Unfortunately, I missed my last tutorial on the 23rd of March due to illness. Although I missed a chance to get some feedback on my latest work, I was confident in what I was doing as I had plenty of contact with the animation team, and plenty of research, to make sure my creative choices were justified. Unfortunately, I’m still yet to receive any updated animatics, meaning I’m still working with the same animatic as I have been from the start. This has prevented me from syncing sounds like footsteps, however, information from the animators has kept me busy enough.

At my latest tutorial, I showed my tutor some of the music that I had been composing for Heavy Metal. He told me that he was happy with the second piece, which was composed in sync with the visuals, but thought that something felt wrong with the first synthpop-like piece. He said that the drums were too protruding and recommended I watch Flash Gordon for some references. After watching the film, and listening to the soundtrack of The Neverending Story again, I’ve come to realize that the drums were indeed too noticeable. I think it would be wrong to remove them completely but they could certainly be lowered in volume and altered with an EQ plugin to help them blend into the mix better. Having them stand out seems more like an element of modern synthwave rather than classic synthpop.

In this tutorial, I got some feedback on my sound effects so far. I’ve got some car engine sounds from a videogame. I asked if that would be an issue and was told that it should be fine.

In this tutorial, my learning objectives have been signed-off. Now I can begin researching more thoroughly for my project. I have also been given a few tips to help my meet my learning objectives. Firstly, I should keep a record of group meetings to help review on how I communicate with clients for LO4. I’ve also been advised to start making some music demos to share with my group as soon as possible.

I came to this tutorial with a few ideas of what to set as my learning objectives. My tutor helped me word them better to make them more specific. I’ve got to make sure they’re ready for send-off next week. My tutor also gave me a few pieces of important advice. Firstly, I’ve been advised to find another short film/animation to work on so that I’d have more work to apply my research to. Secondly, in the event that my clients’ audio requirements change and no longer suite my learning objectives, I am allowed to submit my own version of the work.

During the first tutorial, my tutor and I discussed all the initial steps I should take before proceeding with this project. My aim, learning objectives and learning outcomes need to be decided and written in my blog by week 4 at the latest.

We also debated on how I could record a piano for my project. I originally thought that MIDI would be a good choice as it would be easy to edit if required at any point during the project. However, my tutor has informed me that there are some acoustic pianos in the practice rooms. The might provide me with the best quality sounds.