Editing

Using Soundtrack Pro, I edited the sound to the best of my ability.

Using the 'reduce noise' tool on Soundtrack Pro, I selected a section of the waveform before setting the noise print. I then selected the recording as a whole and reduced the noise using the panels shown above. I needed to ensure that the reduction wasn't at 100% as this made it sound muffled and as though it was under water. To test what noise I had removed, I ticked the 'noise only' box. This allowed me to listen to what had gone.

  Although this method wasn't 100% effective, I did the best I could with the quality of some of the recordings.

  For the opening sequence, I chose a song named Louisa/Slow Blues by Mount Carmel - A piece I found on freemusicarchive.org. This soundtrack really works with the piece, as it fits with the mood, tone and atmosphere of the studio. I overlaid this with sections of the interviews, atmos tracks and tattoo gun sounds to give the piece more depth, and so that it fit with the visuals. How I did this is represented in the screenshot above.

The screen shot above shows that my levels were of the correct broadcasting standard of '12'.

I left Leon to do much of the picture edit, and I am happy with how it turned out - particularly the opening sequence to which sections of the film are overlaid the 'forum' tracking shot. This sets up the film well.

Above is a copy of the notes I made when editing the sound, to ensure that I was organised.

Filming 20/04/2013

When it came to the day of filming, myself and Leon met at 09:30 to discuss the plan for the day over breakfast. I allowed him the opportunity to add to the shot lists and interview questions in this time.

Because Leon was more confident on camera, he took more of a role of cinematographer on the day, whilst I recorded the sound. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to use the camera, however, when I suggested switching roles, Leon was unsure of how to use any of the sound equipment.

When it came to filming, we initially gained footage for the opening sequence - which required a tracking shot through the corridor of the forum. As well as this, we shot all of the cut-aways within the studio. We needed to gain all of this footage first, as we were unable to interview anyone for the first couple of hours. Thankfully, we managed to source a previous tattooist at the studio, whom was happy to help. We shot a nice interview with him outside the studio.

When it came to interviewing the artists, we gained these from Tacho Franch, the owner of the studio, who became a large aspect of the filming for the piece. Caz was also a good contributor, and gave us some interesting answers within her interview.

We had a couple of problems throughout the day of filming, which I have bullet pointed below:

• We were unable to film as soon as we wanted because they had a guest artist in. However, we spent this time getting cut away footage and interviewing other members of the staff.
• Leon's camera broke mid way through filming. Thankfully, because we initially wanted a two camera set up (which could not be achieved because of lack of crew), I brought my own camera which we were able to use. However, because my memory card was only 8GB, and Leon's was unavailable as we believe this is what broke the camera.. we found ourselves constantly uploading footage to my laptop, in order to make room for more. This was very time consuming, yet there was nothing we could have done about it.
• I found that the XLR cable that connected the Marrantz 661 to the rifle mic was faulty. Although I checked this in store before filming (and having to change it 3 times, having one broken one after another), it tended to break up whenever I moved the boom pole. This was incredibly annoying and meant that I had to stand as still as possible to prevent any recordings from being ruined.
• The sound was a big issue for me throughout filming. When positioning a rifle mic on a boom, you must aim it at the persons chest, as this is the best place to record a clear piece of dialogue. However, a lot of the time, interviews with Tacho meant that he was tattooing at the same time. This meant that the mic was also aimed at the tattoo gun - making it incredibly hard for me to gain a good quality recording. If i were to film this again, I will have asked him to pretend to tattoo when answering questions. However, this would have lost its organic feel, and also wasted a lot of the two contributors time.

Overall, I am glad that we managed to film everything in one day. I think that we could have filmed more cutaway footage, and if possible, will have to go back and get this later in the week.

Me operating the boom pole and marantz

Leon gaining a high angle shot of the studio

Storyboard

Below is a copy of some shots I have storyboarded for the film:

Interview Questions

Below is a copy of the list of interview questions I have made for the day of filming. I am hoping that it will be more of a casual conversation, and so more questions will be added on the day as chat flows. I like the idea of it being informal, as it fits with the theme of the studio and the concept of our piece.

Schedule

The schedule has been changed numerous times due to the planned days of filming changing. I ideally wanted to film on the 17th April as well as the 20th, yet when we approached the studio to do this, they didn't agree, and I didn't want to push it. However, here is the final version of the schedule. We hope to get everything filmed in one day, to allow us time to edit the piece. We may need to go back within the week to gain more footage, and if so, I will create another schedule for this.

Shot List

  Below is a copy of a shot list I have formed for the project. I understand that it is not particularly long, however, I have left room on the original copy to add more shots too that we feel fit on the day, as I predict that it will be a lot more organic and that we will get a much better feel for the shots we need when in the studio. Also, many of these shots are repeated but from different angles, such as the act of tattooing.

Filming Problems

  Since the studio agreed to have us film on the basis that it wasn't until after the Easter holidays, this massively limited our time to film. I emailed them to see if we could film this Saturday (13th April):

> Message:

> Hi,I'm a student at Sheffield Hallam and came to speak with you a couple of weeks ago with my friend Leon, regarding filming the studio for our documentary as part of our course. You said that it wouldn't be a problem and to contact you in a couple of weeks once you had completed decorating. I am just contacting you to check that we are still able to do so, as our deadline is coming up and would really like the opportunity. Ideally, we would like to film this saturday if its not too late notice. 

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Hannah Mason

>

I gained a reply from the studio stating that they are out of town at this time as they are attending a convention, making the studio therefore closed. Leon has therefore since been into the studio and arranged to film on Saturday 20th April. I am a little worried that this is too late and will not give us enough time to edit or go back and get more footage if need be.