1. Project Overview

Introduction

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2. Final Product

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3. Monthly Diary

November –

Contacted Danielle about working together (appendix 1)

In the same text exchange Danielle sent a draft script (appendix 2)

December – January

I started working on the music after reading her initial draft script.

We waited to discuss filming because we needed to wait for the weather to get a bit warmer before filming.

February –

We discussed available dates to record Danielles vocal. (appendix 3)

We also discussed potential locations and dates to film the video (appendix 4)

Filmed in Sefton Park, Liverpool on February 9th (appendix 5)

Danielle made changes to the script to fit more to what we filmed (appendix 6)

Danielle recorded dialogue in Leeds February 16th

March –

Continue to work on the music and make changes where needed in response to the new script and video.

April –

Danielle edits together the video (appendix 7)

Danielles voice over was recorded all in one so I edited and cut up her voice over so that it lines up in the right spots with music and with the video.

I finish recording all the music needed and then mix and master.

I put the music over the video along with the voice over.

Video is complete April 27th.

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4. Evidence of Planning/Process

The overall process for this project was very easy and was not a massive undertaking for either Danielle or myself. At the beginning of the process, as I have mentioned before, I contacted Danielle as this is something we have been wanting to do together for a long time. In terms of collaboration there was a lot of individual freedom as we are both very in tune with what each others taste due to our long standing friendship.

Although I contacted Danielle in November, not much work on the project was done until January. Danielle already had her initial draft script written a few years before so once she had told me the vibe and aesthetic as she was going for I began workshopping initial ideas for what the music was going to sound like. I knew it was going to be ambient as I did not want it to distract from the main focus of the project, which was the spoken word aspect. But I knew it couldn’t just be drone noise for 10-12 minutes and it needed some melodic phrases and motifs that would stand out.

I did not set specific deadlines for certain things to be done however there was a couple of aspects that needed to be done at certain times due to outside elements such as weather and the seasons. We knew that we didn’t want to film in the middle of winter but we couldn’t leave it too late so we chose February half term as the best time to film. Ideally we would have wanted to film in spring or summer but we couldn’t wait that long for the sake of deadlines and how busy these months are for the both of us.

As for recording lines, we got that done in the February half term as well as it was the most time we had available. When it came to editing the video together, I knew Danielle had experience cutting together clips and editing with videos on her social media so it was not going to be a difficult task for her or time consuming so there was no rush on that to be done early. Plus not having the video edited early allowed for me to have a bit more creative freedom with the music as I could work without restrictions. It was much easier for Danielle to match up the editing with the music and dialogue than myself attempting to line up dialogue and music with the edited video. I simply messaged her when I had processed her voice over and she did the initial edit in one day. I had a couple suggestions as initially the video needed to be a bit longer so that all the music would fit.

As I mentioned before we are very in tune with what each of us wanted for this project so there was not a lot of communication about specifics in terms of creative input. Danielle trusted that the music I would make for this would fit the project and I trusted her that what she would write would suit both the visual and musical elements. Although Danielle knew that the overall project was 10-12 minutes I made the mistake of not communicating how long it ended up being so she had to go back and add a few more of the shots we filmed into the video to make it reach the time. However this was very quickly fixed within just a few minutes (evidence is contained in appendix 7).

Once the music and voice over was on the finished edit of the video it was ready for release however we have chose to delay the release as we want to wait for the weekend to post as that is the best time statistically for me to post as I have access to my TikTok analytics so I can see when my viewers are most active. We are gonna post it on Saturday 2nd May at 6pm as that is the time most viewers are active (appendix 8).

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5. Reference Material/Inspiration

Before pinpointing specific references when starting this project I had already seen many videos on social media of spoken word poetry set to the back drop of visuals and ambient music, however often these videos were just instrumentals of popular tracks, very often using Adrienne Lenker and other indie folk musicians. This project allowed for that similar format but in longer form and with original music, making it stand out from the rest.

When it came to references and inspiration for this project I did ask Danielle she had any specific examples of how she wanted this to turn out. She mentioned Lana Del Rey as a big inspiration, specifically the ‘Ride(Monologue)'(appendix 9). although she did not specifically want the music to sound like that she wanted to have the project as a whole capture that similar feeling of hopefulness yet melancholy at the same time.

For my own inspiration my ambient music is often inspired by Aphex Twin and Brian Eno. As I have previously mentioned I wanted there to be motifs and melodic phrases that came back so that the music wasn’t just the same drone for 10 minutes which Brian Eno does very well, especially in his track ‘Deep Blue Day’ (appendix 10). However I also had a section that was not like the rest of the track to bridge the gap in some of the dialogue to allow the viewer to be absorbed in the visuals but not bombarded with sound so it is very stripped back compared to the rest of the music.

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6. Use of Technology

For this project I worked entirely on my computer, for me personally this is the easiest way for me to be creative as the comfort of my room is a nice environment for me to work in.

To start with I wanted to use layers of ambient synths with a variety of tones to create a background drone(appendix 11). This helped create a hazy yet bright sound which complimented the themes of the project. I stripped back some of the layers for the very start so that the track could evolve and wasn’t as repetitive even if it was going to be mostly in the background of the voice over. The initial presets I used for the synths all had their own reverbs, which I took off and added them to a bus that ran them through the same reverb. This was so that the synths sounds didn’t all feel disjointed with different attack and release times(appendix 12).

Once I had found the sounds I wanted for all the background ambience that helped me inform what the rest of the track was going to sound like and what sounds I would use for other elements. I wanted to have some lead parts so I used the Oak Piano Dream Synth to have a soft piano tone that still felt dreamy again to be in service of the themes. I doubled tracked the piano to add more layers to the dreamy sound and then another layer of a higher pitched synth to have some homophonic textures. This allowed the track to continue evolving whilst not over powering the voice over(appendix 13).

To add new textures that were not just many variations of synths, I added guitar. I recorded guitar through an audio interface and used Logic presets as I am not too familiar with how to find specific guitar sounds however I did know which presets would suit the track well. For the rhythm section of the guitar I wanted an almost broken sound so I went with the preset Hollow Pad, as the phaser and delay mixed with the distortion pedal ‘Tube Burner’ helped provide moody atmospheric texture(appendix 14). I double tracked the guitar with a clean simple guitar preset ‘Cool Jazz Combo’. This added a clear tone to the guitar and helped add some definition to the playing. I wanted to have some clarity in the guitar tone and have it blend well with the distorted tone(appendix 15).

For the motifs that I mentioned wanting to include before I added short melody lines that come in every so often to add a familiarity to the music and so it feels as though there is more of a structure. The preset I used was ‘Ghost World’. The reverb with the enveloper and reverse delay added an airiness and other worlds feel to the music that coincided with the theme of heaven and another life(appendix 16). The final guitar layers I used to add some more definition to the chord changes and add some movement, I did not want the track to feel as though it wasn’t changing through out(appendix 17). Although the chord stay the same throughout, with the exception of the middle section, introducing new melody lines and textures keeps the music fresh whilst also not distracting from Danielles lines.

Towards the end of the track I used the synth plug in ES E to add another subtle layer of ambience, I also use the same synth to play the same notes as the Ghost World lead guitar to allow other textures to accentuate the melody line(appendix 18).

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7. Evaluation

Although this project has not been shown to the public yet, I believe that people will connect with it due to its subject matter and the themes of longing for a more human connection rather than a digital one, but these themes are expressed in a very personal way through Danielle rather than a generalised way through the view of many people. Personally I think this project went really well as it was very smoothly executed with very few hiccups.

In the future, if I were to do a project like this one again, I would do it in a shorter form because if these are going to continue to be posted on social media such as TikTok, attention is hard to grab and so shorter videos would hold peoples attention for a bigger percentage of the video.

In terms of communication, overall I am happy with how we planned this project. It felt very loose and easy to accomplish with very few hiccups, that going forward I know to avoid so that there is more efficiency in executing certain aspect.

I knew going in that working with Danielle was a good idea as we already had that personal relationship but I dint anticipate how easy it would be to work with her in a more professionals sense and that was certainly a very positive experience. It lead me to feeling much more confident about getting this done with just the two of us, and makes me look forward to working on future projects with her, if that is something she would be interested in.

I am really proud of the finished result as this was our first endeavour into a project like this, and although I know there can be certainly be improvements I am still happy with the final product.

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Final Track without voice over

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Appendices

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18