The Bitch

1
The Bitch

• Group 14
• BV3
• Jeroen van Iverson

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Project description

• We get a movie without sound that is 14 minutes
  long. The film is called The bitch is back by
  Tjebbo Penning. The presentation will be on the
  26th of February.
• We wanted to have a coherent sound in the film as
  well as music to go with the movie. One of the
  first things we decided was to not use any
  samples of sounds but to record everything
  ourselfs with the same equipment. Every sound
  happening in a certain room, in the movie, will
  also be recorded all in the same room. For
  example all sounds in the bathroom are recorded
  in uffas bathroom and all sounds in the
  livingroom are recorded in Nardi's livingroom.
  Same idea then is going to be used in the mixing
  process (so same reverb on all the sounds
  happening in a specific room).

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Group structure What are the jobs of each and
everyone in the group? Did it keep that way
through the project? What did change?

• Individual jobs within the group before work
  started
• Niels Leader, music
• Nardi Ambience sounds, Sound FX, music
• Toon Mixing
• Úffa Mixing
• How did it actually turn out
• Niels and Nardi synqronized folie.
• Niels, and Nardi making of all foley sounds.
• Úffa foley recordings using Powerbook G4, Mbox
  and Sennheiser MD421 for localisation
  recording. Mixing.
• Nardi Sound design and loads of coffeemaking.
• Niels Music

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Research

• The movies and sounds we studied
• We started on watching Alien and Halloween
  together. Then individually watching many more
  movies and getting ideas about how and how not to
  approach the work!
• In the process we decided that we wanted to use
  some kind of music in the tension scenes to make
  the movie more exciting (the folie couldnt do it
  all alone).

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Planning and preperation

• Make a list of all the sounds in the film
• - Make a list of what sounds we have to
  record in which room
• - Make a list of which rooms (in the movie)
  are which rooms (in our houses)
• The bitch is back is a movie of 14 min 50 sec.
  The group consists of us four Nardi, Niels,
  Toon and Uffa. We splitted the movie in 4 parts
  (3 and ½ min each) and everyone went home to with
  their part and started to write down all the
  sounds we needed for the movie. Everyone then had
  an indivitual brainstorm of realizing how we
  wanted the movie to be and sound! Then everyone
  of us has its own function and responsibilities
  within the whole project.
• Niels groupleader and music.
• Nardi Ambience (and some FX).
• Toon and úffa mixing
• Folie and ambience effects (room sounds) All
  together, combined forces.
• The mixing 5.1. Reserve the studio. (11. 20.
  21. January).

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Examples of planning

• A list of what sounds we have to record in which
  room
• All bathroom sounds in úffas bathroom.
• Footsteps in living room in Nardis bedroom ect.
• A List of which rooms (in the movie) are which
  rooms (in our houses)
• Living room Nardis bedroom.
• Kitchen Nardis kitchen.
• Bathroom Uffas bathroom.
• Stairs Uffas stairs.
• Hall (on top of stairs)
• Hall (on bottom of stairs)

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A list of sounds we have to make (sorted by
minutes)

• 715. The bitch hangs up the telephone.
• 720. She tries to hang the guy with the phone
  line, here the fighting starts. Shes hanging on
  his back.
• 725. A table with a TV on it falls down.
• 729. Another table falls down, they keep on
  fighting.
• 735. The power point in the wall comes out.
• 737. They crash into the cupboard. A vase
  falls down from it! He hits her to the cupboard
  often (6 times)
• 750. She passes out and he starts getting her
  and the phone line of himself.
• 759. He hits her with the phone-answertool.
• 804. She starts drawling sperm
• 808. Camera on him, his breathing. He looks
  for her tab. So touching clothes sound.
• 815. He picks out the tap on the doll.
• 816. She airs out. Camera on him sometimes,
  breathing sound.
• 826. She dies and starts drawling more sperm.
• 837. She really dies!
• 843. He turns around and walks towards window.
• 853. He drops phone tool
• 857. He opens window.

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A list of sounds we have to make (sorted by
minutes) (cont.)

• 900. He breaths heavily through the open
  window. Houses of Amsterdam.
• 910. She starts moving again.
• 921. He starts turning around and realizes that
  she is not there.
• 931. She returns, head down and says something
  .. the bitch is back?
• 936. She head hits him and then makes a swing
  back to the floor
• 941. She lands on the floor after the jump.
• 943. He holds his nose after the hit. Probably
  makes noise coz of the pain.
• 956. She grapes his neck and then says
  something.
• 1000. She bites his nose. He screams.
• 1009. She lets him go and he falls back.
• 1011. She ties him up on both hands with the
  phone line again.
• 1024. She laughs
• 1029. She moves away and he moves around on the
  table, trying to escape.
• 1042. She reappears with the liquid.
• 1044. He very scared moans
• 1050. She smells the liquid
• 1054. She says something
• 1058. He very scared moans
• 1102. She starts pouring the liquid on him,
  moving it up his body up towards his face

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Examples from the diary p1

• Folie recording
• Day 1
• This was the beginning of it all. We got
  together at Nardis place, nicely positioned in
  den Haag, and started recording the folie sounds.
  We decided to start on the beginning and work in
  a straight timeline. We watched the scenes and
  then Nardi and Niels encountered their incredible
  syncing skills úffa recorded the sounds
  straight into ProTools with the movie running
  next to the audio. The guys took turns in
  acting the sounds and we just recorded each
  scene a few times until it all was pretty much in
  sync. This was done so less energy can go into
  editing all the sounds together later. This also
  proved to be much more realistic way of working.
  In a whole day we got most of the sounds of the
  first 1 minute good. Yebb, its going to be a
  lot of work but we also had loads of laughs and
  good fun!

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Examples from the diary p2

• Day 4 We met again to record more folie. This
  time we recorded the sounds for the bathroom
  scene. These we all recorded in the same
  bathroom so the sounds all sound as realistic as
  possible. We tried squeezing a tomato for the
  sound of when she stabs him with the knife but I
  think we have to record a better sound for that
  one. In the end of the day we got almost all the
  folie sounds up to minute 530 when he runs out
  of the bedroom. So there is still a lot of folie
  to be done. We are already busy with other
  aspects as well.
• Ambiance and FXs Nardi is making a
  soundscapeish kind of thing for the beginning
  scene of the film. Úffa is busy with the voice
  of the doll and Niels is busy with composing the
  music.

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Examples from the diary p3

• Day? (14. January)
• More, yes, more folie recording today. We
  are getting quite fast now so by dinnertime we
  have almost all the folie sounds. Still the
  voice of the bloke is needed and the voice of the
  doll. Niels brought some music in today that he
  had sampled and edited from known horror movie
  soundtracks. It was nice to hear some music
  under some scenes but no mixing has been done yet
  on the folie sounds so it was quite hard to
  judge. We all agreed that the music may
  absolutely not mask all the hard folie work we
  have done.
• Over the weekend we all have our projects and
  things to do regarding the movie and then we get
  back together Monday to do the last folie work
  and hopefully place the work from the weekend
  also into the project!

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The home stretch

• The last week of work was quite stressful.
  When we had all the sounds, music and effects
  there was time for mixing. We had one weekend
  for that. Úffa sat for 12-14 hours, by the
  computer, for 3 days in a row. That resulted in
  RSI for her ... Great! But we finished
  everything and everyone was happy!

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More about the project in Dutch

• Pre productie
• Eerst hebben we een planning/draaiboek gemaakt,
  hierin stonden een aantal punten
• -Tijdsplanning van de productiefases
• -Rolverdeling van de groepsleden
• -Indexatie van de benodigde spullen
• -Feedback en analyse momenten
• Productie
• Op basis van dit plan zijn we aan het project
  begonnen.
• De productiefase verliep voorspoedig, de
  rolverdeling en toewijzing van echte kamers aan
  de verschillenden ruimtes in de film werkte zeer
  goed waardoor er een evenwichtigklankbeeld
  ontstond. I
• De evaluatiemomenten zijn niet nageleefd. Wel
  liepen we tegen het feit aan dat Uffa de enige
  met pro tools en dus de enige die kon werken aan
  het project met al het werk. Deze situatie was
  niet ideaal.
• In Toon hadden we een collega die aan het
  twijfelen was aan de studie.
• Het was zeer leerzaam om alle geluiden zelf op te
  nemen in plaats van gebruik te maken van sample
  liberary.
• De fx klonken goed en niet over de top
• Wel was er weinig tijd om de fx verder uit te
  werken waardoor sommige elementen niet helemaal
  goed uit de verf kwamen

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More about the project in Dutch

• Post productie
• Doordat de productiefase uitliep kwam de post
  onder druk te staan. Er was simpelweg te weinig
  tijd over om onder normale omstandigheden de
  mixage met goed resultaat te voltooien.
• Ook het 5.1 afmixen bleek niet zo makkelijk als
  vooraf beschouwd.
• Persoonlijk
• Vooraf vond ik het erg moeilijk een inschatting
  te maken van de productiefases en de tijd die het
  in zou nemen, hierdoor kwamen er mijns inziens
  ook fouten in de planning. De special fx in de
  film heb ik te weinig aandacht kunnen geven en
  waren achteraf bezien belangrijker dan het geluid
  wat meer ondersteunend was.