Chapter 6 - a u d i o time + some tips :)

Dialogue Shot!! Our Very First Ever Dialogue Shot!! How Exciting!! Wiiiii~~~!

All right, here is an advice.. start browsing for your audio files, Now! hehe ^^; I thought that by watching movies and simply go, 'ooh that line is good' was enough. Well, it is not. I often received that 'you are weird' stare by people near me when i have a note book and pencil when i watch movies with them. I found that very uncomfortable but ignoring them was quite helpful D: I watched more movies lately, pretty much many random movies that is on television. I found that old movies from year 1950s are very unique and inspiring. The way the actor speaks felt more stage-y and the accent is thicker for me. I hope this make any sense !:| .. One important thing, write notes about that great line that you heard on television or YouTube. Try to think about the line, try to find the pro and con about it. Honestly i regret that i did not do this when i browsed my audio files. This is something like; when you hear that dialogue line, it's so good and very fresh in our ears, but if you don't write about it asap, the 'moment' disappears and then you kind of forget about what makes the line sounds so good. I hope this make sense.. and this is a lesson learnt for me too. My peer buddy really helped me out during the process as well. She gave me a bunch of audio file source links and that was very, very helpful! I think i should share the links here as well! Here are the links:

• http://movieclips.com/
• http://www.moviewavs.com/
• http://wavcentral.com/movies.htm
• http://www.dailywav.com/index.php
• http://www.moviesoundclips.net/movies.php
• http://www.moviesounds.com/
• http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-websites-film-buffs-fill-famous-movie-quotes/
• http://www.soundboard.com/category/Movies.aspx#5

Hope this will help you guys too! :)


I would say that my struggle this week was pretty much due to the lack of equipment. I had no scanner, no adobe photoshop and i forgot to bring my camera to record my reference. I usually plan my shot on my sketch book and scan them. I was worried cause i initially took a photo of my sketchbook. It's not super bad, it's just a little bit unclear :( But thanks to technology; long time ago a friend told me that there is a scanner application for smart phones (CamScanner) and that app saved my life! :D well, basically i took a photo of my sketchbook page using my phone, but this application helps to crop and skew the image so it looks like it is scanned, not much different quality wise, but hurray! and then i found photoshop software on my parents PC, so i can resize and enhance the images! so, double hurray! Dropbox was simply a life saver as well :O As for the camera, thank god my laptop has a built-in web cam :O! I remember that this week was pretty hectic cause i misunderstood the brief. The brief was clear, but it was me.. After the q&a, i thought we only had to do 1 reference for 1 audio that we like. I was WRONG! so few hours before the submission time was super hectic and i was panicking.. but glad that i made it -o-! A lesson for myself: keep your ears open during q&a >.<!!

Some feedback that i received said that most of the audio that i chose had background songs. It did not really cross my mind before but i will definitely keep this on my note! To sum it up :

• Make sure that the audio is clear
• If it's possible try to avoid distracting background noises or music
• Find an audio that has nice beats, accents, and has contrast in the emotion
• Maybe try to avoid depressing, negative lines, there should be no swearing and/or faulty language cause it may make the audience uncomfortable when they watch it
• Find the audio that you like, if you have favourite actors and movies, try to find audio files from that movies/the actors.
• It'll be a good idea not to watch the original shot of your audio files. I personally feel that if i see the real character, it will be hard for me to get rid of his/her image from my head. For example, when I see Dorothy from Wizard of Oz.. and I happen to like her dialogue line a lot.. in my case, it is quite hard for me to get rid Dorothy image from my head and as i listen to her line, i could still see the character in my head.
• Try to avoid lines from famous movies and animated movies.
• My class 3 mentor once suggested to try to find audio from interview. The reason is because the conversation on the interview is not staged/planned (compare to movies/tv series). I think this is a really great idea cause sometimes there is that candid moment that happens during interview.. and i think it'll be fun to animate this spontaneous moment :) From memory, i think he also suggested to find audio from documentaries..
• One tips from my mentor and my peer buddy, we should not choose the audio that has the exact time length as the frame limit, in this case is 240f. Make sure that we'll have room before and after that audio.
• An advice from my peer buddy too (and I quote her): "choose an audio in which you can add gestures and movements which will sell you dialogue even more"

I hope i cover everything here.. I had a blast that week and shooting video reference was fun. My parents laugh at me when they saw me acting out the shot and when they saw the reference. It was a pure joy :D I have some images from my planning too:

Audio 1 : "I'm a trained killer you know, I can kill you with anything in this office, you want to die by post-its? Cause i can make that happen!"

Audio 2 : "To learn my teachings... I must first, teach you.. how to learn.."

Audio 3 : "I'm the ogre, Nish... How would you like to be eaten? Baked? Boiled? Shish-kabobed?"

What i missed here: i did not have much planning for the facial expressions and this really affects my shot..

Also, no.. i will not upload my reference video here heheh.. i'm a bit shy to share it here.. ^^;

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