording equipment goes, I have a laptop computer that is very quiet. I think that might work out OK. I have some old microphones, but none of them work very well. I will need to get a good microphone. I am not sure what kind of microphone I should get. I tend to go for a cheap one, but that may not be of adequate quality.

Up until now I've assumed that I would work with one person at a time. The more I think of it though, it may be better for the voice actors if I have several record at the same time. The interaction with other characters would bring out better performances. At the least, it would help to have some one read the other character's lines to help with timing. I've tried to do that myself in the past, and I was terrible at it. Besides not being an actor, I am not good at multitasking.

If I do work with more than one actor at a time, would I need to have a separate microphone for each. I might need to have a microphone mixer as well. The room could get very crowded if I have more than a couple of actors.

I need to investigate more before I commit myself to this route. Maybe I need to try some tests.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog