Entry 6 (14.05.2022)
Updated: May 22, 2022
On Tuesday, I spent my day finishing writing the scripts for our production, to do this I listened to the songs through and looked at our storyboards. I used the storyboards to base our movements throughout each scene and listened to the songs to find the timestamps of what actions should happen where. This was more time consuming than I anticipated as I was trying to add certain movements to certain lines. I encountered a few problems, with the denial scene I realised we didn’t have enough actions storyboarded to fit the entire song this was because when Bluebell and I were storyboarding we had overcompensated on how long each action would take. To fix this I had to add some extra movements in and shifted some around. Next time I think when storyboarding we should try and work closer with the songs to ensure we have enough actions for the space of time we have to fill.
On the flip side, for the acceptance scene we had too many actions so I had to shorten actions like, an embrace that was meant to be held for 10 seconds I had to shorten to 3-5 seconds. I also made some additions / changes from the original storyboard to the scripts, I made sure I ran through my ideas with the rest of the group beforehand so there wasn’t any issues with them about the changes I made. Wednesday was very productive and I was glad to have the scripts finalised before our first rehearsals on Friday, in the future however I would like to detail our storyboards more so that when writing up I didn’t have to make changes. This would’ve helped me stick to the amount of time I allocated instead of having to add and remove actions and wait for confirmation from my team members.
On Wednesday, we were recording our final song, and extra pieces for other songs at Bluebells house. Dan and I ended up arriving later than we had timetabled due to traffic, however this didn’t fair to be a huge problem as we had initially timetabled Dan to record his guitar at Bluebells but he had spare time on Tuesday and asked if he should record his guitar at home to give us a head start. This head start was very useful and actually helped us finish earlier than we had anticipated which meant we had time to go through and check every song to double check we were happy and if we wanted to change anything. I think in the future when recording with a band, if we are worried about time scheduling I will record at home provided I have the correct environment and equipment as it will help out the band and process a lot. We started by putting Dans guitar audio files for ‘How You Remind Me’ into LogicPro X which didn’t take too long, most of the time spent was waiting for them to export and download. Once dans audio files were in Logic we started recording bass, which went efficiently. Since we started recording I have noticed a large improvement in our recording process. At the start, it took us a long time to record each part and familiarise ourselves with Logic, we stopped to watch videos on how to set certain things up, like pairing Logic and the Scarlett 4i4 interface. Comparably, our recording session on Wednesday went smoothly, professionally and productively.
After recording bass we recorded vocals, which again went well, we got most of the song done in one or two takes. The parts we had to record more than that just had pitching issues or volume issues, I had to record one verse multiple times as I wasn’t projecting enough. I found that verse challenging because although I still had to project to achieve the volume we needed for the recording the verse itself was meant to quite soft and quiet, in the end placed myself close to the mic and used mic control to get the volume we needed. We then recorded backing vocals on the chorus and this concluded our recording for ‘How You Remind Me’. Finally we went back to the previous songs and added the piano parts we wanted to add to Denial and shortened the gap at the end of Acceptance.
Wednesday went very well and we managed to finish all the recording and stay on track to our timetable. I think if I were to record with a band again I would do it very similarly to how I did today and I will take recording skills that I have learnt through this recording process and utilise them in the future.
On Thursday we were back in college and our goal for today was EQing the songs we’ve recorded over the past two weeks we went into the control room and plugged Bluebells laptop into the speakers at the mixing desk so we could all listen and help mix. Dan was in charge of mixing and Bluebell and I were listening along and suggesting different levels. When we got to piano however we realised we recorded the chorus chords with too much gain and they sounded terrible, so we tried to get rid of the crackle digitally however we realised we were going to have to re-record, however we don’t have any recording equipment so we used a college piano and our phone voice recording to try and record the part again but the recording quality just wasn’t there so Bluebell suggested recording it again at her house with better equipment. In the future when finishing our ‘final recordings’ we should listen back more attentively to make sure we avoid situations like today. That concluded our EQing for the day and we moved onto creating our posters & programs for the show.
To start making the poster and program, Bluebell, who is in charge of the poster, had got in contact previously with an art and design student who was happy to design and make the poster for us. They have discussed design and we plan to use the poster for the front cover of the program, so until we have that Dan and I will be creating the inside of the program. Inside the program we intend to have the five different stages, a small description of the stage, i.e how people feel and act during this stage, we also want the song lyrics to each stage, some hotline numbers for support on bereavement and our website urls. Originally we wanted to keep the look of the program close to a normal theatres program however Dan and Bluebell thought it might be interesting to set it out like an 'Order of Service' like you would see at a funeral, which ties into the whole theme of the show well. We started creating the insides, typing the lyrics and stages, however we need to have a discussion about what fonts we want to use and perhaps a background photo. We haven't completed much of this yet however so far I think its going well due to communication of our visions. Continuing this step of our project, we will upkeep the amount of communication when creating the program and generally will keep an open mind to different creative visions when working with people in the future.
On Friday, we started the day with EQing our next song, 'How you remind me' because Bluebell wasn't in college today and Dan was recording a solo for a peers FMP project I was left to do the EQing, I focussed on the guitars and searched up templates on where to move the wave points when EQing on LogicPro X to make it sound good for electric guitar. I added compression, chorus, and gain to the verse guitar, but not too much gain as the guitar in the chorus is clean. I did a very similar thing for the chorus guitar but chose a different compressor and added distortion. It would've been nice to have some previous experience as a lot of the EQing did was trial and error to make it sound good, I may research into mixing in my own time and utilise that in the future. After lunch Dan and I went to the dance studio to rehearse the show for the first time, we ran through the scenes chronologically and if we felt something needed a slight change wed run that scene through again together. We got through the whole show once, however did a second run through of most of the scenes. We found this quite challenging as in the show there are three actors, Dan, I and Bluebell as an extra but today we only had two actors. Alex, our tutor, also came to watch one of our scenes, we showed him denial and he gave us some feedback with a certain part of the scene. In this scene there was a section where actor 1 looks back at actor two (the deceased character) in disbelief and confusion, this happens 3 or 4 times. I had written this part in the script to show denial as if the deceased character was there then not, like the actor 1 was denying it so much they could see actor 2. Our tutors feedback on this was that is was quite repetitive and lost the effect we initially wanted due to this repetition. We then had a discussion on what we should do with this feedback, suggesting replacing the scene and cutting out some of the scene. We decided we wanted to keep this scene but do the 'look back' less, so we decided to only repeat this action twice and to keep our timing for the script working, add a small dance in after the hug earlier in the scene. I think this was a good replacement for the repetitive section and we dealt with the feedback we got professionally and creatively, I am looking forward to rehearsing this scene next week.
This week has been incredibly productive and we have done everything we had planned to do, we did make a few changes to the timetable which isn't ideal however in the future I will plan out my timetable with the others more thoroughly to ensure my timetable works with both of theirs. As the show and deadline approach I am slightly concerned we may be busier than we expected, however so far, as a group we have dealt well with stress and time pressure so I am not overly worried about this.
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