I decided to shoot a movie trip/movie review for The House That Jack Built.  The film is directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, Lars von Trier, and it was having a one-night-only screening of the unrated director’s cut, so my friend, Ben, and I went.  I plan on keeping this blog after this course to publish my film reviews, so this video fits quite nicely here.

The video was inspired by popular YouTube film critic, Chris Stuckmann, who actually happened to be at the same screening as Ben and I!  We were able to talk to him for quite a while after the movie, which was a pleasure.  His style of reviews are very simple, but in a good way.  They are just him sitting in front of a camera with a visually interesting background (which my video lacks).  The simplicity allows the viewer to focus on what he is saying instead of anything else going on in the video.

Each segment of the video helps to display the moviegoing process, which is anticipation, initial thoughts, and complete opinion after digestion.  A movie like The House That Jack Built demands all three steps, so I tried to show these steps through each segment.  Part one is Ben and I expressing our excitement and introducing the film, the second shot is our thoughts right after seeing the movie, and the last shot is my review of the film.

In order to execute this plan, I filmed the first shot in the car outside the theater on my phone, the second shot in an editing studio with a USB microphone through my MacBook webcam, and I did the same for the last shot.  The editing process was brief, but I plan on going back in to improve it.  I put each clip in order, threw in cross-dissolves, and added text at the beginning of each segment.  I decided that adding music to the video would be awkward and unfitting, so I chose not to, but I could be convinced otherwise.  I might add an insert of The House That Jack Built poster at the beginning for context, but I’m not sure if that would break any copyright rules.  I know that it is fair use, but I don’t know if I am able to use it for this class.

It was difficult for me to use the text tool and find new fonts, but I will make sure that I do the research so I am able to include new text in the final draft.  Adobe Premiere Pro is extremely confusing and tedious to me, but I am working on getting used to it so the final draft will be the best it can be.

Tyler Kee

Updated Storyboard: The House That Jack Built Movie Review

Storyboard: The House That Jack Built Movie Review

My friend, Ryan, and I had just watched Scream prior to recording and it sparked discussion between us.  We talked about how the film impacted the use of meta humor in film, so his interview topic was a no-brainer for me.  My topic came to light after I watched Halloween (1978) and it got me thinking about its impact.  With these two ideas, I was able to craft a narrative about classic films’ influence.

I interviewed Ryan over Skype.  Since we weren’t in person, I had him record his audio through Garageband and send me the converted mp3 file.  I simply recorded my audio directly into Audition with my headphones’ mic.

For this project, I created the beat that is heard in the background.  I did not want to mess around with finding free-to-remix music, so I made my own.  I found a Halloween-sounding piano sample from Apple Loops, added a snare, bassline, and a distorted pad.  These few elements established the creepy vibe pretty well.

When I started my first draft, I had an intro that set up the topic which then transitioned into Ryan and I being cut back and forth talking about our respective films.  This was a good idea in concept, but the narrative was unclear and the pacing was inconsistent.  I decided to rework the entire project because of these shortcomings.

The first thing I did when crafting the final draft was re-recording my audio.  I completely scrapped my initial clip because I focused on cliches and did not provide any examples.  The new recording focused on Halloween’s impact on the slasher genre and other media that it heavily influenced.  My new interview tells a better story with examples and compliments Ryan’s anecdote better.

After the new recording, I decided to ditch the initial quick cutting structure.  It was too confusing for the listener, so I reworked it by leaving the full audio clips of each person uninterrupted.  This allows the listener to focus on one interview at a time without getting confused.

The two clips of Ryan and I talking are woven together with transitions to help the story along.  I start the track with the same intro from the first draft, which transitions into Ryan’s audio by me saying “And, Ryan, you are the guest, so you may go first.”  As soon as “guest” is said, I cut the music for dramatic effect.  Then, Ryan’s audio starts with the same beat in the background, but pitched down two semitones.  This creates even more atmosphere and suspense.  Ryan’s audio transitions into mine by me saying “Thanks Ryan, now my turn.”  Once again, the music cuts after “Ryan” is said.  The beat returns with my interview audio, but this time it is raised back to its normal pitch.

Finally, the story is ended with a small conclusion and a soloed quote of “respect the classics” that pulls everything together.

I had so much fun with this project!

My friend, Ryan, who was gracious enough to let me interview him, talked about
Scream’s impact on meta-humor in movies.  We had just watched the film two days prior to the interview, so it worked out perfectly.  Ryan lives in New Hampshire, so I had him record his audio through Garageband as we talked on Skype.  After our conversation, he exported his file to an mp3 and emailed it to me.  I recorded my vocals the same way for Ryan’s interview, but when it came for my personal interview, I figured out that it would be easier to just record the audio directly through Audition.  For my own interview, I discussed Halloween’s (1978) impact on horror movie cliche’s and the respect it deserves for that.  These two topics go hand-in-hand, so it was rather easy to edit them together and tell a coherent narrative.

I decided to make a beat for the background ambient sound, because I didn’t want to mess with finding non-copyrighted music or recording the outdoors.  Instead, I found a sample through Apple Loops (which supplies hundreds of royalty-free samples) that sounded very similar to the Halloween (1978) theme.  Following that, I added a simple bass-line, a snare, and an eerie pad.  At this point, the beat sounded too squeaky clean, so I added distortion to the bass and pad to give it that gritty, creepy feel.  Lastly, I soaked the main melody in reverb to create ambience.  This beat is very simple, but it fits the Halloween vibe well.

The last thing I did before arranging the final project was editing the audio clips for a second time.  I lightly edited the raw audio before this draft, but it wasn’t enough.  There were too many spaces and verbal fillers, so I cut them out to give a better flow to the clips.

Then it was time to edit all of the audio together.  I decided to not include my question to Ryan, because he restates it well so the listener knows what he was asked (Scream’s impact on meta-humor in film).  The project is more about the interviewee’s answer than the interviewer’s question, in my eyes.  I recorded a small intro into Audition to introduce the topic and help the listener follow along easier.  That was placed at the very beginning, followed by the faded in beat.  After four bars of the beat playing, Ryan’s vocals enter.  The editing process was relatively simple, but took a lot of trial and error.  I had dilemmas of what phrases could be split in two or combined.  I experimented with how the order in which our vocals came in and out, as well.  I initially had my voice coming in before Ryan’s, but I knew that I wanted my final point to end the project.  To make that happen, I had to begin the project with Ryan because I had more usable audio from him, so that freed up more time and space for my vocals to fit in.  And that’s pretty much it!  I just faded the music out at the end and that was that!  This project has helped me discover my love for audio editing, and I look forward to doing a lot more of it in the future.