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Tuesday, 2 July 2013

CHOOSING A MUSIC VIDEO GENRE

CHOOSING A MUSIC VIDEO GENRE

Knowing the genre of a music video helps a director clearly define the style of a video. It's important to know their details so that you can make sure your video not only matches the artist's demands but connects with your audience as well.
Video Transcript

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CHOOSING A MUSIC VIDEO GENRE

CHOOSING A MUSIC VIDEO GENRE

Knowing the genre of a music video helps a director clearly define the style of a video. It's important to know their details so that you can make sure your video not only matches the artist's demands but connects with your audience as well.
Video Transcript
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Monday, 1 July 2013

SCREEN ACTING TIPS – A SHORT GUIDE TO SUCCESS*

SCREEN ACTING TIPS – A SHORT GUIDE TO SUCCESS*
I. Basic Screen Acting Etiquette:
1. Always keep going until the director shouts “Cut!” and then keep on acting for a bit.
2. If you mess up a line, keep going until the director call a halt to the take. Let it be HIS decision.
3. Do not stop a take for any reason, except for possible injury or death.
4. Never look directly into the camera lens unless specifically requested to do so.
5. Never ask the director what size of shot it is – ask the camera operator.
6. Hit your mark! Being in the right place is often more important than saying the right line.
7. Maintain your concentration and eyelines all through the tedium of lineup and rehearsal; it helps both
your fellow actors and the crew.
8. An actor only has status between “Action!” and “Cut!” Exception: A star may have it all the time.
9. Never say you do not want to play a role; say that you are unavailable. Never say “No,” say
“Maybe” instead.
II. The Camera Lens:
1. Generally, ignore the camera lens; let it “find and reveal” you.
2. Don’t merely cheat an eyeline, motivate it.
3. If both your eyes cannot “see” the camera lens, your face will appear to be obscured.
4. Keep on an imaginary narrow path that stretches out from the front of the camera. Remember that
shots are composed in depth, not width.
5. In a 3-shot, put the lens in the middle of the gap, not yourself.
6. If you have trouble hitting a mark, line up 2 objects at the final position you have to hit. Establish a
“web.”
7. Shoulders angled toward the camera often look better than straight-on ones.
III. The Frame:
1. When doing commercials, cheat all business, hands (gestures), and important props (product) up
into the “hot” area in closeups.
2. Adjust your acting style within the frame according to the size of shot:
a. Long Shot = large gestures/scale – back of the house (theatre)
b. Medium Shot = smaller scale, intimate arena theatre, theatrical reality.
c. Medium Close Up = Actual reality; the real thing
d. Extreme Close Up = Very intimate; think it, put all concentration/energy into your face.
3. Be prepared to stand embarrassing close when acting and speaking with other characters.
4. There is no reality outside the frame; time and/or distance outside the frame may be expanded or
contracted.
IV. Vocal Tips:
1. Project only as far as your fellow actor(s).
2. Intensity can be created by increasing enunciation and pace, not volume.
3. When the camera is moving with you (tracking), talk fast but move slow.
4. If you are told to tone it all down, try reducing only your volume but keeping the scale of your
gestures (such notes usually refer to the voice).
5. Be aware that when speaking with a strong accent there is a tendency to speak louder – don’t.
6. With a studio audience, if they can hear you without the benefit of microphones, you are probably
speaking too loudly.
7. Never project louder than the star (or regulars on a series). They set the style for the program.
8. When speaking at low levels, all other sounds seem too loud, so take care with all footsteps,
clattering cups, newspaper rustling – even breathing.
9. When speaking at low levels, do not lose energy or adopt a slower pace.
10. As the scene builds, you would expect the voices to rise, but since the shots are liable to get
tighter, you have to square the circle by getting more intense – and quieter – at the same time.
11. Gently ask if you are going to be in a contained 2-shot, or if they are going to cross-cut with
reverses, in which case be prepared to not overlap dialogue.

V. Acting for the Camera:
1. Your main acting note is the you were given the part, so work your looks, personality, and
background into your performance. Use yourself. That is what they purchased.
2. The shots the director chooses are in themselves acting notes, so obey their implicit instructions:
a. Long Shot = allow your body to do the talking. (Be bigger).
b. Reaction shot = do a reaction (even if you feel you are “pulling faces”).
c. Two-shot + react as you listen to the other actor.
d. Close-up = put your thoughts onto your face.
e. Close-up of your hand holding a prop = channel your acting and thoughts into that.
3. Do all your acting to an Audience of One – the other player (the camera will pick you up).
4. Create good acting reasons for all your pieces of business (including camera-motivating ones).
5. Learn your lines well. They should fit you like a glove. If they don’t, and you don’t have the
rehearsal time to create the character who would say those lines, then ask to change them.
6. Find positive ways of communicating negative thoughts.
7. Give yourself something to do after a shot ends!!! This will keep your face alive right to the end of
the take.
8. Let your inner voice give you those continuous instructions that silent movie actors got from their
directors’ megaphones.
9. Let an acting impulse that would lead to a move on stage lead to a gesture or look on the screen.
10. When the camera is on you in a single shot, it is as if you were alone on a stage and ll the other
performers were in the wings: now how do you act?
VI. The Editor:
1. The better your continuity, the easier it is for the editor to cut to you for your best moments.
2. Editors like to cut on movements, so put some in before one of your important bits of acting.
3. Mark changes of thought with appropriate pieces of business.
4. During a speech, look at the other characters. The editor needs your “eyeflashes” to motivate cuts.
5. Reactions don’t have to be logical or consistent. The editor is only looking for a slice of a good
reaction, and several different ones give him/her a better choice (to cut to you!).

VII. Reactions and Business:
1. React before you speak, and react to the upcoming thought. This is best done on the intake of
breath before the line.
2. React while others are speaking – on screen we watch the listening character.
3. The best moments are nonverbal ones – so give yourself time.
4. Learn all your lines and business in advance of the shoot very very well. During the shoot you will
be concentrating on all the new things, such as remembering camera angles and hitting marks.
But also be prepared to change lines and business at the very last moment – be flexible in a very
cooperative way.
5. Pace consists of continuous events, not continuous speaking.
6. Fully motivate any large reactions. Don’t reduce your size, increase your believability.
7. Remember the camera cannot follow fast movements, so lift that cup slowly, gently rise up out of
that chair.
8. In a multicamera studio a red light means the camera is on, so keep a reaction on your face until it
has been sampled by that camera.
9. Eyes can be very effective. Try looking up as well as down, especially when “listening” to another
character. Some try looking from one eye to the other.
10. At an interview and reading, plan at least one major reaction in the middle of a reading. Remember
to react during the “feed” lines, and to keep your eyes up.
VIII. Some Final Thoughts:
1. To come across as truthful and believable needs both talent, technique, and brains.
2. Don’t panic over any problem. There has never been a trouble-free shoot, and anyway tomorrow’s
problem is already in the mail.
3. Don’t do today’s job as an audition for tomorrow’s. Do it because this is what you want to do
today. Play for the moment at hand. Concentrate on today’s acting.
4. All rules are made to be broken – so know which rules you are breaking! And have a good reason
for doing so.
5. If screen acting is going to be a very important part of your career, find out how to enjoy and relish
it all. If you allow it, it can (and should) be a lot of fun.
* Adapted from “The Famous Screen Acting Checklist” in SECRETS OF SCREEN ACTING, by
Patrick Tucker, Routledge, 1994.
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FILM ACTING


FILM ACTING

BACKGROUND ACTORS

A great way to enter the world of film acting is to work as an extra on film sets. (Although you won’t be called an “extra” on-set; instead, you will be referred to as “background.”) You can find calls for extras on the Internet as well as in publications like Backstage, Hollywood Reporter, and Variety. Background casting calls are also sent out by agencies that specialize in background casting. You can find these agencies listed in Ross Reports or online. Doing background work or taking a small role in a student film is another excellent way to cut your teeth. Any university with a film department will have postings announcing casting. When you get a background job, find out if you need to bring your own clothing/make-up. Also, be sure to arrive on time for your call and/or your pick-up location. Unless you are told otherwise, plan to stay on location all day. If you have any other appointments that day you should either reschedule them or do not take the background job. PAs (Production Assistants) will be your main contact for the day, and are not interested in hearing about anything else you have to do besides their film!
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EXTRA TIME

When you are doing background work, be prepared to do a lot of waiting. Some background talent may get booked for a day and end up spending 15 hours in “holding” usually a large hall or space that serves as a waiting room/dining hall/lounge/dressing room. Sometimes, background actors wait all day long and are never called to work. You’ll still get paid; don’t worry. Two important tips:
  1. Bring a book or knitting or something to do while you wait. Don’t sleep; if you get called, you’ll need to be up and energetic at a moment’s notice.
  2. When you are on-screen, remember you are background. Do not call attention to yourself. Keep your movements at a minimum, even your facial expressions.
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HIT YOUR MARK

One of the most important tips about film acting is “hitting your mark.” It can also be the hardest part to learn. Unless you’re in film that’s being shot with a handheld camera that is following you around, you will need to learn this important skill.
Before cameras begin to roll, your spot for the scene will be marked on the floor, usually in a n X or T formation with some glaring piece of colored tape. When you enter the scene, your job is not only to walk directly to that spot and stay put or you’ll wander off screen and make the director very unhappy. On top of that you need to look natural doing it! See why it’s hard? If you have a video camera and tripod, try setting up shots for yourself at home as practice.
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ON BEING "NORMAL"

Film acting is very appealing to many performers because it allows them to be “normal.” There is no need for over-the-top physicality as stage acting requires. Sets are actual places, not made of wood and canvas. There is no immediate audience; your only concern are your scene partners. (Of course, you have tons of crew, equipment, lights and camera in your face, but when you’re living in a scene, these factors all away.) Actors are able to delve into the roles they play as though putting on the suit of another person’s body. When they appear in front of the camera, they are not acting the characteristics of that person, they are that person. Actually, it’s the most abnormal thing an individual can be! There can be a danger in this dissolution of self into the role you are playing. Remember that once the cameras stop rolling, you have a life – your own life. You must respect it and take care of yourself. If you don’t, you will inevitably be unable to tap into your resources to bring life to future characters you play since there won’t be anything there to tap into.
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PULLING BACK

There is a misunderstanding about what it means to “pull back” in film acting. Let's clarify: by no means does it refer to lowering your energy or the strength of your character on screen. It does, however, refer to pulling back on your physical gestures. Watching someone wriggling around gesticulating wildly is more than distracting on screen. If you must move, make sure your movements are in-character and germane to the scene. Even if your character has a twitch, choreograph it so that you are not distracting from the other actors who share the scene with you.
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SAG

SAG is the Screen Actors Guild – the union for professional screen actors. In order to join SAG, you must have performed in a SAG film, television program, videotape, or commercial. You can also join by having worked as background on a SAG film as long as you were paid SAG rates and worked a minimum of three consecutive days. Members of affiliated performers’ unions such as ACTRA, AEA, AFTRA, AGMA or AGVA can also apply for membership once they have been in their union for one year in good standing (i.e., paid dues) and worked at least once as a principal (lead role) on-screen or in voice-over work. Rates and benefits of being a SAG member can be found on their website atwww.sag.org.
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SHHHH!

When you are on stage, projecting your voice is essential. On film, however, the set is full of audio recording devices from lav mics to booms – all designed to pick up your tiniest finger-tap. A dead giveaway that an actor has transitioned from stage to screen with no additional training is when s/he appears to be yelling lines. There is no need. In fact, film is designed to be true to life, so the same vocal level you use to talk to anyone in your daily life is the same you’d use on a film set.
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Saturday, 29 June 2013

21 pro mixing and processing tips

Software mixing is now extremely popular.


Get your music up to studio quality

It’s all very well having great ideas and getting them recorded and arranged, but if you want your music to sound professional, you’ll need to blend everything together successfully at the mixing/processing stage.
Unfortunately, the pitfalls when you’re doing this are many, and getting all the elements of your track to sit together is difficult. Fortunately, MusicRadar is on hand to give you 21 pearls of technical and creative wisdom…
1. There’s a very practical reason that you should start with heavy elements such as the kick drum and bass when mixing – headroom! Set your kick and bass levels so that they only register about a quarter of the way up the level meter when it’s set to 0dB. This will leave lots of room to boost later – and you’ll always want room to nudge your kick up!
2. Try to keep your master output level well below 0dB – peaking about halfway up the meter is fine – so as not to risk any digital clipping or distortion. In these days of noise-free digital mixing, you can always raise the level later before limiting it.
3. You can help different groups of sounds to gel coherently (drums or vocals, for example) by routing them to a bus and processing them as a whole. It’s also useful for keeping the CPU load down and makes gating and compressing the group easier.
4. Mixing is the one part of the creative production process where you need to have the volume quite loud, as you won’t actually hear the proper relationship between sounds otherwise – this is particularly true with dance music. Work in spurts to check this, though - don’t just leave it loud all the time. You can’t fix broken ears.
5. Be careful of any effect that makes a signal louder, as the volume increase alone can give the illusion of a ‘better’ sound. Compression is a good example of this. Louder isn’t necessarily better, so always be sure to A/B your new and old settings to make sure that you are actually improving the sound rather than just boosting it.
6. If you compress the life out of all the elements in your track then that’s exactly how your finished mix will sound too. And while this is a standard technique in dance music these days, even in that genre there are limits. So dial back the settings a little sometimes, and use sidechaining to add some bounce and life.
7. In the analogue mixing days it was common practice to place a compressor on the main output to keep the signal below 0dB and add a bit of weight, but with modern digital mixing you can keep things low enough not to peak and still preserve the range. Don’t risk squashing the life out of your music – leave those sorts of decisions for the mastering engineer.
“Always be sure to A/B your new and old settings to make sure that you are actually improving the sound rather than just boosting it.”
8. Before sending your track to anybody (or burning a CD), always check your mixdown back after bouncing. Even with software, little errors can creep in that aren’t audible during real-time playback. If you come across a glitch, rendering the problem section separately and pasting it into the mixdown will do the trick…
9. Always trust your ears first and foremost. Music isn’t for looking at, so if something doesn’t appear right onscreen, or looks like it has too many (or too few) effects, close your eyes (or switch off your monitor) and play it back. If it sounds right, it is right; if it sounds wrong… well, you figure it out!
10. Unlike with your final mix, you shouldn’t always shy away from overdriving the odd channel. We’re not suggesting that you max everything out into the red all the time, but if you have one or two elements sneaking into that range and they don’t sound bad (or sound better, even), then why worry? Trust your ears!
11. When two instruments share a range of frequencies (vocals and guitars, for example), apply an EQ cut to one to make the other pop through. For example, some attenuation in the 300Hz-3kHz range of your guitars and synths will help the vocal cut through.
12. The easiest way to home in on a problem frequency that needs cutting is to apply a boost using a parametric EQ and sweep the frequency back and forth until you hear the problem area get louder. Then use the Q control to narrow it down and, finally, turn the boost into a cut.
13. Many producers try to beef up the bass with low-shelving boost, but this can just make the sound muddy. Instead, try cutting out about 1dB with low shelving, then use a little bit of notch boost (1-3dB) and sweep the centre frequency between about 80Hz and 120Hz, as this is where the weight and punch of the bass is – the rest is just rumble!
14. Synthesizers are capable of throwing out some weird harmonics, so sometimes you might need to detune them slightly to make them sound right together. And this is even more true of samples, as they tend to have subtle sonic artefacts that can confuse things even further.
“When two instruments share a range of frequencies (vocals and guitars, for example), apply an EQ cut to one to make the other pop through.”
15. If you always use an effect as an insert, try using it on a send/return bus, and vice versa. It’s all too easy to settle into certain ways of working, but as producers, our sound will be defined by our techniques, so if these never change then neither will the sound of our music – and production should be about progression.
16. The last thing you want when mixing is the dreaded CPU overload, so to get rid of the problem it may well be worth bouncing down or freezing all of your parts as audio and then making final mix and processing adjustments. With certain software, doing this could arguably result in better signal quality, too.
17. The key to great sounding ambience is to use a couple of reverb buses – one each for bright and heavy sounds. Then use plenty of low EQ attenuation to keep things clean on the heavier sounds and trim off some of the top end on the brighter ones.
18. We’ve already said that you should always start your mixdown with the heaviest elements, but what next? Well, we reckon it’s lead sounds, such as vocals, synths and guitars. Get these right and then slide your other percussion up behind them – this way you won’t keep nudging the lead parts up to get them to fit with everything else.
19. Never neglect compression. Nothing upsets the balance of a mix quite like fluctuating volume levels. They make vocalists sound insecure and musicians sound clumsy, so use plenty of judicious compression to flatten the levels to consistency – sometimes two gentle compressors are smoother than one firm one.
20. Spend some time listening to the effect of various compression settings on different instruments. On vocals it can enhance breath noises, making them much more intimate; on guitars it can bring out the sound of fingers stroking strings or the rattle of hands on wood. All of these elements can be useful at times, but you do need to learn how to control them.
21. Headphones can be a very useful mixing tool (particularly in a bad monitoring environment, as they can give a good reference point without any reflections), but they simply cannot portray a stereo field or reproduce bass frequencies (even if they’re rated as low as 25Hz), so always finalise your mix on monitors
.
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