Indy Study: Rewrite Dialog!

So I had a wonderful recording session with my voice actors only to find out I don’t like the flow of my story, it just wasn’t quiet right. So it needs some minor tweeks.Were really taking just a few minor changes that would be simple enough to just rerecord the line if it weren’t I also don’t care for the style we recorded it in.  So well have to rerecord it all in a slightly different voice styling.  Hopefully we will get this taken care of quickly so I can move ahead. Luckily there is still a lot of other things I can be working on in the meantime so production will continue.

Indy Study: It’s a wash!

I just tossed the whole set in here, but some recordings are clearly better then others.  However this is all from the same day, same stream, just different spots of it, different angles and distances.  Just thought it would be nice to show how many different recordings you can get from one source and why it is a good idea to get several recrdings and not just one or two.

Also out of everything I recorded Subday, I’d say only some of the water turned out usable, most of the other things I recorded just had too much wind interference.  I was using a wind screen on my mic, but it just couldn’t compete to the wind thats been kicking up here lately.

Indy Study: Nature Rarely Cooperates!

 

Since my story takes place outside and in the woods it is a given that I need woodland sounds.  I had wanted to go out into the woods where there would be no people to interup or sounds of vehicles bussing by in the back ground, or even the dreaded water on electric line buzz! However, with all the flooding and high winds and a not always relieable car and kids in toe, Mt. Pisca was a better option this weekend.  Now any time your out recording sounds you want to record  as much as you can so that you can pick the best sounds for whatever your project is. This is especially true when in a area with wind, people, dogs, and other uncomtrolable noises you may not want . People will not always be considerate of what your doing, just as poeple will walk in front of you when your taking a picture they will be roudy and loud even though they see you recording. Even people who think they are being polite       more then likely wont be aware of how much sound carries and what a mic will pick up when they think their out of range. So don’t get mad, just be prepared to work around them.

I went out today knowing I might not be able to get any really clear sounds and was, and still am, prepared to go out again to try again until i have enough usable audio waves. I recorded 73 audio clips todays ranginging between 30 sec to 4 min.  Now I already know there are several I’ll have to discard completely, and others I may just chop up and keep for other projects.  The majority of these sounds will probably go straight into my archives in their raw form for later use. It will probably be closer to 20 sound clips after I am done sorting through them. How many of these sounds will actually make it into the completed project is yet to be determined.

I recorded the stream in several different locations, distances and sides. I sat in th woods a ways up where there was no one else around and did a 4 min recording of just the woods! I decided to do 4 mins because, unlike a room, nature isn’t quiet and i didn’t want the same leaf repeating its fall too many times when I loop it under my other sounds.  I recorded running through grass, leaves, water and gravel as well as along deer tracks, which let me know just how out of shape I am..wow! If I needed the sound of a middle aged woman breathing hard this would have been the time to get it, but atlass, I do not. I brushed up against tress, and ferns, and got attacked by several pissed off black berry bushes in my attempts to create the sounds that may be involved when one runs through dense woodland. After about two hours I figured it was time to get the kids out of the cold and called it good for the day. However I will be out again to collect more sounds of nature I am sure. I have plenty however to keep me busy for a few days editing.

In the process of todays recording I not only had to face obnoxiously loud wind, cruel thorns,   over exhurstion, and annoying people, but I lost my hat!  My daughter insisted we go find it and luckily it was too far behind or I would have left it for the scavengers. This is one reason I did not wear my good hat, it was just a stand in, stunt hat if you will.

Indy Study: Audio Story Script – Rough

This Script may change as project evolves. Some narration will go away and an opening possible created.

Any changes to script can be viewed here.  Audio Story Script 

Woodland sounds in the back groundEimine: “Shooo….you’ll scare the game.”  He says to Boran in hushed tone.Boran: “Deer” Hushed but excitedEimine: “Don’t you dear me…..”  Sound of Boran smacking Eimine, slight moment of brushBoran: “No, Deer.” Exasperated but hushedEimine: “huh.”Boran: “Over there, and he’s all mine.” Sound of slight clothing rustle and the sound of a bow being pulled back possible. “Aim true my friend.” Whispers to his bow and arrow.

Eimine: “You know it is kinda weird that you talk to your bow you know.”

Boran: “Now isn’t the time.” Muffled due to bow being raised and hand knotted to face.

Eimine: “Oh yeah.”

Sound of bow being released, small soft twang, and arrow in flight, stick slashing through air maybe. Flapping sound of wings, Claws grasping flesh, brush movement, thud of arrow, roar of dragon, vigorous wing beats and louder brush noise..

Stunned moment of silence.

Boran: “Was that a..” shocked tone

Eimine: “And you hit it….” still slightly dunned

Boran: “and it stole our dinner!” Realization sinking in

Eimine: “Forget dinner! You just hit a dragon!” Sounding excited

Boran: :So that isn’t going to feed us is it.” Disappointed

Eimine: “Come on you lug, we can buy dinner!” Begins to move away.

Boran: “Huh.”

Eimine: “Dragons mean treasure you dope!” More distant.

Boran: “I think you got dropped as a child.” mumbles to himself. But begins to follow.

Sounds of feet running through the woods, across fallen leaves and twigs snapping, brush being not so quietly pushed aside. Please breath as if running a bit here, maybe grunt as is jumped over someone, and some other sounds, Thanks.

Boran: “Eimine your chasing after a Dragon!” Yelling, tone should reflect the fact he is running.

Eimine: “Well be rich Boran! Rich!”

Boran:”Or dead!”

Eimine:” Hurry up! Were loosing him.”

Boran: “And how do I explain to your family you got eaten by a dragon?” muttered to himself as he is running.

Eimine: “Come on Boran!” Heavy breathing

Pause in Conversation as they run….distant dragon sounds above them, of a laboring/injured dragon, wings flapping, dragon grunting.  Men splashing through a small stream. Sounds of their laboring breath and continues disturbances around them of brush and twinges being brushed aside as they are running.

Eimine “About time you caught up.” Laughing

Boran: “Shooosh…don’t be so loud! I’m not trying to get eaten.” More hushed tones and the sound of their movement slowing down.

Boran: “Hey, slow down there is a clearing ahead.”

Eimine “A rocky clearing. How are we supposed to be quiet crossing that.” Whispers.

Narration: Before them lay the the wall of Esmere, which wasn’t a wall as you and I may think of one, but a wall of stone that was cut by nature and held the lair of the Dragons. Before it lay fallen rock from the wall itself, and above circled the wounded Dragon.

Boran: “Ok time to go home Eimine.”

Eimine: No. There are plenty of rocks bigger then we are to hide us as we cross and it isn’t very far.”

Boran:”No your right, it isn’t very far to go to die. I mean really, I always wanted to end up as dinner for a dragon. Oh and they can use our bones to pick their teeth when their done, so really it’s a win win right.” Sarcasm

Eimine: “Were not going to die, just follow me would yah.” Sound of them slowly moving over gravel

Boran: “Why do I do this? I really need to learn to just walk away.”

Eimine: “What and miss out on the treasure?”

Boran: “I was thinking to live to find another.”

Eimine: “You never leave me behind and you know it, after all I am your best friend.”

Boran: :Were  my best friend but I am afraid after this there won’t be anything left to be friends with.”

Eimine”You need to be more positive, now hush.”

Narrator: The Dragon landed on the gravel just outside it’s lair and then disappeared inside. The Men proceeded across the clearing and to the mouth of the cave in the wall of stone.  The sent of Dragon grew strong in the air. It wasn’t an unpleasant aroma like most would think, for Dragons had an almost herbal sent and were very clean creatures.

Boran: “Do you hear that?” Whispering

Eimine: “He’s hurt I know, you shot him remember. Be ready to do it again.”

Boran :” No, not that, and i don’t think this is wise. Walking into a Dragons lair like this.”

Eimine : “Then be quiet and stay behind me, well sneak in along the wall.”

Lots of dragons sounds, including the pained sound of injured Dragon, cooing sounds and breathing.Claws on rock, and leathery sound of Dragons moving. Sounds growing louder as they progress, and then quiet as they leave.

Narrator: It was dark and surprisingly warm in the cave. They crept very slowly along the wall of the cave stoping every few feet to allow their eyes to adjust. Boran heard sounds that seemed strangely familiar and his unease grew. he clung to his bow, arrow notched. This wasn’t right and h knew it. As they crept in the sounds of the Dragons grew and slowly so did the light. There were opening in the rock above that let in streams of light here and there. As they peaked around a corner Boran saw what the familiar sound was and stopped.
What Boran had seen was one wounded Bronze Dragon tending to his side where he had ripped the arrow out with his teeth and now licked it clean. An arrow loosed by his own bow when the male Dragon was doing the same thing he himself was, hunting for his family.  A Beautiful Rosey Dragon curled around a baby bronze and being as nurturing as any mother he had ever seen, if not more so. The deer he’d been after lay next to the mother and baby, small chunks being removed at a time to feed the little one. It struck a cord with him that he could not ignore.

Boran :”Eimine?”

Eimine: “What do you see?” Whispered

Boran: “come here very slowely.”

Eimine” Boran?”

Boran: heavy sigh. “There is no treasure, or at least not the kind of treasure you want, look.”

Eimine: “Oh wow, are those…”

Boran: “Babies Eimine, they have babies.”

Eimine: “But…”

Boran: “No treasure unless your a parent, and then I suppose it’s probably the greatest treasure of all.”

Eimine: “But..”

More dragon sounds

Boran “Lets go, theirs nothing here for us.”

They exit cave.

Eimine: “They had to smell us in there, and they did nothing. Nor was that exactly what I expected from a visious creature. So Caring like that.”Sigh, or grunt or something. Matter of fact , now i think of it, I have never heard of  Dragon attacking unless it was attacked first. There were no human remains in there, no signs of violence. Just  a family.”

Eimine: “I’ve never seen a Dragon around here at all  Boran.”

Boran. “I know, and no one else has either or they wouldn’t still be there. We have to protect them Eimine.”

Eimine:”Your crazy, you know that.”

Boran: “I know.”

Eimine: “Then I’ll help.”

Boran: ” I’s about time you went along with one of my crazy schemes.” laughing

Eimine: “Just don’t tell me anyone I almost got us killed o.k.” Laughingly

Narrator: It was then and there that the two men swore to do all they could to protect this family of Dragons from men such as themselves. In doing so they became the first Dragon Knights, and their children, and their childrens children would follow in their footstep, and one day there would be a greater bond between man and Dragon then any bond ever before.

Indy Study Voice Actor and Narration Drama

Hoping I still have my voice actors, been having some discussions and not sure if they are fully on board or not at this point.  I tried to make it clear from the very beginning that it would be an effort and I might have to record several times and on several different days possibly if changes needed made or we just weren’t getting what we needed and thy seemed ok with it before but now I think it is sinking in that this might be more then they were ex[ecting, so well see how that goes. I may need to look into some back ups in case.

I’ve been working on recording some of the narration and actually finding it much harder then I thought. As it is being read I am finding I don’t think it feels right, both in tone and wording, so may need another rewrite on the narration for the opening. I may just move on for the moment and come back to it as well.  Possible i’ll wake up at midnight and have a better idea for the opening narration. They say some of us are at our most creative in the middle of the night, and I have found I am one of those, unfortunantly I am also at my most lazy and writing things down is an effort.

I plan on going out into the woods this weekend if all works out to do some nature recording. I need to get the sound of running through the woods, see about splashing around in some water, snapping some twigs, brushing up against bushes, etc. I’ll want to spend a few hours just recording and trying to get as many sounds as I can. I can’t just record a sound once and call it good either. I’ll need several recordings of each soumd and then I can pick out the best ones later.

Indy Study: Update

I have been making a few changes on my story and feel it flows a bit better now but havent finalized the narration part of it. I have one of my voice actors who will be recording for me in the next week or so when he has the chance ( I’ll announce who he is later, he’s a good one!). I decided to get my actors to record before getting all my sounds created since a lot of sounds will be deteremined by their acting since there is no visual to go by. I gave the script to my actor and gave him liscence to do a little adlib if he’d like and then I may or maynot use it if he does. I have been recording some sounds that I know i’ll need regardless of the voice acting though, such as my dragon sounds.

I know I will want to work a lot of the back ground evironment for when my actors are running through the woods, jumping logs and splashing threw water to get a good mental picture developed for my adudience. I really want the audio story to put a very vivid image in the mind of the listener, and though as with reading a book everyone will imagine the characters differently, everyone should come out with close to the sam sence of environment. If in a cave it should be clear to everyone there in a cave, or if running through the forest, ar crossing a rocky terrain.

So far I have  few dragon sounds I did recently and a basic story outline, with room for changes. Never get to set on how things should be, it is best to leave room for changes, you need to be flexable when things dont work out exactly as you planned, or you come up with better ideas. Being to stuborn about how you want things can often cripple you and hamper your project immensly.

I am working on creating a list of sounds that will definantly be needed for the story, such as an arrow fying threw the air, and the thud of it hitting home, wings flapping, dragons roaring, fire, water splashing, twigs breaking, wind blowing, clothes rustling, hands rubbing against loose rock, and that sort of thing. Also taking notes where I know I want sounds to increase and decrease volume, sounds to exagerate and sounds that should be there but maybe aren’t as important.

Indy Study: Audio Story

Audio Story

9 Jan 12

Hi, I’m BAConnors, and I am working on an Audio project for my Final term of school. It is going to be an Audio Story, using a combination of narration, dialog, and environmental and action sounds.

The tittle of the story is still in debate, and I am presently working on revising my script some what. However as it stands I have two main characters, both male, who while in the midst of hunting come upon a dragon. They follow the dragon in hopes of finding its treasure since it is common knowledge all dragons horde treasure. Only they discover the dragons treasure is something greater than gold and jewels, and something worth protecting rather than stealing.

I know I will need to over exaggerate many sounds in order to deliver a complete mental picture for my audience to follow. The way in movies they often make sounds for things you might not other ways hear for extra drama and excitement, only ill be doing it more to convey the things you’d normally see and not hear.

I have never tried to do this before so the entire thing will be a learning experience for me and hopefully will end in a great story I’ll be proud of.

And so the adventure of story telling begins now!