Sound Design - Collaborating with an Audio Production student

Last Tuesday a selection of third year students from the Audio Production course came to the Think Tank so we could pitch our film ideas and meet them, possibly forming a line of communication with a student (or students) who were interested in producing the soundtrack for our films. Unfortunately I couldn't grab a student who was interested in working on my film so I emailed the Audio Production course leader asking to send out an announcement on Blackboard basically saying there is a third year student looking for a sound designer to produce the soundtrack for their film.

I got a response Sunday night from a second year student, Alex Capper, who I have been communicating with over the past couple of days. I have been telling her about my film idea as well as what kind of sound design I will need for my film. We have also sent each other links to our work online so we have both now got an idea of what style of work we both produce. Alex has shown great interest in working on my film and I've found her work to be of a very good standard.

As well as talking about ourselves and our work, we have been discussing the strengths and weaknesses of our skill sets. Alex has mentioned she hasn't tried doing exaggerated cartoony effects before but feels fine with producing a 50's rock 'n' roll backing track and the foley sounds that can be recorded easily. I said that if she is struggling with the workload, then she is more than welcome to bring another AP student on board to help her with the task.

Character Design - The Waitress Inspiration

Betty is full of life so her design has to reflect this across to the audience. Using varied sized curves and smooth edges on her hair and hands will emphasise both her agility and friendly nature.

Character Design - The Businessman Inspiration

William is both agile in his movements and expressive and passionate in what he wants in life. He has a big ego so this will be reflected in his small, bulky body and expressive hand and nose shapes.

Matte Painting Concepts

Last night I started sketching the backdrop for my establishing shot and did a basic floor plan for the scene I will be modelling in Maya.

Gaining Assistance for Production

Yesterday morning I spoke to Hillary about my work. When I mentioned how I was thinking of producing my film, she said it's a lot of work for just one person. For this reason, Ella Forrester is now assisting me. In the afternoon, I told her my story and showed her my developed storyboard. Ella liked my story and thinks it will work well on screen. I then spoke to her about the tasks and software I will be using and she told me she isn't comfortable with CG and compositing in After Effects (which are two major parts of my film production) but when I mentioned how I was going to create my characters in Photoshop / Illustrator and animate them in After Effects, she seemed interested in the idea. I have decided to do an After Effects animation test early next week so I will show her it's done in the software.

Staging and Layout

Now that I'm nearing the end of storyboarding my film, I've started to think more about the actual scene I am going to model in Maya. To cut down on the amount of modelling (and therefore texturing and lighting), I am going to do matte paintings of New York and use them as backdrops for my scene. Although my film is set inside the diner, there are windows, and because New York is busy and bright due to the high levels of light, I can't cheat by using low lighting to 'hide' what's in the surrounding area as it won't look like my film is set in New York.

Sound Design Planning

Backing track to set era and setting - 50's rock 'n' roll

Foley sounds, some realistic (recordings) and others more exaggerated for the slapstick actions e.g. waitress zipping across the diner floor from the kitchen to the man's table and back, man gets hit round the face with a frying pan and when the man glows with it raining money behind him.

References and inspiration

Storyboard - Development

Storyboard - First Draft

Today I finished the first draft of my storyboard.

My task for tomorrow morning is to finish my storyboard. I am going to draw more inbetween shots and annotate each shot too. In the afternoon I am going to gather all my files including all the panels and some sample sounds and begin my rough animatic. 

Character Profiles

The Waitresses' back story

Betty grew up on a farm with her father, Richard. Her mother died just after she gave birth to Betty. She never knew her mum and couldn't go to school as there were too much work to do on the farm. Her father sold their crops to passing people and eventually got a name going for themselves. She grew up with an eye for business and a mindset for hard work. When she turned 6, her father decided to move them to New York for a better life. Her dad set up a business selling food on the street but eventually got drafted into the army. Betty grew to love the big city life and made many friends at school. She grew up with her auntie and uncle in Queens. Sadly, her father died over seas and Betty became an orphan. Her auntie and uncle decided to adopt her and soon enough, her eye for business flourished and as remembrance to her father, she bought a diner in 1952 and named it after her father, Richie's Diner.

The Businessman's back story

Born in New York, William grew up in the big city and knows it very well. He was born into wealth and got everything he wanted. His parents paid for his education at college and just passed with a business degree. He's worked his way up to take over his father's business, Mayfield's Cars, and is now running it into the ground since he hardly concentrated in class and doesn't have many people skills. He doesn't have much money because of his failing business and pretty much only has his suit left. His family have disowned him and doesn't have a wife or girlfriend. He lives in a crumbling apartment in central New York City. He thinks women are a waste of space, doesn't respect them and think they're below him. He also likes to take advantage of people at every opportunity.

Story - The Final Edit

It’s New Year’s Eve in Manhattan, New York City and Linda is stuck at work. Her place of work is a diner, which is located a few blocks away from Times Square. The celebrations have started and all her friends are partying in the apartment building next door without her.

Luckily for Linda, the diner is empty and there are no customers in sight. She turns to look at the clock, which reads 10:30. It is closing time! Linda jumps with joy and dashes for the front door. She pulls the blind down, puts her coat on and goes to reach for the door handle. Suddenly the door bursts open from the outside and Linda is thrown across the diner and lands on the floor.

A tall handsome man in a long coat enters, looks at the waitress he has pushed to the floor by accident and smiles. He then shakes his head and begins to take his coat off. Linda is in shock and soon turns angry with the man. He has stopped her from partying with her friends! Her attitude soon changes after he finishes taking off his coat and notices how rich the man looks from his tailored suit, full head of hair and good looks. Linda decides to get one up on the man for making her late by trying to score a huge tip from him. She begins to imagine all the shoes, clothes, and wine and chocolate she can treat herself to with the tip …

Linda stands up, fixes her uniform and hair and rolls over to the man on her roller skates. The man is now sat at a booth in the corner of the diner. Linda pulls out her notepad and pen from her pinny. She wears a huge smile and begins to take the man’s order. He requests a hamburger with a Coke. Linda skates off to the kitchen and begins to prepare his meal. She looks at the clock and sees it is 10:40. She then looks out of the window and sees her friends in the apartment building next door dancing, laughing and drinking away. She feels really confident that she can finish the man’s order and leave for the party before midnight.

After serving the man his meal, she begins to write the check until he coughs and points to his plate, interrupting her. The waitress looks at the plate and sees he has finished his meal! This guy is very hungry! She smiles and continues to write the check. The man then pushes a menu on top of her notepad and points to a pie and coffee.

Linda is dumbstruck. Surely he can’t still be hungry after that huge meal? Instead of wondering the matter, she smiles and begins to roll over to the kitchen to begin preparing the man’s second round of food. As she prepares and the meal, Linda takes a quick look at the clock again. The time reads 10:50. She still feels confident that she can leave in time for the party.

Linda leaves the kitchen and skates over to give the man his food. As she places the plate down, the man shoves the menu in her hands again and points to a whole range of items. Linda freezes with horror. Why does he want all this food? Will the tip be worth the effort she’s made for this man? Linda forces a smile and begins to turn around.

Linda prepares and cooks all the man’s food and drink and skates back and forth to the man in between cooking each food item. This goes on for some time …

The time is now 11:30. Linda is standing next to the man at his table. Her uniform is ripped and covered in stains and her hair is a mess. The man is a little larger and more round than when he first came in. Linda is also panting and looks exhausted. She goes to reach for her notepad and is waiting for the man to order his next thing. Instead, he simply holds his wallet in the air. Linda is relieved, as she is about to get her tip and can finally go home.

The man smiles, reaches for his wallet in his pocket and pulls it out. He opens it and looks at the waitress. He pulls a cheeky smile and shows Linda the inside of his wallet. It is empty.

A moth flies out of the man’s wallet, flies upwards and is attracted to one of the neon signs above the window. It fries to a crisp and falls on the table in between the two characters.  Linda freezes and her eyes twitch. She looks at the man, retrieves a frying pan from behind her back and hits him over the head in one smooth move.

A little while later, we see a party is taking place at the diner. There are music, laughing and champagne corks popping. Linda’s friends have moved the party to the diner so they can celebrate with her. We hear a countdown and then the sound of party whistles, party poppers, and glasses clinking and cheering. We then see Linda come from behind a crowd. She is dressed up nicely with makeup and her hair is all done nicely.  She whistles to something or someone off screen. The camera pans to the kitchen door where we see a pair of roller skates and hairy legs come from behind the door. The camera zooms out to reveal it is the man in a pink and white uniform holding a tray with drinks and food on it. The party guests all laugh and point at the large man in a waitresses’ uniform.

Close with a pan up from diner exterior to New York City skyline and fireworks exploding in the background.

Floor Plan Final Design

I decided to evaluate my floor plan concept and change a few things around. I also drew a mini version of the diner where I included the surrounding buildings and other details to get an idea of scale.

Original floor plan

Character movements mapped out

Props annotated

The red zone is the 'no-go' area - no props must be present here 

New York City and Diner Pre-Visualisation Models

I modelled a quick layout of both the exterior set of the diner and the interior. Below is the exterior scene done in Maya. These aren't the final models that will be in my film.

Lens Flares - Adding to the Setting and Mood

The mood in my film is essentially around Betty's want to party for New year's Eve but this stranger has stopped her at the last moment. The party is the thing that Betty returns to several points in my film so I am going to have to make the party her goal. With the film being set on New year's Eve, the mood of the party and therefore the whole film should be positive and the glamor should emphasise everyones's mind set and actions. Betty, because she just wants to party like everyone else is and William, because he thinks the waitress will be too obsessed with her passion to party to care about him not being able to pay for his meal.

I decided to go round Lincoln at night to see how light is shown in a camera. Unfortunately I only had my phone on me but the exercise was enough for me to see how light can be caught on camera to create a lens flare.