Unit 26: Music Technology in Performance - Performance 1 & 2

Unit 2: Audio Engineering Principles - Task 4

Part 1: Specification

Channel List:
1 KICK             - AKG D112    - BEHRINGER PRE
2 SNARE          - SM57           - BEHRINGER PRE
3 FLOOR TOM - SM57            - BEHRINGER PRE
4 R. TOM 1      - SM57           - BEHRINGER PRE
5 R. TOM 2      - SM57           - BEHRINGER PRE
6 OH LEFT       - KM184         - FOCUSRITE PRE
7 OH RIGHT     - KM184         - FOCUSRITE PRE
8 BASS AMP     - AKG D112    - BEHRINGER PRE
9 GUITAR 1     - SM57            - BEHRINGER PRE
10 GUITAR 2   - SM57            - BEHRINGER PRE
11 VOCALS     - SE GEMINI      - AVALON PRE

For recording the full band I've decided to use the two AKG D112 microphones on the kick drum and bass amplifier, and this is because this microphone can pick up frequencies as low as 20Hz, and can withstand high sound pressure levels, which you would find with signals coming from a kick drum and bass amp as they're low frequency and contain lots of energy which equates to a high sound pressure. It's important to use a mic that picks up frequencies as low as 20Hz as between 20-100Hz is the part of the frequency spectrum where these sounds are found, and therefore picking them up accurately is crucial to getting a detailed recreation of the sound. The shape of the D112 is such as it has a gap where bass frequencies multiply called a bass resonance volume chamber, and this makes for a bigger bass sound as the signals resonate inside it and harmonically increase. These mic's are an industry standard for recording these bass instruments, and are the most suitable from the list for this job, due to their characteristics. The frequency response diagram below shows how it picks up sounds from 20Hz upwards, and has a resonance or peak in dB of sensitivity at 100Hz where the main detail of a bass instrument is found.

I then chose to use the SM57 microphone for the Snare, all Toms and Guitar Amplifier as these all operate between 40Hz and 15KHz, which is the range of this microphone, and they all can be picked up with this microphone as a result. It's a cardiod pattern, meaning it picks up sound in a domed shape and the cradle, so anything you close mic with it will be picked up accurately, and the frequency response curve shown below shows how in the mid range it's right at 0dB so won't accentuate any sound between 1Khz - 5Khz, and will give a clear sound as a result. This makes it appropriate for use on all these instruments, and given that I have overheads on drums, these too will pick up tom and snare in spill also.

For all the above microphones I'm using the eight Behringer channel pre-amps to record the signals. My reason for this is that these require less detail and attention that my overheads and vocals, as they just need to present and well recorded, rather than having the highest quality pre-amp to nurture the sound. I've deciphered that the Behringer pre-amps are the lowest quality of the choices from the specifications of the three and the price also. Firstly, the gain range of the Behringer pre for microphone inputs is +10dB to +60dB, which means that any signal requiring less would be less clear and maybe slightly distorted sounding, as this gain range isn't as subtle as say the Avalon which is 0dB to +58dB. Also from the price which is aimed at a low budget market, you can infur that the components and build quality is where they've been able to save money to drive down price, so could assume that the gain range and distortion results would reflect this, meaning for the greater detail required in the reproduction of vocals for example, that these mic-pre's wouldn't be sufficient for the job. Also as the specification of the product is vague and doesn't mention noise varyable to the amount of gain applied to a signal, then we can assume that as the gain is applied, the pre-amp is noisy and not as clean and clear as you'd would want for vocals for example.

Behringer Specs

For my drum overheads I chose to use the Neumann KM184 microphones, as I know from experience they're excellent at this, and give a very clear and detailed reproduction of cymbals and toms. They have a frequency range of 20-20Khz which means cymbals which create sounds up around 15,000Hz are picked up well, and it has a low impedence of 50 ohms, which means little detail from the electrical signal travelling to the desk is lost sound the sound isn't compromised in any way. They require phantom power which they will be given from the Focusrite mic pre's one and two which I've chosen to use for this job, simply as there needed to be two, and the Avalon only has one, but I know the mic-pre's of the Focusrite are good quality, and will be good for this job. They had a total harmonic distortion rate of 0.001% at 1Khz, which means when the signal is multiplied, only this percentage of distortion relative to it is effected, which would be inaudible meaning the signal would be very clear even as the gain increased. It's frequency response matched that of the KM184's, meaning no frequencies could be lost at this stage, and the sound we stay as accurate and detailed as it was from the microphone. The chart below shows the frequency response of the KM184, showing how in the mid range it's completely flat for pin point accuracy, and the accentuation at 8Khz onwards makes for a nice bright tone to cymbals.

Finally, I chose to use the SE Gemini microphone, recorded though the Avalon mic-pre for the vocals. I believe the human is the most detailed and unique sound from the band, and therefore requires the most detail from the recording, to give a completely accurate recreation of the vocalists voice. Like the KM184's it has a 20Hz-20KHz response so will pickup the human voice (which sits right in the middle of the spectrum) very accurately and cleanly. It cannot withstand a massive SPL, but as a vocal microphone doesn't need to, as the voice doesn't create so much pressure, and the tube component which is the internal mechanism which generates the signal from the vocals is said to provide an effect of warmth and depth which would complement the sound of a voice without in any way processing it, and give the dry signal good qualities, so the fact it's a tube makes it more appropriate for the vocal than anything else in the band. Also the Avalon pre-amp is the best choice to accompany it, as it too uses vacuum tubes as it's internal circuitry which mean this will further complement the vocal tone and sound. It had the grate gain range of 0dB to +58dB which I mentioned earlier, meaning the detail can be retained when gain is added, and it has +48 phantom power as an input mode so can provide the neccessary power to the condenser mic. Across the spectrum it has low noise, and this an example of being opposite to the Behringer where components are of high quality, and the design is detailed and refined, which is reflected in the high price bracket, and proven in the results it gives.

Part 2: Definitions
Frequency Response - Frequency response is how much sound across the frequency spectrum is picked up to be reproduced, and can be in relation to the range of sounds a microphone can pick up, or a mic-pre can work with. Frequency relates to pitch, but also pitchless sounds can vary across the frequency spectrum, so a large frequency response is one that covers a large range of all frequencies, like for example 20Hz to 20KHz. Frequencies go on to well above that, but as human hearing range stops at 20Khz, it's effect though having a knock in the bracket we can hear, is otherwise inaudible.
Signal to Noise Ratio - This is the combination of low level noise and the signal you aim to record overall in a sound. The noise can be a bi-product of a piece of equipment like a transducer component or a low level sound in the room, but the ratio of the two is how loud the noise is relative to the loudness of the signal. For example, a guitar amp recorded in a room will have noise of the room combined with the amp itself, and the less noise the better, as it makes for clearer sounds and a better recording.
Operating Levels: +4dBu & -10dBu - These are signal levels at which you work with recording gear, -10dB being a domestic level, the other being professional.
RMS Level vs Peak Level - 

Unit 31: Planning & Delivering a Music Product - Grown Ocean Sessions

Session 1:
In the first session for this recording we first wanted to record a track of vocals and rhythm guitar, which meant we had the core of the song complete to then add other instrumentation to it, and given that the rhythm guitar of the song was a constant strumming, this would act like a metronome to play to, meaning nothing needed to be recorded to a click, even though we were overdubbing.

We decided to record the vocals and guitar together to capture a single take performance, with imperfections adding to its character and feel. We used the NT2000 as a vocal mic, and then SE1A's as a coincident pair on the guitar, with a ribbon behind to capture all the sounds, and tie the guitar and vocals together. Here's a channel list for this first recording:

We tried a few takes of this, and moved microphones between takes to get a better sound. We also had to phase invert one of the coincident pairs so the two waveforms didn't cancel out each others peaks and troughs, so we had a full guitar sound, before we could then pan each one creating a stereo guitar sound, which we wanted to make this sound big like the original recording does. We felt this went well, and got a good solid take of the track with no major mistakes or any recording problems, so then decided as our session was almost half way through, to move onto drums before we finished.

To save time, we used the same microphones for the drums, and didn't close mic anything like the Kick or snare with dynamic microphones, and this was for many reasons, as although it saved us time, it was also the ethos of the original recording, to get a large room sound with nice condenser microphones, and as the wasn't much snare in the track, and the drums were a rigid and constant 4/4 groove with lots of toms and cymbals being hit frantically, we thought these microphones would capture everything we wanted to hear. So with changes of mic position to the drum kit, and some routing changes we were ready to get a take of drums to the guitar. We did so in one take, having set levels on the microphones according to the section of the kit they were closest to and used the take we had from it. We had once again used the ribbon as a room mic, further back from the kit, with the SE1A's as left and right overheads, and the NT2000, in front of the toms and kick as these are used most in the drums for this song. They play mostly at the same time, or on off beats so we didn't muffle them and allowed the kick to be boomy also by removing some padding. Here's another channel list showing these simple changes.

This was all we had time for in the first 3 hour session, but we were happy we had the key core of the recording done, to build upon in the next three hour session.

Session 2:
In this session we aimed to finish our recording, by adding the harmony vocals, lead guitar parts, bass guitar, piano and then programme some midi instruments we didn't have to play but needed to have to emulate the original. Firstly we recorded the harmony vocals, which was very simple and just required setting up the NT2000 we used to record vocals in the first session, in the live room in front of the window so we could communicate, and to setup a headphone mix so the performer could hear the multitrack to add the vocals to. We sent this through input 9 in the live room, to channel 9 on the desk and it was a standard level setting procedure. To save time, while this was going on, mic's were being set up in the piano room to move straight to recording the piano after this was done. When we finished recording vocals, we moved the NT2000 we were using into the piano room to use as one of these piano microphones.This was recorded with three microphones listed in the channel list below.

After recording all of this we no longer needed to record using microphones, as the lead guitar and bass guitar could be DI'ed through the desk, meaning we didn't have the hassle of mic'ing up amplifiers and sending headphone mixes. We used a jack to jack to plug the instrument into the DI box, an XLR to XLR going from the box to the insert of a desk channel and sent phantom power to the DI as the MTR DI-3 we used is active, meaning it needs power to work like any condenser mic would. We then set up an amplifier pre-set in logic for the lead guitar signal, so it sounded nice in the mix as the performer was playing in the control room, hearing the guitar on top of the multitrack, so it had to sound audible and in the style of the multitrack for performer comfort and also just to sound right as we were recording it in, although we could spend as long as we wanted tweaking the amp sound in mixing later on. We did the exact same procedure for the bass guitar, which meant we had done all the recording necessary, and all that was left was to add some MIDI flutes in the tracks chorus to again emulate the original track. This was one major drawback of this project, that we couldn't get a flute player to record for this, and although it's not crucially important to the track, the MIDI flutes unfortunately don't sound close to the original regardless of how we processed or edited them, which is a shame but doesn't subtract from the quality of the other material we recorded.

Session Costs:
2 x 3 hour sessions = £180
KM184 pair = £25
Ribbon R1 = £20
Fender Telecaster = £15
Fender Precision = £15            Both Recording Sessions Total: £255

Mix & Master Costs:
4 hours mixing = £80
Mastering Session = £50         Mixing & Mastering Total: £130

Net Total: £385

Unit 31: Planning & Delivering a Music Product - Final Recordings & Mastering Write-Up

Final 20 Minutes of Recordings





Mixing & Mastering of Grown Ocean:
For all these tracks I spent time mixing and mastering the material to ensure it sounded as good as it possibly could, and although I spent more time on some than others, I believe I achieved a consistency throughout my five tracks, for the levels of volume and dynamics, as well as ensuring that in mixing a mastering I was over doing it by forcing volumes and dynamics to become too loud altogether, and at a constant volume, which would remove dynamic variation and make for an unappealing sounding recording.

Of all my projects I chose to devote the most attention in mastering to the first track, as it has the most instruments of any of my recordings, and would pose more of a challenge but could potentially be the most rewarding, as getting all these instruments to work together would enhance the overall sound to a level greater than a more sparse track from the portfolio.

I began mixing with the rhythm tracks like drums and bass, by which I mean I pulled all the faders down and introduced these first, ensuring that level wise they sounded right together, and then started to introduced the guitars and vocals, and other lead instruments that play little nuances and highlights. I checked all my individual drum mic signals, and brought them to a level where they sound like a kit naturally would if you stood in front of it and heard it played altogether. As the mic'ing for the kit was about getting a sound for the room, and not close mic'ing, my processing was less intensive, though I added a compressor to each mic signal which flattened peaks from extra loud cymbal hits in my overheads for example, but aside from this, did very little to them. I panned the overheads left and right to give the kit the stereo spacing as is common practice in mixing, but as they're not a focal point of the track and just provide a constant driving rhythm, I then turned my attention to the bass tone. This needed to be a consistent volume and not duck out at any point to keep in the motorik groove, so I found a bass tone in amp settings that sounded ever present and punchy, but also stylistically fitted with my tracks folk-rock origins, and then compressed the signal again, to prevent any massive volume surges with quite a severe threshold. After these were balanced, I introduced my rhythm guitar and vocals which were recorded together, and so therefore needed processing together. I checked the phase relationship of my guitar signal which was from the coincident pair, making sure the peaks and troughs of the waveforms weren't cancelling each other out and then after that, panned one left and one right for the large guitar sound required, which worked really well as we'd used a 12 string acoustic guitar and knew this would all work it's favour using this technique. I ensured then the level of the vocal and guitar blended naturally, with the vocal never being overwhelmed, and then introduced my backing vocals to this to ensure they too were a nice volume with the rhythm guitar. Then all this was balanced against my drums and bass which were already processed, adjusting levels as I went along. Crucially I didn't do a vocal reverb right away, as I hadn't decided what sound to go for yet, and wanted a solid mix before attempting it.

This was the core of my track complete, and then I set about adding the other little bits which enriched the track as it went along, and as these dropped in and out, I wasn't hesitant to pan them hard either side, as enough things were central in this mix already, and these may surprise the listener as they were introduced, and leave space in the mix if you think about it between two speakers for example, it would sound too full in the middle if these things were spread out between the left and right speakers. I panned my lead guitar slightly, and hard panned the piano, occasional flutes and the chimes and bells at the end as these all came and went in the mix and sounded nice in different positions. I was happy with this as mix in terms of levels, and got a second opinion, and from this decided that there was too much happening in the low mids frequency band (200-500Hz approximately) so began to shape the parts of the track, with the intention of the whole track sounding better for it. So one massive change I made was to my rhythm guitar, where I took lots of the signal at this range out, and boost high end, as actually in a full mix the high tones of an acoustic guitar which sound like a distinctive twangy sound, and picking tones and finger slide actually sound nice themselves, and the rest of the mix suggests the presence of a fuller sounding acoustic guitar which I didn't really realise until removing it, and this benefited my mix massively. I also made sure I calved a place for my bass to sit below 150Hz so it was clear and not fighting to be heard over instruments that aren't supposed to have any sound in this frequency range. Then I added my vocal reverbs last of all, as I knew these could make or break my finished track. I applied two slightly separate ones to my lead and harmonies, as I knew the harmonies needed to sound more distant in the mix as they just harmonically complement the lead, so as a result I used a larger room mode reverb with a wetter signal than my lead vocal reverb. But then I knew the two had to reconvene at the end of the track for the accapella outro, so automated the volume of the harmonies to rise at the end of the track for this, meaning they became more present for the ending.

All this meant I was ready to master, and the key thing would be to take my bounced stereo file, and bring up the level to a similar level to my guide track, which was the original Fleet Foxes track. I learned from looking at the waveforms that the guide was louder overall, but retained dynamic dips and wasn't forced to be loud, so I took this on board when mastering mine, as I put the multipressor plug-in on it, and began targeting frequency bands with some more compression, but subtly as I'd already compressed in the mixing stage. I then added a linear phase EQ which would put a mastering curve on the whole multitrack to increase it's perceived loudness, without effecting the waveforms too drastically and causing any audible changes between the left and right channel, as of course if an instrument panned one side is effected more by this curve than one panned right because of it's frequency, then this will change the balanced between the left and right channel, so linear phase tries not to do this. I loaded a rock/pop mastering preset, and noticing it's impact began to tweak it to complement the more acoustic nature of my track. I then finally used an adaptive limiter to boost the overall volume, and hopefully match the volume of my guide track, and this was a process of trial and error, based upon the principles that I couldn't add to much gain, and had to have a threshold at 0.2dB or less so digital clipping couldn't occur. This was all I did for my master of the track, and it sounded good when I was done. I did a quick master for all my tracks to get consistency across my 5 tracks, as I felt this was crucial for the overall product, and it would help me decide everything worked linearly.

The order of my 20mins was the last thing I decided. I had mastered all in one project so I could line them up and do the fade ins and fad outs, then bounce them individually, setting cycle areas around each track and soloing them. I decided to open with the only vocal track, for an instant impact and to draw a listener in, which I felt an instrumental may not do. I decided Get Carter should follow as it wasn't such a stylistic jump from the first, although I knew this would be a problem in an intentionally varied 20 minute EP. I followed that with my psychedelic improvisation as this was more effects laden, and felt it may bridge the gap between my groovy library/film track and my outright dance track which followed that. This left me with my Foxey Lady cover to end with, so I had a quite long fade out to end this track, and felt this was an appropriate way to end the portfolio. Sequencing the tracks wasn't easy because of their varied styles, and no particular order seemed to make great sense at first, but I'm happy with the flow of my project now it'd done, and feel the recording quality and mixing was consistent across all the tracks, so nothing stood out as being sub par in any way.

Unit 32: Sequencing Systems & Techniques - Portfolio Tracks

My Remix or Edit of Long Train Running, to show audio manipulation skills.


Composition using MIDI and audio samples.

Unit 31: Planning & Delivering a Music Product - Foxey Lady Session

Session 1:

In our three hour session we wanted to record the drums, bass and electric guitar, before deciding if any more sessions were required and if we wanted to add any more instruments. We began by setting up the drummer and bassist in the live room, in opposite corners, with an acoustic panel to prevent spill from getting into the drum recording as much as possible, which was reasonably effective. 

This is a session plan I drew up before our session, to ensure we knew what we were doing during setup, and to help the session run smoothly.

The first change made to the session plan was that we used the Ribbon R1 directly in front of our drums rather than the NT2000, as we felt on past sessions it had given us better results, and decided to go with this proven choice instead. Also we put the D112 on the kick and the D550 on the bass amp, which is opposite to the plan but really made no odds as they were the two dynamics good at picking up bass frequencies so either was adequate for each job.We began setting up according to this adjusted plan, and the pictures below show us doing so.

Picture 1: Putting the D550 on the bass amp, over the left cone visible in the cabinet. Also showing the position of the acoustic panel to prevent spill.

Picture 2: This shows the ribbon angled down over the drum kit to get a detailed sound of all the toms and the lowered ride cymbal which was the players preference to be there. It also shows how we positioned the bass player away from the panel to allow visual communication between the drummer and bassist while playing, and also through the window with the control room, so we knew the sections of the track, and could take cue's from each others body language and playing.

Picture 3: This shows our drum setup, with the D112 on kick, SM57 on snare, KM184 overheads, and ribbon centrally. Also the setup of the headphone mixer to the drummers left, to send a 100BPM click track to the drummers headphones to maintain a steady tempo, and also to get verbal communication between the control room and players between takes.

Picture 4: This shows us using channels on the desk, and an empty Logic Project which we began to name channels on as we setup mics. We hadn't yet set levels for bass on this picture, as only 5 faders are at unity, but bass was the 6th and we checked it's level alongside the drums.

Picture 5: This shows some dampening tape added to the drums for a shorter sound and less ringing tones, and shows the padding in the kick drum doing the same thing. It also shows the angle of the snare mic, angled down over the edge of the skin, to pick up a full sound but not restrict the player too much.

















We did a few takes of the bass and drums together, having set our levels using the standard procedure of every session. We had a few slip ups, but solved the problem by having an engineer giving us visual clues through the window of the section we were approaching, so the drummer and bassist got a full take done without mistakes. Here's a channel list for drums and bass.

We were then ready to record all guitar parts, which we decided to do in the control room, DI'ing the electric guitar straight into the desk, and using amp designer to give us the desired guitar sounds. We went jack to jack from the guitar to the input of the box, and then XLR to XLR out the box to the channel insert of channel one on the mixing desk. We then sent 48v phantom power to the DI box as it's active, and requires this power to work. We set up an audio channel in logic for the guitar, routing it out of channel 23-24 to be heard out of the monitors like the rest of the multitrack, and loaded an amp designer, and allowed our guitarist to select the best sounding amplifier as he knew what he wanted and what would best replicate the original track. Having done this we were ready to record, and as it was a case of pressing record, and allowing the guitarist to do a take, we decided to keep our distance, and give him space to feel comfortable and take care of the recordings himself, which he did efficiently and played well. Having recorded all these parts we had a full sounding multitrack to mix, and we had recorded everything we wanted in the three hour time frame, which we were proud to have done as it meant we'd stuck to our plan and worked efficiently.




Session Costs:
1 x 3 hour session = £60
KM184 pair = £25
SE R1 Ribbon = £20
Fender Bass = £15
Fender Stratocaster = £15        Session Total: £135
Mixing & Mastering Costs:
2 hours mix session = £40
Mastering = £50                      Mix & Master Total: £90

Net Total: £225










                   

Unit 20: Music & Sound for the Moving Image - Project Delivery

MPEG-4 format (18.4mb)

H.624 format (11.4mb)

For presenting my completed soundtrack proposal to the client, I need to be able to compress the video and audio to a smaller size so that it can be sent quickly, and attached to e-mails so the client can see my work, but also not compromise the audio quality which is most important to preserve as it's what I'm providing, but also not spoil the video quality too much also, as this doesn't look greatly professional, and may give the wrong impression to the client on what standard and quality you work to. Ideally, an uncompressed file would be best to present to a client, as this is becoming easier with uploading an unlisted video to Youtube, and sending that link to the client, so the video isn't publically available to view, but can be viewed by the client with the link, and can be uploaded with high quality audio and video too. However, if the client needs your work in a specific format for whatever reason, depending on how they work, I would have to be able to meet their requirements to ensure my chance of confirming the work, and if this envolves compressing the video and audio, I have to know how to do this.

There are many types of files, offering different quality, some focussing of preserving either the audio or the video, or keeping both equally as good as each other, and others for use with specific devices, like compression to a size which can be stored and viewed on an iPad or iPhone which are becoming more commonly used pieces of tech in companies. An example of the iPhone and iPad specific format is H.624, which is heavily compressed for uses on devices, and other apple formats which compress less and close to virtually compressed at all are MPEG-4, which uses the AAC (Adavanced audio coding) encoder which produces better than MP3 quality at a similar rate for the audio, and is therefore a good option for compression when audio is important to preserve. Other possible formats to compress to are .mov, which is QuickTime's preference format, so if the client specifies that they wish to view it in quicktime this would be a foolproof option, .mp4 which is the video and audio equivalent to .mp3 which is just audio, and has degrees of quality but generally won't ruin the sound of a soundtrack and finally .m4v, which is another apple format not massively dissimilar to .mp4, which apple uses as the compression format for it's audio visual products sold through the apple store. All these are viable encoding options, and all will provide varying results, so when I came to encode my project, I decided to try a few of these to see what noticeable changes occur as the file size gets smaller and smaller, and how much I feel I should compromise quality for small size, before it begins to obscure the characteristics of the Foley sounds and music I've created for my piece.

There are different methods of compression when compressing the video files. Firstly, the method I used for my videos was the compressor software for mac, that gave me the option to compress into all the for mentioned formats, so I could see what provided the best results. In this software you select a file type to convert to, and a destination to send the converted file, and load the full quality file into it, to then begin converting. My two video's above are in MPEG-4 format and H.624, with the intention of the MPEG-4 being suitable for viewing in players on mac and PC computers with Windows Media Player or QuickTime which can both play this format, and the H.624 for a portable apple device, or if the MPEG-4 wasn't suitable for some reason, this would be might alternative option. I've noticed after bouncing that in the smaller H.624 does lack the sound clarity of my full quality, and some of the foley sounds appear to be less prominent against the music, whereas the MPEG-4 is far better, and although the quality of the video of both is quite poor, it's still good enough to decide whether the audio and video work together, and the motion of the objects on screen in the visual is still clear, which is all it needs to be for the submission to the client. As my MPEG-4 came in at 18.4mb in size, and the limit for e-mail attachments is roughly 20mb, this should be a fine format to send my video to the client in, and if not I think that rather than using the H.624, I'd rather choose another MPEG like MPEG-2, which saves space by further reducing the video quality, and meaning that to look good it would have to be viewed in a smaller window, and that expanding the window would make it more pixellated, but this is a better compromise to retain the good audio.

My video examples at the top of the page are my 11.4mb H.624 video, and beneath that is the better quality MPEG-4 at 18.4mb, and these demonstrate the changes in quality according to file size. It's worth noting this is a 2 minute clip, and a smaller video clip of 30 seconds to one minute could be encoded at better quality as it is shorter than this, but the MPEG-4 provided good results which I'd be happy to send to a client to demonstrate my work.

Unit 36: Studying Music from around the World - Project (Composition & Write-Up)

This is my Africa drumming and percussion composition for my world music project, which uses many techniques and percussive instruments of African music to sound like an authentic African piece. From my research I knew common techniques of african drumming performance was poly-ryhtmns between the performers; where each member of the ensemble plays a different melody simultaneously to create a complex rhythmic blend, call and response; where performers play a short phrase, and then another performer answers it or resolves with their own phrase as a response which is different to the phrase before it, and finally soloing; where one performer takes 8 bars or so to play themselves acting as a bridge between sections.

In my composition I tried to use as many techniques as possible, and simulate what performers of this music would do live, on different tracks of the multitrack. Also, I extended from just the core african wooden drums, to some metallic african percussion and tuned percussion also to add some tonal variation, and a palatable melody as well.

My first technique in this composition to emulate traditional ones is found 8 bars into the composition and is where the first drumming poly-ryhtmn is introduced. In the first 8 bars I make a linear build up from the first drummer, and add some off beat bits, but then the main other drum rythmn appears at bar 9 to show this technique. The original ryhtmn is between a lower an higher drum, the lower on every beat of the bar, so 1, 2, 3 and 4, with the higher playing two in-between on the off beat and in-between the off and following beat, which are quaver beats, where the lower drum is a crotchet beat. Then around 15 seconds in I introduce the drumming polyrhythm which is a short phrase occurring on the second beat of the bar, playing 5 semi-quaver on sixteenth notes, on two different pitched drums in a high-high-low-low-high formation. This offsets the groove of the first rhythm by saturating the amount of beats heard in the middle of the bar, and swings the groove as a result. The constant chime or bell sounds and click sounds also benefit from the polyrhythm's addition.

After 16 bars (around 30 seconds into the composition), I include my first call and response which lasts four bars, each split into two different two bar phrases, the first being the question, and the second being it's answer. The first phrase is the same one bar rhythm repeated twice, again use two high and low drums which makes the phrase clear as we hear the same pattern twice, and the response is three repetitions of a half bar phrase with an alteration in the fourth half bar to lead it back into the verse of the composition if you will. The variation only needs to be subtle, as if each two bar phrase were comprised of 4 totally different half bar phrases, it would begin to sound cluttered and unrealistic as that would be difficult to play live, but the subtle variation at the end means we register the change and aren't bored by the same phrase, but still latch onto the phrase anyway. Another thing I did was, upon re-entry to the "verse" after the four bar call and response was I added another instrument that wasn't there before the break, to further emphasise the return with an addition of volume, and another layer of poly-rhythm. This isn't necessarily a specific technique but it keeps the listener interested, and represents a constant progression in the structure of the piece.I repeat this call and response technique again at 1.05 with a different set of 2 bars calls and responses, further using the technique, and also defining clear sections to the composition in doing so. This stops the track becoming repetitive, which generally leads the listener to boredom, and it introduces a change in dynamics as well as rhythm which the listener will always sub-conciously look for as a point of interest.

At the mid point 2 minutes into this composition, I remove some instruments and begin to build up again linearly, but with different rhythms, clearly defining a B section to the composition. This allows me also to experiment with using different textures and drum sounds too, to give this section a different character to the first. I tried to ensure that all my instruments for this composition sounded organic and authentic, and ensured none of them were in any way supplemented with any obviously synthesised parts that would have no place in a traditional african piece. To do so I stuck rigidly to a set of about 10 sounds, which all sounded like objects made from everyday materials, and made them provide all the different sounds and rhythms without the track becoming too repetitive.

Finally there are short examples of soloing in the track, which are brief because they stop the groove, so shouldn't last too long. These do have different sounds in, but assuming they could be created by one player with two drums and a bell in front of them, they therefore constitute a solo. These happen at 3.10 for 4 bars, and in the ending of the track for four bars also, ending on some fast rolls on one drum, which suggest or emphasise that the track is ending, and create a succinct ending to the composition. Hopefully all these techniques of performance, composition and sound selection are clearly demonstrated in my track above, and make for an authentic replication of a traditional african piece of music.

Unit 36: Studying Music from around the World - Influence on Western music

Examples of World Music in Fusion with Western Music Genres:

1. The Incredible String Band - The Half Remarkable Question

This songs is an example of traditional English folk music being fused with classical Indian music, recorded in 1968. Western bands fusing their musical styles with Indian music was common between 1965-68 in both Britain and the U.S.A., but more often the bands were of rock 'n' roll origin like The Beatles & Stones, but examples like this were also happening with The Incredible String Band, Magic Carpet and Pentangle all fusing folkier sounds with Indian music aiming for a psychedelic result. In this song the traditional Indian instrument brought into accompany the acoustic guitar and vocals is the sitar, upon which the performer duplicates the melody line of the guitar for the introduction. As it typical with indian raga's the chord progression for the most part centre around the one chord (D in this case) and plays notes only in the major scale of this note which means that the sitar can be put to best use with the drone from the sympathetic strings and the chords of the guitarist blending harmonically. The chords, vocal melody and sitar melody of the verses always stay in D major, and in the entire song the only chord changes or different notes used by the vocalist are in the D major scale anyway, and therefore still work harmonically with the drone of the sitar that is always the D.

Apart from these obvious influences, there are compositional similarities between this song and Indian writing too. The vocalist in the chorus uses a melodic phrasing which sounds like a phrase you may hear a sitarist use, because it is modal, which means it uses the notes shape on the C major scale (all white notes on a piano) played D to D, removing the two sharps of the usual D major scale. This means that each note is a tone apart, and when he holds the note at the end of the line "It's the old forgotten question" around 55 seconds into the song, that instead holding the one note he uses the two notes a tone either side (C and E) and these three notes together sound typically eastern because of their modal relationship. This technique is used again with the vocals in a bridge around 2.50 into the song with the notes G, A, B, C again modally to sound eastern, where in a usually D major scale you would use C sharp not a C.

Also the lyrics of this song explore spiritual themes which are so closely tied to the Sitar itself, as the teaching of the instrument is passed down generationally along with spiritual and religious teachings of the Buddhist religion. Lyrics such as "what is it that we are part of"  and "what is it that we are" may reference directly or indirectly religious passages they had read in relation to Buddhism from Guru's or Maharishi's that may have informed their views, or inspired what the song was written about, but this is speculative. These lyrics meet more old fashioned english ones too, synonymous with traditional folk, in lines like "O Long, O Long e're yet my eyes" that sound like writing from older English Literature.

This song doesn't contain any percussion, so only harnesses the melodic indian influence with sitar, but doesn't use tabla's, tambura's or dilruba's like The Beatles song "Within You, Without You" by George Harrison which contains all these, combined with chamber orchestration of western origin. However this song is very closely linked to and inspired by traditional Indian Music, like so much western music from this time period was.

Incredible String Band - Half Remarkable Question

2. Bonobo - Cirrus

On this song, Bonobo combines music of minimal electronic/downtempo style with tuned percussive instruments of eastern origin, creating a fusion of eastern and western music. This track doesn't rely on soft synths or typical electronic textures and sounds for it's key compositional components, but it still maintains a groove and rhythm which you expect to hear from electronic or downtempo music. This kind of electronic music is generally more subtle and chilled than 120BPM Dance music or House music, so lends itself more to softer tones like the ones used to create this track than that sort of electronic music would.

The song build up linearly like a lot of electronic music does, building toward a climactic point towards the end of the piece. This means different instruments are added one by one, playing different rhythms which create poly-rhythms with what's already in the track, and when pads or smooth textures are added, this thickens up the song in both it's layers, frequency content and dynamics. The instruments in this track are chimes and metalophones and which you may find in Gamelan orchestra's in countries like Indonesia. They sound similar to vibraphones which are used in western orchestra's and American Jazz ensembles. These instruments are subtle, and their tones are soft compared to synthesisers used in harder dance music.

There are similarities to Gamelan in this Bonobo track, and some differences also. First of all, a difference is this track contains no breaks in rhythm for call and response techniques, or rests like Gamelan does, but that's because the foundation to this track is the constant four four kid drum and this style of music isn't intended to stop like Gamelan is, just to build up in the linear sense. However there are rhythmical similarities in the layering of percussion. 30 seconds into the track you can hear over the space of 16 bars that there's a kick drum on every beat, a snare drum on every other beat, two hats per beat, and then sprinkled across the 16 bars at irregular intervals are the chimes of metallic instruments like hand cymbals, tibetan bowls and met allophone hits, which when layered with these other things create complex and varying poly-rythms which develop throughout the track to keep the listener interested. A bassline is also introduced, which is more from the electronic background, but again shares similarities with Gamelan as they use large Gongs to create bass tones, if not necessarily basslines, and large drums for baser rhythms also. There is some call and response in the rhythmic hook of this song though, as one instrument begins with a rhythm looped four times, and then a different instrument responds with another phrase, looping twice but covering the same amount of bars, which is a sort of call and response between these two parts.

Bonobo - Cirrus

3. Joni Mitchell - The Jungle Line

This Joni Mitchell song from 1975 represents a fusion of her Folk/Songwriter background with developing Jazz influences and African drumming which provides the rhythmic backbone of the song and creates the afro fusion. The drumming on this song is played by The Royal Drummers of Burundi who are a percussion ensemble from the Republic nation, which borders Rwanda and The United Republic of Tanzania. They play percussive instruments, native to their country called Karyenda drums, which are made from hollowed tree trunks with animal skins stretched over the top. The instruments were important in their culture for dances and entertainment, and the group would perform at events like weddings and coronations, as well as appearing on recordings like this one. The drums are sampled from a recording they made.

The use of the drummers on this song gives it the steady, pounding rhythm you'd associate with african drumming music, which isn't used in Joni Mitchell's earlier work, showing her compositional growth and interest in other cultures, sourcing her inspiration to continue making music, given she'd been successful for 6 or so years before this track was released. The theme of the song refers broadly to nature, but the jungle references may explain the inclusion and influence of african music. The writing style is jazzy though as well, as the changes of chords and notes, and the scattered sections of woodwind and horns all sound reminiscent of experimental modern jazz and jazz fusion, like Sun Ra and late 1960's Miles Davis records. Lyrics like "The savage progress cuts the jungle line" may refer to natural habitat being destroyed for the sake of development, making this a form of protest song.

Her lyrics reference nature, animals and landscape of africa, but put them in the setting of America, which she is familiar with, and in doing so give her opinions on the themes of development and protest in this song with lines like "And metal skin and ivory birds, Go steaming up to Rousseau's vines, They go steaming up to Brooklyn Bridge". This song is transformed from a standard jazz-rock song to a world music piece with the inclusion of african drums, which add to the overall sound of the composition.

Joni Mitchell - The Jungle Line

Unit 20: Music & Sound for the Moving Image - Videos

Honda Foley FX Track

Honda Music Track

Combined Video

Accompanying Write-Up

I began to soundtrack this visual by finding and creating foley effects, and synchronising those with the visual so that it looked like the collision of two objects on screen had created the sound I had positioned. I knew the majority of the sounds I'd have to find or make would be metal on metal and this helped me to refine my searching somewhat. I created effects myself using ES2, when I couldn't find an adequate one to use. For example the sound effect for the windscreen wiper flying through the air was made in ES2, with LFO rate controlling cutoff to simulate a rotation in mid air, and also using noise as well as another oscillator wave for the whooshing sound of air resistance. I also found an atmospheric sound which made the foley track feel like it was in the room we see in the visual, as it looks like it would be reflective with the hard surfaces and wood floor, so adding the atmosphere sample and some reverb of this sort of room size to my foley made it seem like it was in this room.

Once all foley effects were made, synchronised and at what I deemed to be at a realistic volume, I set about composing some music to accompany it, following the brief I'd outlined earlier for the style of the music.  I began with percussion, trying to make sure that as the foley effects were synched to the visual and couldn't move, that the rhythm of my track didn't interrupt these sounds, and it didn't all sound clashing from each other. I then added the synths which I wanted to sound a bit industrial but still melodic, and then a bassline, and the jazzy keys toward the middle of the track. 

Unit 10: DJ Skills - Final DJ Performance Video

Unit 10: DJ Skills - Video 1

Unit 20: Music & Sound for the Moving Image - Write-Up

This written piece is a breakdown of the three key components of soundtracking, focussing on the audio, visual and structural aspects that make up film, television programming, advertising music videos and documentaries. They are all crucial to each other, and often in the case of composing music to video, the score can tell as much of a story as the visuals can.

Audio Components

Audio in relation to sound and moving image covers everything that can be heard along with watching a piece of video footage. It can consist of speech like monologue or dialogue forming either a non-diegetic narrative, or a diegetic conversation between actors on screen, as well as covering any ambience or atmospheric sound to give the feel of the setting the film is shot in, any background or foreground dialogue, overdubbed foley FX linked to the visual action and music both as a composed score,more abstract collage of soundbites from all the for mentioned elements to act as a sound accompaniment or existing recorded music licensed for use with the motion picture.

Firstly speech is the most commonly found audio in film, television or documentary work. It can be either diegetic on non-diegetic. Diegetic is where it is purposely fitted with the image or suggested to be part of what's happening in the image, so what a character in the image is saying, or a sound of a gunshot if somebody shoots a gun on screen and we see it happen. Non-diegetic therefore is something we hear with no direct relation to what we see on screen, so this could be a narration to the images like a storytelling, or in documentary's giving us factual information about what we are seeing. An example of these two things is below. The clip from stand by me contains the main character as a child with his friends finding a dead body, and then the voice of his older self narrates the situation they've just entered into, with no relation to the characters on screen, just as a retrospective narration not in the time of the video. This occurs 45 seconds into the video clip.

Stand By Me Clip

Below is an example of diegetic dialogue, which is more common. Often in recent cinema history this is overdubbed by the actors in the studio after filming has ended, so the recorded dialogue is clean and well recorded. It's very rare for any original sounds, ambience or speech to be kept from the original source material which is why soundtracking is so crucial to moving image in any form. There are examples in film where overdubbed dialogue is noticeably out of sync with the mouth movements of the actors on screen which is an obvious floor of overdubbing especially with older film where limited technology and recording to tape made the process more difficult than it is today. Below is a clip from a western classic in which dialogue is overdubbed poorly and is clearly not said by the actors at the time, and on occasion barely mirrors the mouth movements of the actors. This can be down to the different languages the film was made in, but in this case it isn't. The majority of examples in film are unnoticeable overdubs, but this clip shows more clearly than a good example how overdubbing is done, and this is evident from 1 min 10 into the clip. 

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Clip

Atmosphere and foley effects are used to bring to live what is seen in the video, and to give you the feel of what the place on screen is like, and aims to transport you to that place with accurate recreations of the common sounds heard in such settings. Foley effects which are overdubbed recorded sounds of what you would expect to hear when something happens be it very minor or significant like a slamming door, footsteps a gunshot etc. These effects add emphasis to the action taking place on screen and can be overly dramatic depending on the genre or intention of the footage, and many directors play on this as a technique in their film making. An example of this is Edgar Wright and his film Hot Fuzz, in which he uses very dramatic almost unrealistically dramatic sound effects for common occurrences that he has noticed from the films he was inspired by. Here's a Hot Fuzz clip that illustrates this technique. It contains large echoey sounds when slamming hands on the table, which seem to contain a sort of sub bass tone or reverse hit to emphasise the impact, and also when the door is opened in the clip it's a very loud squeak to add emphasis to the another character having entered the scene. These are seen throughout this clip, and indeed throughout much of the film.

Hot Fuzz Clip

A more clear example of atmosphere can be found in scenes in public places, where the characters could be in a pub, at a train station or in the street, where the atmospheric sounds need to convince the audience that they're hearing the sounds of this setting and not rouse suspicion that they may be overdubbed or from another setting altogether. Attention would be paid to the amount of voices in creating a background drone of conversation depending on how many people are in the background of a scene or in the vicinity of the setting, and also typical sounds the brain may expect to hear, for example in a pub the clink of glasses or darts hitting a dart board, or in the case of a train station the sound of whistles, distant PA announcements and squeaking breaks on tracks. Recording for this could be field recordings taken specifically for the piece, from the setting in which the scene takes place and in similar conditions to ensure its accurate, or it could be taken from an archive of popular or good atmosphere's and do the job just as well. A good film example of this is in the following clip from Harry Potter on the platform of the train station. We hear typical noise pollution from traffic outside, occasional train track sounds and 45 seconds in a distant announcement, as well as the sound of the trolley Harry is pushing as well. The key to this atmosphere is subtlety, and is almost best if you don't notice it as it proves therefore it is doing it's intended job by being unobtrusive but subliminally ensuring you are aware of the setting of this scene.

Harry Potter Clip

Finally a key audio component to a moving image is a musical accompaniment in the form of a score, existing piece of popular music or an abstract set of sounds depending on the style or intended emotions the creators wish to evoke in people with the scene. This is arguably the most important part of audio to moving image, and has been said that a score can make or break a film. Scoring in the classic sense is a composer writing a classical/orchestral or rather more contemporary (for the time) set of musical pieces to accompany scenes, and help tell the story on a more emotional level, and to convey a story with more than just dialogue.

Firstly, an example of use of existing music appropriate for use in a scene as requested by the director for the scene as they envisaged it. A great example is Quentin Tarrentino's use of Stuck in the Middle with You in the scene from Reservoir Dogs. This music works for many reasons, firstly as it is a tune synonymous of a certain era, which the radio station it's played upon is keen to play. The character puts that song on it cleverly switches from a diegetic to non-diegetic use of the song, as first we hear it muffled and filtered as it would sound were we hearing it from the single radio speaker sat in the position of the tied up Police man. Then it becomes full fidelity and totally present in the speakers, as the action on screen takes over our attention, and the tune therefore becomes non-diegetic, until the character who put it on begins to sing to it, his vocals bringing it back the diegetic again. It's a great choice of song for the scene too due to it's ironic timing of lyrics and the irony of it's happy-go-lucky vibe given the police man's horrific predicament. The placement of the lyric "It's so hard to keep the smile from my face" just as the policeman has his ear cut into by the other character. This is the only real reason an existing piece of music would be used for a scene, rather than a bespoke composition being created to do the job. However, when writing a film about a certain scene, era or period of time songs must spring to mind which would fit perfectly if not in sync with a scene, but the time of the film making it especially real for those watching who may have experienced the time. A great example of this is The Boat That Rocked, which uses 60's hits by The Beach Boys, Turtles, Kinks & Rolling Stones to fit the period of time in which the story is set which is England 1967 aboard a pirate radio station, making these tunes the obvious choices for use in accompaniment to the visuals. But anyway, in this case here is the Reservoir Dogs clip illustrating a use of popular music in film for a specific and ironic effect.

Reservoir Dogs Clip

Another clever technique used, is that when the character leaves the warehouse the music stops, as if he we, like him, are out of earshot of the radio, and then we re-enter than warehouse and the track resumes, adding reality to the use of the sounds. While outside, we hear a typical neighbourhood ambience, which is use of the earlier mentioned technique. So altogether this is optimum use of existing music, fit for it's purpose and more appropriate than any bespoke music could be for this scene, with the added bonus of relatable music for audience members.

Scores made especially for a film were typically devised by trained composers, working closely with the director to know the story line and the scenes they were writing for inside out before making any music for them. A classical score for large orchestra is a staple sound of the classic horror film, with  dissonance and staccato stabs being clever techniques to accompany specific on screen actions, and evoke fright in the audience. A good score could pre empt an imminent event, and plant the seed in their head that something was about to happen and leave them on a knife edge until it did happen, and a typical visual surprised would occur with a perfectly synchronised abrupt orchestra stab at high volume for full scaring effect on the audience. The most famous example of the compositional and playing techniques in a classical score is for the well known shower scene of Anthony Hopkins' Psycho, scored by Bernard Hermann. As the murderer approaches the victim their is silence but as the shower curtain is pulled back the sticatto stabs of strings begin and as the victim is stabbed they add dissonant harmony and rise in urgency. This happens around 1.30 into this clip, but before that sees a more tranquil and mellow side to Hermann's score, which makes the murder a more poignant contrast in sound, but also doesn't allude to the shock murder to follow, which is classic diversity and clever score writing.
Psycho clip

Another feature of a score is a character motif, written to appear whenever a character is seen on screen, and to change the character or tone of the scene, and lead us to either empathise with or dislike a certain character, a technique dating back to early days of cinema, when the score was gaining importance. A great example of motif's is in the 1933 King Kong, where the Gorilla and it's female captive have their own motif's which reflect their personalities, and purposefully lead us to form our opinion on them. Faye Wray, the female character has a soft and delicate light motif played with warm chords to make us thing she's a good person we should back, where as king kong's motif though using the same notes in a slightly different variation is played with aggression and sounds foreboding, telling us king kong is the bad character that we should be afraid of.

Finally a score can be more abstract and not follow a typical musical structure, but suit the picture perfectly. A great example of an abstract ambient score with harsh FM synthesised cracks to represent hearing damaged from fired canon's is that in the psychedelic film A Field in England by Ben Wheatley, scored by James (Jim) Williams. This clip of the "psychedelic scene" represents a mushroom fuelled drug trip for the main character, where he has his civil war trauma re-enacted, and represented by the harsh FM synth tones around 3.30 into this clip. It is a spacious, dissonant score that seems to follow no time scale or tempo, so catches you out, and also the mood is perfectly fitted to the fast cut of two scenes being laid over each other rapidly to trick your vision and bring on a sort of psychedelic viewing experience, which the odd and ambient score with occasional sounds perfectly compliments. This happens around 2.30 into the scene, with the fast cutting shortly after, creating this desired effect.
A Field in England clip

The music from A Field in England, King Kong and Psycho is all incidental, meaning it was composed to the visuals, and for the visuals, were as the musical examples from The Boat That Rocked and Reservoir Dogs aren't. The songs are more of a soundtrack than a score, but these can cross over.

Video Components

The visual components of a  piece of film or television refer to anything we see on screen as an audience member, the way the images we see are edited and the effects applied to them to alter our perception of what we are seeing, and enhance simple visuals with techniques to interest and stimulate us contributing to an interesting overall experience.

The first visual component is whether what we see is real, as in using real actors, sets and props, or is animated or indeed a hybrid of these two things. This is often dictated by the themes, style or genre of the film and of course whether it is a fictional piece like a film would be, or a factual programme like a documentary which would use real footage with little simulation of anything to preserve the reality. Factually documentaries do have some editing techniques however to make them more interesting and revealing of the action to the viewer, for example in nature documentaries scenes are slowed down to only a few frames per second to show us in great detail what's happening so we can fully take it in. Other than this nothing much is added to a documentary style visual, or augmented for our entertainment as the key is to be educational and true to life. Here's a clip from a BBC nature documentary exhibiting the slow motion for purposes of explanation, with serious and factual narration adding to the overall formality in informative style of the piece. The slow motion in this clip is to show a predator stalking pray, and is useful for us to fully understand the predatory technique. This occurs at 1.20 into the clip, and Attenborough provides insightful and factual narration throughout, befitting the style.
Planet Earth Clip

Contrasting visual techniques are to be found in entertainment films, which allow for more creativity, and augmentation of reality due to their allowance to be fictitious and outlandish. This is often put to use in scenes of animation rather than using real actors and sets, as it means far more unattainable things can be achieved, for example strange coloured landscapes, bizarre characters of strange and inhuman appearance, and personifying animals, giving them human voices and character traits. This is shown well in this random acts episode, where Jarvis Cocker voices the sun in the sky, which could only be done in a fictional, and light hearted animated piece, and the characters are animals larger than real life, in odd colours as is the landscape around them. This exhibits the endless possibility of animation, and that it's unrestricted in ways real acting and film is.

Random Acts no.505 clip

There are also film examples which show a hybrid of real acting, with animation utilised in the story to represent distant events happening from the characters, which are integral to the story but don't necessarily have to be real to have the desired effect or tell us the information we need to know. This is well used in the film Bunny & The Bull, and some of it's many advantages are that it doesn't cost as much as staging and recording the footage would with actors and sets and can be taken in any direction with no realistic restriction meaning it can stray into a psychedelic area, which can also be very appealing to viewers as it presents an escapism from real life which is nice to experience in a film. This clip shows a good use of real actors, and animated visual components. In the clip the two actors are acting in front of green screen. Behind them is a seemingly hand drawn and coloured backdrop of a restaurant interior, which adds a surrealism to the scene, but rather than just being a still backdrop, animated cars and cyclists are visible moving past the window, adding to the combination of real and unreal elements working parallel to each in the same film.
Bunny & The Bull clip

This could just be viewed as a lazy way to save money for the production of the film, but I think it's a nice technique, serving as a constant reminder of the theme of the story and the character traits of the main character who is fundamentally scared of the real world, so in this case the animated elements to me make total sense. Compared however to big budget films like Star Wars for example, where anything surreal is created using as much real acting, visuals, props and costumes and props as possible it may not be as good as this is for convincing us of the possible reality of the far fetched story, despite this not always being a film intention, it does make for an interesting contrast.

Also films can use surreal footage and varying camera shots to convey the experience of a character and show their emotions and thoughts in metaphorical sense. In this clip from Trainspotting where the protagonist is being weened off heroin, his hallucinations are represented by strange happenings in his room, like baby's crawling on the ceiling, and his friends appearing in his bed with him. The camera angles vary from up at ceiling hight and wide angled to show the hole room and the character as a small portion of this, and then zooming right up into his face with a shaky camera showing his pain, and representing his bodies reaction to not having the drugs he's become addicted to. The tv clips he see's of gameshows answering questions related to heroin addiction, and the people appearing in his room in prison outfits for example, act as visual metaphors for what he's thinking and considering, like the consequences of his addiction being shown with the threat of inprisonment and potential contraction of disease. We realise these things from different camera angles, one as if we're the main character looking out at what he'd be seeing, putting us in his shoes, and then on the character himself so we as outsiders see his circumstances as onlookers, so experience many sides of the story from camera angles and visual metaphors alone. Here's the Trainspotting clip displaying all of this.
Trainspotting clip

Another common visual technique to add style and momentum to a visual sequence is editing between scenes, which can be done creatively to completely alter how we watch what's on screen. Examples of this could be a simple transition from one scene to the next where an object or person passing the view causes the transition, which is called a sweep. These are common in action films or action parodies like Hot Fuzz which I used a clip from earlier, and these fast cuts keep us constantly on edge and ready to see what's going to happen. This would be a rather subtle use of the technique, but it can be taken much further to create a scene that begins to trick your brain into trying to follow two scene simultaneously, when they're being layered one over the other in very quick succession which creates a strange, psychedelic effect, which I've seen best put to use in the clip from A Field in England which I linked for the sound earlier, but will link again for the editing use of this psychedelic scene. This technique occurs 3.10 into the clip, and from there to the end of the clip.

A Field in England clip

Finally an visual technique to comment on is how credits, and other necessary visual information is incorporated in the visuals we see. In older pictures the credits would often introduce the film, with a clip playing behind them which dropped you into the story, without you loosing too much information if you don't pay great attention to the scene. This is used in the Italian Job title sequence, where behind the cast list we see from the point of view of the driver of an expensive sports car, driving through the mountains on winding roads, giving us a great entry point to the story and a visual and mental stimulation with the inherent excitement of this as if we were doing it ourselves. The wide angle alpine shots also are a nice introduction to the film as they're visually stunning, but set the scene for us without the need of any dialogue or cue.

Italian Job clip

Structural Components

The overall structure of the film comprises heavily of the visual and audible elements, especially the visual editing and cutting which dictates the flow and progression of the film, but it also is important to remember how the film can be deconstructed and used for say the purposes of advertising the film, and how it can be suggested to follow a certain story arc when it's intact quite different, but still entice a potential viewer to watch it. The recent trailer for Godzilla used this greatly, as it took clips from the full film, and fed is information bit by bit, never at first revealing the Godzilla creature, but as we expect from the title it's showing us the hysteria caused by it, and teasing at showing us the creature then holding back to leave us with suspense, and dying to see more. Trailers require clever structural choice, so not to spoil anything we don't want to know before watching the film, but giving us enough information to be hooked on the storyline. This particular trailer harnesses audio and visual elements to set the theme of it from the off. The first sound we hear is a combined wind and deep sub bass, which sound perilous and epic, then the first diegetic voice we hear is of officials debating what appears to be the epidemic, and then we see some shots of destruction, from the hight of helicopters, but also out the window of a house giving us the domestic perspective that we may experience if we saw this unravelling from our own homes. Then the atmosphere's are introduced, foley effects of helicopters, dramatic destructive explosions and sounds of tidal waves or tsunami's all being cause by Godzilla, but we still don't see a full shot of Godzilla. The music intensifies with a baritone male ensemble, making an even more intense sound, but then as the trailer draws to a close and we've seen the consequence of what Godzilla is doing, we still don't see the creature in full, which leaves us needing that final piece of the puzzle we can only obtain by paying the watch the full film. This is a great example of harnessing structure to entice us into wanting to watch a film, using things that shock us, or evoke any sort of emotion inside us, as creating an emotional tie with something it what makes us want to see something the most. Below is the link to the trailer, exhibiting all these things.

Godzilla trailer

In conclusion each component is integral to the finished product, and neuter is sufficient by itself. Without sound the visuals lack impact, and without visual the sounds aren't for any purpose, and we don't get the story from them alone. Structure ties these two things by creating a coherent narrative or structure to a piece, leaving space for us the make our interpretations when necessary, and ensuring we see all we need to see to think we've worked out everything we need to.