Problem Solving

What does this Section Detail?

This section will go into detail about some of the issues I faced during the Planning & Production, Recording, Reflection & Evaluation, and maybe even the Research sections of the project. I'll be listing my thought processes behind every hurdle in my project and what I did to overcome them. Keeping a log of these issues is important for my learning progress and personal improvement during the project. Learning from my struggles and failures and overcoming them is how you grow.

Concerning the Problem of Choosing Video Clip for my Foley Project

My first practical session was meant to involve me choosing a video clip and inserting it into my Logic Pro project file then proceeding to analyse the sounds I would need to reproduce. Unfortunately, I underestimated the difficulty I would have choosing a video clip that I'd be satisfied with. My original plan was to find a video clip from a movie that fulfilled the following criteria:

The Clip MUST:

Contain action that require the recording of practical Foley.
Contain the potential to host a variety of different sound effects and nothing too repetitive to make (e.g. a shootout with 100+ gunshots in it and nothing else isn't very interesting to make, and doesn't show my full potential).
Contain a scene with walking, preferably on a natural surface (I want a scene that can make use of a Foley Pit which I plan to make during the Easter Holidays).

The Clip SHOULD NOT:

Contain any of the original audio
Contain dialogue (or it should be kept to a minimum; I might add it back later)
Be too long (5 minute cap)
Contain anything that I wouldn't be able to record with my timeframe. This is very specific, but animal sounds such ambient Cicadas or Parrot Squawks come to mind. In a professional setting I'd find time and budgeting to record these animals but I think for this project its a bit out of reach (also I want all the Foley to be my own).

I spent a few hours looking for clips with this criteria in mind and I found some movie clips I liked the look of but failed to meet the criteria. These included:

Forrest Gump: Forrest Runs Scene - Didn't have enough variety. Seemed like 90% footsteps and nothing else
BBC Earth: Wild Cheetahs Hunt an Emu - Thought about doing this one for a while but couldn't even process how I might get Cheetah, Emu, or Giraffe cries without going to a zoo (even then I doubt I could record them if I asked which is a shame because it would be a lot of fun).
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Three-Way Standoff - Way too much idle time of Clint Eastwood staring down his co-actors but had some good Foley opportunities involving dirt near the end.

My overall solution to finding a clip that would suit my project was to make my own compilation of movie clips. During my project proposal I was advised during my questioning to stick to one movie clip (which I planned on being 3-5 minutes) and not try and go up to three which I suggested could be possible. In hindsight this definitely wouldn't have been possible as I could've ended up with a project with almost 15 minutes of final content, something probably unachievable in my timeframe. Despite this, nothing was ever said about combining three movie clips into one short form clip and I believe this is the key to solving the issue. I ended up finding my three different movie clips and editing them into a single clip that's just under 4 minutes in length. My process of how I did this and why I chose the clips I chose is detailed in my Planning & Production section. I think I can produce the sound effects for the clip in the project's timespan and I'm looking forward to the next stage of the process.

Concerning Elusive SMPTE time codes

After researching spotting sheets, I learned that the professional standard and best way for labelling film for accurate synchronisation was the SMPTE timecode format. I understood what it was, and knew Logic Pro could display it but for a while I couldn't find a way to view it outside Logic Pro. I wanted to do my spotting sheet from home so I didn't cut into my studio time. The editing software I had boasted about being extremely simple to use in my Planning & Production section, Microsoft Clipchamp, turned out to be too simple as it didn't display (or had the option to display) time in the SMPTE format. For hours I was stuck trying to find out if it there was somehow an option to view it in SMPTE on other video playing software such as VLC media player. Turns out, that sort of metadata is only available during editing. Therefore, I had to download an entirely new video free editing program called "Wondershare Filmora" to even view the time codes. My next thought was "can I just export the video now with the SMPTE timecode watermarked over it?" to which the answer was no. I cannot.

So, I ended up filling out my spotting sheet with Filmora displaying the output video in the corner. I could note down the time code from where I was in the editor's timeline. I'm so fed up with video editors at this point and can't wait to get back into Digital Audio Workstations, where I'm comfortable.

Logic Pro is owned by a Multibillion Dollar Company yet still has Weird Unfixable Bugs

One problem I consistently kept having throughout my project and was immensely frustrated with (if you couldn't tell from the tone of this section's subheading) was a bug I kept having with Logic's video player. At random times during editing, the video attached to the timeline (in this case, my edited clip, usually placed in a small window in the top right portion of the UI) would freeze and would no longer display the correct frame at a given time. This was extremely frustrating as I needed to be able to scroll through the video's frames to line up my sound effects with the video. Without being able to see the correct frame I was on, it was like placing my sound effects on the timeline in the dark, with only my spotting sheet as guidance. I needed the video to play properly (and not be frozen) so I could check the sound effect were aligned properly with their corresponding action in the clip. If they weren't all aligned properly, my final product would not sound very professional, and my project's aim is to produce a professional sounding video.

So, what was the cause of this issue, and how do I fix it? The answer: there isn't one and I'm not the only one to have this problem either. Here's an excerpt from a user on the forums of VI-Control.net having the exact same issue:

"I'm using Logic 10.5.1 and having the same issue. Video plays for a while through several stops, starts and it is fine while looping. Then after leaving the project parked for a few minutes the picture is frozen on that frame. Audio and virtual instruments play fine but the picture is frozen. The only fix I've found is to reopen the project. Then I'm good for a few minutes and it freezes again," - "cug" August 10, 2020

This post is almost 4 years old too. You'd think it would be fixed by now. As "cug" says though, the best 'quick fix' for this problem is to simply save and reopen your work which is what I've been doing during my last few practical sessions. It's a shame I can't be rid of this problem for good as its very frustrating and can shake up my workflow. I'm quite unsatisfied by the fact I can't find a permanent solution to this.

Switching Away from Unsuitable Microphones

During my initial recordings, I was using an AKG C1000 for my Foley work. I found it quite versatile and the sound quality I was getting out of it was very good. Despite this, I found that when recording quieter sounds, I would have to adjust the gain quite high in order to gain stage properly (-18db). This would cause the mic to generate self-noise from the large amounts of power being delivered to it which impacted poorly on anything I wanted to record. In my final product, it may be still possible to hear some of this self noise unfortunately.

The problem turned out was that the C1000 was what's called an "electret microphone", a type of microphone that has a high magnetic resistance in its diaphragm. This meant it would take more energy (i.e. a louder amount of vibrations) to move it. My solution to this was to switch to a microphone with a much lower resistance. Ideally, I would've liked to have been working with a shotgun microphone at the start, but none were available in college. The next best thing I could find was one of college's Neumann TLM 193s. This was a better choice because of its lower resistance with the benefit of a good dynamic range, even frequency response, and very importantly, low self noise.

Getting my wires crossed. Literally.

One problem I had at a few points during my recordings was eclectic interference. What would usually happen would be that I'd be getting to record an object for a sound effect, plug the microphone in, get ready to gain stage, but then find that there would be a electric buzzing sound going through the signal even at low gain. I needed to remove this buzzing so I could have a clean signal for my recordings otherwise it would negatively impact the quality of my recordings. I initially thought it was a problem with the XLR cable I was using, but the problem repeated itself even with a brand new cable.

Luckily I managed to find the actual source of the buzzing. So, every session, I have a laptop on hand with my spotting sheet on it so I can refer to it for editing and recording purposes. In this instance, the laptop was on charge and both the charging cable, and the XLR were touching the floor and each other. The fact that both cables were touching the ground was enough (even more so when they were actually touching each other), to create electric interference between the two of them. I made sure from there on and the future that the cables were fully separated and properly grounded to avoid any future buzzing.