Soundtrack for Alien

I had a lesson on making a soundtrack for a film trailer. I had three different film trailers to choose from, they were, Alien (1979), The Lion King and Mission Impossible. I chose to use the Alien film trailer because it seemed to be the one that I was more interested in making a soundtrack for. Some of the different musical genres I though of that suited the mood/style of the film well were science fiction, suspense, horror, fast-paced. I watched the trailer before I started making my soundtrack, and I found out that the beginning of the trailer starts off black and slowly the camera cranes over a planet with space type music, which is what I did to start off my soundtrack. After about 20-30 seconds the trailer quickly increases in speed and the music tempo increases also, which shows that this film is an action/horror with suspense and fear. I also changed the tempo of the music higher to fit in well with the suspense. I decided to use a few different atmospheric loops throughout my soundtrack because I wanted to set a scary atmosphere to fit in well with the genre of the film. I also used a drum beat over the top which continues most of the way through the track; I decided to do this to make the music more fast and up tempo to fit in with what was happening on the screen. Below is a video which I created using final cut, of my soundtrack playing over the film trailer for Alien (1979). 

Avdvert Track

In this lesson I had to get in a group of 3 and come up with an idea for an advert. Firstly I got into a group with Tom and Martin. We had to listen to a range of different adverts from the website, http://www.radiospecialists.com/. One if the adverts that I looked at was called Man to Man, which didn't really catch my attention because it seemed like and old peoples advert. I thought this because by the way the narrator was speaking, he sounded posh and old. Also the picture had old people in an old house, which showed that it was set in the past. After watching some adverts we started to come up with ideas. We came up with an idea that promotes a chicken restaurant called 'Kill That Chicken'. We decided that we would be talking about the 3 new chicken flavours that the restaurant is starting to sell, BBQ, Southern Fried and Jerk were the 3 flavours that we came up with. We had to create a short script to use in our advert. Tom and Martin were the 2 people who were being recorded reading the script and I was recording them using microphones which were all connected up to logic and ready to record.

After we recorded the speaking parts we created a track to go on top. We created 3 different tracks to go along with the flavour of chicken, for example, for the BBQ flavour we decided to create a Texas sounding track using different loops. We also added in some different sound effects of chickens and a frying pan sizzling. Once we had finished editing and finalising our track we showed the rest of our group, who said that it was good and funny. Using the bluetooth device on the mac computers we sent the finished track to our mobiles after we had bounced it into an MP3 file.

First Piece on Logic Pro

For my first piece on logic pro I decided to make a sort of R&B style of song. I decided to pick this style of music because I like the style of music and I like the beats that are involved in this style. As this was my first ever piece on logic I didn't really have a great understanding of how to use all the loops and the mixer, etc. So therefore this song is quite basic with only 5 different tracks and loops. Although its basic I think that it is good and simple but affective. I also added on a recording of a girl in my group called Makala playing the acoustic guitar to a Tracey Chapman song. I think this makes the song even better because I recorded her playing myself and I have now got a better understanding of how to use logic pro and how to record an instrument and then transfer it all into logic and create a track. below is a video which I have also created using Final Cut, which has a print screen of my track from logic with my track playing over the top. I bounced my track into an MP3 file, then took a print screen and imported them both into final and just put them both on the time line and then exported it using quick time conversion.

Storyboard & Shot list for Music video

Shot 1 - (Long Shot) To start off with I decided to film Martin down in the recoding studio miming along to the lyrics pretending to be the rapper.

Shot 2 - For the next section of lyrics I am going to cut in some images that I find on the Internet using final cut pro, which relate well to the lyrics of the song.

Shot 3 - (Close Up) Back down in the recording studio still miming along with the song and also playing around with the mixing table (Long Shot).

Shot 4 - As I did before with cutting in the images, for this section I am going to cut in clips from the film 'Juice' because the song is on the soundtrack for the film.

Shot 5 - Me & Martin had an idea to have him dancing in different places within the college, as well as just miming, so this next shot is of him in the recording starting to dance. (Long shot & Close Up).

Shot 6 - This next section is going to be a mix of different images that relate to the lyrics and different clips from Juice. 


Shot 7 - This shot I decided to get Martin dancing down in the lecture theatre through all the seats, and make his way to the bottom then back up again (Long shot & Medium Shot).


Shot 8 - This is the last section where I am going to cut in clips from Juice.


Shot 9 - To end my music video I got Martin to dance through the college entrance and then walk out of the shot ( Long shot).

Microphone Research

In the music lesson that I had this morning I had to do some research on microphones:

Different types of mics: Condenser or Dynamic

Polar Pattern

Uses (What Instruments)

Dynamic Microphones

Shure SM57 -  This Microphone is used for clean reproduction of amplified and acoustic instruments. The insturments that this microphone would be used for are snare drums and guitar amps. The polar pattern that the Shure SM57 uses is carioid.

                                   

Beyer Dynamic M201 -  This microphone can be used for a wide variety of applications, but drums have become the favourite instrument to record pick up pattern enables the recording engineer to easily isolate individual components of the kit and it's a particular favourite on the hi-hat. The Beyer Dynamic M201 mic uses a hypercardioid polar pattern. 

AKG D112- The AKG D112 mic has become known worldwide as the best kick drum microphone ever made. This is because heavy-footed drummers won’t faze it, because the D112 handles up to 160 dB SPL with no audible distortion. This microphone uses the cardioid polar pattern.

Electro Voice RE20 - This microphone uses a carioid polar pattern. The electro voice mic is mainly used for broadcasting like on a radio station.

 

Condenser Microphones

AKG C1000 - The AKG C1000 is a very popular microphone which is ideally suited to recording any kinds of instruments and live sound applications. This mic is also battery powered so it makes it a good mic to use mobile. The AKG C1000 has a PPC which allows the mic to be switched from cardioid to hypercardioid polar pattern. 

M Audio Solaris - The M Audio Solaris is a large diaphragm condenser mic which is designed for professional studio recording applications. This microphone uses two different polar patterns and they are cardioid and omnidirectional. 

 

Creative & Media - Video Skills - Create a Music Video

Outcome 1 - Respond creatively to a piece of music
Outcome 2 - Plan and create visuals to match your creative interpretation of your music track
Outcome 3 - Plan, record and edit your visuals to correspond to your music track

I have decided to pick the track Know The Ledge by Eric B & Rakim to do my music video with. Out of all the pre-recorded tracks I had to choose from the list, this is the only one that I like. I like it because my favourite genre of music is hip-hop and I would listen to these sort of songs in my own time. The track inspires me because I like the artists and the genre of the track.
The artists DJ Eric B and MC Rakim are American songwriters/rappers. The duo were known to be one of the influential and innovative groups of the genre.They first started making music during the hip-hops golden age in the mid 1980's to the early 1990's. The duo recorded their debut album Paid in Full in just one week at Power Play Studios in New York. This album was released July 7th 1987. The album came number 58 on the American Billboard 200 chart. from this album they produced 5 singles which all peaked highish in the US R&B chart. The two had a potent chemistry and each represented the height of innovation in their respective roles: Rakim was the master lyricist, an innovative talent who pushed the art of hip hop lyricism to new creative heights with his use of internal rhyme, sophisticated metaphors, and with a methodical-yet-effortless delivery; the duo's beats built on the hard-hitting sound of Run-D.M.C. by adding James Brown samples and Eric B's extensive scratching skills, setting the stage for hip hop's late-1980s/early-1990s infatuation with samples from the Godfather of Soul.
This track that I have chosen was orignally released on the soundtrack for the 1992 crime drama film Juice which stars rapper Tupac and Omar Epps. It was also a single which was released from the duo's album Sweat the Technique.

Intro

Hi i'm Sam. I am 17 nearly. I was originally from London but my parents chose to move down to Cornwall when I was 8. It was alright at first but now i'm older and done everything that there is to do, I find it boring living here. I was at Penwith College last year doing BTEC 1st Diploma in Art & Design to get enough grades so that I could do the Creative & Media course. Aswell as coming to college I have a part time job in Morrisons, so i'm always busy but I don't mind because it's money at the end of the day.