Assembly of Ideas –
After exploring a few possibilities and ideas for the film I set about trying to assemble something. After all of my previous experimentation with many ideas I finally settled on a concept.
I decided to produce a film that not only covered what I have been working on over the last two years of my MA but also gives a glimpse of what I’m doing now. The video was to form a timeline.
Unfortunately, I really do struggle when it comes to sound and voice-overs. By the end of this long process I had actually attempted to narrate my film around five times. I spent literally hours trying to perfect both my narrative, voice-over and audio levels.
Multiple Attempts at Audio and Voice-overs
Below is a screenshot of the files as they began to stack up on my desktop, so far I’ve had 5 attempts.
Even after hours of trying I’m still not happy with the end result! In fact I’m deeply unhappy with it. On the plus side though I’ve learned a ‘ton of stuff’ about audio production.
Learning How to Use Audio in Premier Pro
The first thing I had to do was ensure that my microphone was compatible with Premier Pro and I needed to find out how to have it recognised by the software. The mic I was using was called a Yeti ‘Blue’. Luckily Premier Pro ‘discovered’ it first time round and it was fairly easy to link it up.
At first the audio interface seemed a little daunting but as I mentioned before, if I can cope with ‘Touch Designer’ I felt sure I could work it out. Below are a few screenshots from inside the audio module of Premier Pro. Apparently it is really important to keep well away from the red as this signifies quite a lot of audio distortion. However, I discovered multiple tools to help with this. I discovered that I could also make myself sound as if I was speaking down a telephone line, or outside of a building, or close to the mic. What I just didn’t seem to be able to do was achieve a sound that I was happy with. Maybe I just hate the sound of my own voice?
No matter how many attempts I had I was not happy with the end result. At one point I became so frustrated with trying to write a narrative I even employed the help of ChatGPT. The bot came up with lots of beautiful words but it just ran together like a disjointed ‘mish mash!’. I was now becoming quite despondent! I don’t want to draw too much attention to it, but for the sake of comparison here is a link to the ChatGPT inspired version of the film. The audio really was shocking on this attempt, but it does improve further on in the film. It probably is better to skip this version and head straight for the latest iteration of the video on this page.
In the end I decided that possibly the best course of action was to simply speak ‘from the heart’. I watched my clips and while I was watching them I developed a narrative in my head.
Finally I decided to ‘go for it’ and simply voice-over the whole film in one take. It was a complete mess!! I returned to the drawing board and wrote out each individual thing that I wanted to say just like a script.
I don’t think my idol Stanley Kubrick would have been very impressed!
After numerous attempts I finally produced a 5 minute film. Am I happy with it? Absolutely not! Can I do anything about it? Well, physically of course I can, but mentally, not at the moment.
I’ve been suffering badly for over a week now with what I believe is severe food poisoning. I’ve spent periods of time in bed trying to recuperate but I’m still not fully recovered. For this reason I’ve decided to park my film for now and concentrate on my augmented reality book. I’m hoping that I will have enough time to have one last attempt at producing something that I’m happy with.
Just after finishing my film, my daughter’s partner came to visit. He is a first class underwater film maker. I asked him for feedback on my film. The first thing that he asked me was ‘how did you record your sound?’ I explained about how I fed my new mic directly into Premier Pro and recorded that way. He said you sound as if you are removed from the film and narrating in a big room. Sadly I do have to agree because generally I’m really not happy with my film and particularly its audio.
He then went on to explain that I need to record my sound under a big duvet! He said in the absence of a sound recording studio, the quickest and easiest way to better audio is to bury yourself under layers of duvet! Apparently this significantly reduces noise and makes your audio sound more like it is part of your film. Who knew??
Health permitting – I am determined to try this!! As soon as I complete my augmented art book to accompany my mobile I am promising myself another go at this! In the meantime please see below the current version of my 5 minute film.
Resolve or Evolve
I’ve spent the last couple of years experimenting with AI – in my Study Statement. I used the quote ‘Know Thy Enemy’. My thinking was that if there is a new tool that was potentially going to replace me then I needed to know as much about it as possible. As time rolls on and AI art algorithms become increasingly sophisticated it’s becoming clearer that traditional forms of art are under attack. There really won’t be a way to resolve this, especially when software such as SORA can generate up to a minute’s worth of (prompt faithful) video.
It was at this point that I came up with the idea for the film’s title. Resolve or Evolve? I genuinely don’t think human artists will be able to resolve the whole AI art problem. However, I do think that they will be able to evolve it. I’ve carried that message into my film. My mobile is also a reflection of this idea. I think keeping an open mind is key. So for now here is my less than perfect current iteration of my 5 minute video. Hopefully a new version will be incoming soon.