Session 3- adiobook extract

The harsh grey clouds above fled from the north blocking out the blazing sun, clouds that reflected in the eyes of a wanderer, a rogue. He crouched low on the edge of a building, looking out over the city. His blood boiled as he saw the flickering lights of a grand palace in the distance, he watched as guards walked from tower to tower oblivious of everything around them. He clenched his teeth as he thought about  the oncoming storm. He waited there for the first rumble of thunder, he pulled his black hood low over his face as it shook the eternal heavens.

A broken man of only twenty he had more blood on his hands than many a man twice his age but that was just it… as he drew a deep breath he pondered the idea and motives for his actions. A girl. Not a lover, something more. His only family. A child of only thirteen. Why should she suffer while he was free to wander the open roads? He heard the chatter of night-watchmen bellow.

Then the tide came in… A great tide of the Ogre Kingdoms. Ten thousand mad things storming iron gates with iron cannons stuffed with axes, cutlery, sticks and chain mail among other more sinister things. Ten feet tall with blood soaked tanned flesh. His keen eyes picked up details that many would have missed. A number of their ranks ran screaming through poorly built wooden buildings, their flesh alight and catching on warm, dry interior supports. All the charge took was the promise of food and a few dead beasts.

The man smirked as he deployed a pair of the most uncanny tools. Blades hidden within his leather vambraces. The two men ran from their post unaware of the shadow that haunted them and a second later they were face down into the floor with blood leaking from the wounds in their throats. The man stood as an ogre bellower ran towards him. There was no way around the thing so he ran straight for it, retracting the two blades at his wrists and drawing a nimble short blade. He brought himself to a sprint, running along the wall and jumbing head first into the path of the ogre pulling its hair to drive its head forward as he vaulted over the thing as he plunged his blade through its skull with a sickening crunch.

Sesion 2- Sound effects

Sound effects are an essential part of any media production, audio or otherwise and often the wrong sound can totally destroy a critical moment and make it seem unrealistic over or even under dramatized.

In an era where technology can do almost everything we'd need them to do in the production of a media product but sometimes if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. This is the job of the foley artist and the sound effects team. Many of the sounds I plan on using are to express the violence of war, to do this many artist use organic foods, fruit, vegetables and other objects as found in the video bellow.

This after some thought while it would be creative and new for such a small project I realized it would be difficult to do in such a short space of time and as such will record sound that is more immediate to me e.g. crunching stone..

session 1- ideas...

After some thought into what I could do for this final product I came to the idea of an audio book extract. This would be a project that would be a bit of a challenge and as such I will stick to a genre that I enjoy and one that will be interesting to create sound for that being fantasy.

The next session will involve finalizing a peace to record and creating sound effects... I may need some fruit for this.

Sound for a media product

Film- The film opens with the mostly ambiance, the classic anime sound effect of cicadas in the bushes and trees. combined with the images of a blood red sea and a number of military weapons and destroyed buildings as a way of highlighting the mass devastation against the peace and quiet. The dubbing is well produced as is the animation. The score is well timed and dramatic.

TV- 

Music- In Between/ Beartooth- The song opens in the style of a more punk/hardcore song with horse, strained vocals and a rough sounding riff. The harsh (screamed) vocals, throughout the song allow the importance of the message to get across with more force and urgency the message here being that of child abuse and how people will try to push out the outsiders and non conformers (goths, emos etc). The clean vocals have been put in place for the more uplifting moments to get viewers to understand the meaning in a more understood way. 

Sound elements in media

Of course many companies have databases of about ten samples minimum for a single sound but there are others mostly independent companies that have to create their own sound effects using everyday objects many of these are found on: http://www.epicsound.com/sfx/

Rain on gravel is a very common sound that can be found in almost every film just about every genre. This sound effect can be created simply by recording the sound of a plastic bag being crumpled up.

Fire crackling is a similarly popular sound in and can be made in a number of ways from slowly compressing crisp packets in your hands to snapping matches and cocktail sticks as well as popping air bubbles in plastic wrapping.

Doors Creaking can be made again in a number of ways using almost anything with a hinge though metal hinges sound best.

Live at the chapel production rolls

There are a number of roles and responsibilities involved in the Live at the Chapel sessions many of which are absolutely crucial to the production. Lighting engineer- the job here is the management of the various lights who sit's in the performance area dimming and raising the lights with the use of the lighting desk.

Floor manager- conveys orders and instructions from the studio and introduces each take with the clapper board.

Director- The director remains withing the studio directing the cameras using a microphone.

The grip- this job while is not crucial to the production

Visual engineer- This is a job that I am often given. this job involves taking the visual feeds from the three cameras in the performance area and selecting the best shot for the production. this is often done alongside someone else using the tricaster. There are a number of skills required for this job are a keen eye for detail as you have to constantly be watching for issues in the camera work in order to create a seamless product. Another is patients as with every job but most similarly to the job of the sound engineer, communication between the two roles is a must as if the two rolls are not communicating the production may not work or at least seem half hearted.

Sound engineer- the job involves mixing and balancing the sound from each instrument and from the vocals (if any, as there is often none) with the use of the sound desk/ mixing desk. Again a key skill is being able to tell when the production is at a adequate level as well as being able to mix each peace of audio so that one instrument does nod drown out the other or visa versa.

Radio show plan

Radio show

Program name- The run down

Genre- talk and radio

Jingles- mix of metal and dubstep

The plan is for a program which takes influence of the music of Daytime Kerrang with a mix of media news including new releases, the latest films, anime, games and music. . The feature will run for about an hour. Using the survey I have determined that  my primary target audience prefers rock and pop to most other genres which is why when creating the plan I considered the music that I would like to play alongside music that the majority of listeners would like to hear. I added a feature to inform people of the latest media releases including films and games to add a bit of a change in the last few minutes of the program.          

Script-

·          Open with main jingle followed by two songs. One day like this-elbow and Bastille-Laura Palmer 0 – 6 minutes

·         Introduce self and what the program is about- Bringing you the best of what I know and love, if you’ve got a tune you’ve not heard in ages then tell me, or else all your gonna get is metal, dubstep and the odd bit of obscure indi and j-pop You have been warned.

·         Play jingle and follow with a song. Martin Garrix and Jay Hardway-Wizard  7- 15 minutes

·         Introduce the Underground feature- two bands that are up and coming but not popular enough.  Astroid boys- badss, I’m not leaving-I devide taken from their last one standing album available on April 14^th    15-25 minutes

·         Two more songs and recap the show so far. The document speaks for itself- ADTR , CNCC – in friends we trust   25-31 minutes

·         General chat, play a song and follow with some news. Tesseract- Resist 32-37 minutes

·         It’s a cover up. Four Covers. PTV- Just the way you are, WCAR- Glad you came, OLN- radioactive(imagine dragons), Asking Alexandria- Right now(akon)  38-50 minutes

·         Finish with the rundown for 10 minutes

Track list-

·         One day like this -elbow

·         Bastille-Laura Palmer

·         Martin Garrix and Jay Hardway-Wizard

·         Astroid boys- badss

·         I’m not leaving-I devide

·         The document speaks for itself- ADTR

·         CNCC – in friends we trust 

·         Tesseract- Resist

·         PTV- Just the way you are

·         WCAR- Glad you came

 OLN- radioactive

·         Asking Alexandria- Right now

  

Live at the Chapel 24/03

Today in the session we were working with The Jackhammer Blues band as the Chapel has done several times in the past. The band was comprised of three members, two guitarists and a third member who switched his role for each of the three songs as did we. I was given the clapper board and had to open each video, my job was reasonably simple as I had to clap the board and get out of the shot. Production was once again fairly straight forward aided in part by the fact that the band had been to the Chapel several times before and so knew the process.

Live at the Chapel 17/03

Today's session saw us recording a group of five primary school aged children, which was for me and a number of other students involved in the Chapel sessions a new experience. While not the most warming to children I dreaded the session from the minute I heard about the plan, even more so when I realized that we were understaffed meaning that many usual roles would have to be rearranged and changed to accommodate the issue. My role in particular was on the lighting desk, dimming the lights at the end of each performance. This was simple enough, the only complication was that I had a headache which I just grinned and ignored for the better of the production. In terms of production issues there were none that I noticed other than a few mistakes in the performance which were redone. They performed three modern pop songs, all of which have been in the charts in the last few months. The session was more about them enjoying themselves and creating a memory than creating a professional product which is why there were a few mistakes that were brushed over plus the girls upbeat attitudes seemed to rub off on everyone else and the session itself.

Crunchyroll

   Crunchyroll is an American website and international online community focused on streaming East Asian media including anime, manga, drama, music, electronic entertainment, and auto racing content. Founded in 2006 by a group of UC Berkeley graduates, Crunchyroll's distribution channel and partnership program delivers content to over five million online community members worldwide. Crunchyroll is funded by The Chernin Group and TV Tokyo.

   The service started in 2006 as a for profit upload and streaming service. Some of the content hosted on Crunchyroll, such as fan-subbed versions of East Asian shows or bootlegs of official US releases of anime titles, was illegally hosted without permission from any rightsholders or the fansub team responsible. However, Crunchyroll eventually removed copyrighted content when requested by the rightsholder.

   In 2008, Crunchyroll secured a capital investment of $4.05 million from the venture capital firm Venrock.  The investment drew criticism from anime distributors and licensors Bandai Entertainment and Funimation as the site continued to allow users to upload illegal copies of licensed titles.

However, Crunchyroll eventually began securing legal distribution agreements with companies, including Gonzo, for an increasing number of titles. On January 8, 2009, after announcing a deal with TV Tokyo to host episodes of Naruto Shippuden, Crunchyroll stated that it was committed to removing all copyright infringing material from its site and to hosting only content to which it had legitimate distribution rights.

   In 2010, Crunchyroll announced its acquisition of the North American DVD rights to 5 Centimeters Per Second. This was the first DVD release licensed by Crunchyroll.

As of summer 2011, Crunchyroll offers over 200 anime shows and more than 200 Asian dramas to users, although not all programming is available worldwide due to licensing restrictions.

On December 2, 2013, The Chernin Group announced that they have acquired a controlling interest in Crunchyroll. A person with knowledge of the transaction said the price for the acquisition was close to $100 million. The Chernin Group said that Crunchyroll management and existing investor TV Tokyo will maintain a "significant" stake in the company.
   Crunchyroll has a number of competitors including Netflix though Netflix has only a small number of comparisons to Crunchyroll in it's comparatively small anime collection. As such it's more major competitors are those delivering similar products at a similar level those being Funimation and Animax both of which have a community attached to them as well as a streaming service.
   The service users are varied in gender and age with a mix of interests (something that has been reflected in the service provided) but most are working class with an average amount of spending power allowing them to spend 10-50 pounds on their own entertainment.

   Crunchyroll regularly monitors it’s streaming service and forums to see what it’s users are viewing, reading and talking about to see what series are gaging interest, from there Crunchyroll contacts  companies involved in the production of the product to arrange a contract deal for the streaming and of that product. Crunchyroll also communicates with fans and users through the use of social media, this method has proven to be extremely successful after a mass of viewers hoped for a sequal to one of the most popular anime of 2012 “Sword Art Online.” Crunchyroll saw the mass of interest the series created and fed back to the series creators who in early autumn 2013 released the information that the next series would be released in the summer of 2014.

   Crunchyroll as a streaming service can be compared to a number of similar services that have arisen over the last few years such as LoveFilm and Netflix, these two being it’s main competition though it can most easily be compared to the WWE Network as while there are other anime streaming services out there both of the services have a similarly massive library of content.

Lionsgate

Lionsgate Entertainment was formed in 1997 by Frank Guista. Lionsgate is known for having a large and varied library of distributed and produced films and television programs from saw and the Hunger Games franchises to Mad Men and Hells Kitchen though most people associate the company with macabre and often controversial productions.

As mentioned above Lionsgate entertainment has an expansive selection of films that it distributes and produces, probably most notably: the Saw franchise is centred around John Kramer, a bitter old man with terminal cancer who after the loss of hisunborn son to fleeing drug addict and eventual divorce of his wife turns to testing the fabric of the human body and mind with brutal death machines designed to make the prisoner choose between life or death. The series ran for seven film, two tie in videogames and a single one off comic.

On the other end of the spectrum is LOL, a coming of age high school comedy drama is a film following Lola Williams and her friends as they deal with high school life and each other in a world that is constantly connected by the social media. This one off film, for the most part got a negative reception but does show the range of films Lionsgate Entertainment is involved with.

Somewhere in between the two extremes are films like The Hunger Games and its upcoming sequel: Catching Fire. Both are adaptations in a series of Teen books written by Susan Collins following a teenage girl thrown into a televised life and death game in a dystopian future United States. The film does well for it’s fairly family friendly 12 certificate in keeping with fans of the books (which are considerably violent) happy.

Competitors-  It’s key competitors are 20^th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount and Sony Pictures.

Audience- Lionsgate figure out their target audiences (mixed genders ages ranging from 12- 40) via Cinema and DVD sales as well as chatter on social networks and Youtube video views along with word of mouth and press reviews and articles.

Transcend Music

Transcend music was formed in 2007 by Rob Ferguson focusing on rock and metal among other sub genres. The lesser known label is still coming up in the music industry but still holds some fairly well-known names like Heart of a Coward and Oh Sleeper.

By as early as 2008 the label had expanded to management and merchandise.

The label releases music for and manages a list of 20 band including:

Yashin- A Glasgow based metalcore band fronted by Florida born Harry Radford. The band have two full length albums under their belt and are the most recent band to be signed to transcend Music.

Yashin

Heart of a coward- Managed by Transcend but released by Century Media. Their 2013 album Severance was a huge success.

Due to their underground fan base compared to a label like Roadrunner or even Sony Music the label relies heavily on the word of fans. The website uses a cookie system and is integrated with the individual websites of its bands. It also pays close attention to fans who interact with them and their artists through social media.