J.M. Black – Media Shenanigans!

Hello hello!

Quick update post this week, as I’ve been busy on three active projects. One in Film, another in Theatre, and the third in Radio (podcasting!). We’re triple threating – but instead of a performer knowing acting dance and singing, it’s a sound designer working in three mediums at once!

Here are some thoughts and updates on the three projects!

—

Cym Clychau Cantre’r Gwaelod (Film!)

I’m currently working on a short film retelling of The Lost Kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod. The welsh legend, spoken in welsh language, is told through shadow puppets – and I’m coming on board to bring the sounds to life! Very VERY excited for this one!

One thing I put into practice this week in the film corner is working ahead of picture lock and conforming. I was sent an early draft of the film, and had gathered sounds already, so started putting the crashing waves, ringing bells, and other iconic sounds of the legend to picture. This meant that getting the picture locked edit today, I’ve had to use the skill of manually conforming to pull everything back into sync. Always cool being able to do that – have made good progress and we’re only just starting post sound officially as of today! (Thursday 18th).

For those wanting to learn more about manual and automatic conforms for post production sound – I recommend this amazing tutorial by Thomas Boykin!

—

BOUNCE (Theatre!)

BOUNCE, which I posted about back in March, is through to the semi finals of the Festival of Drama! The play won Best Adult Actor, Best Adult Actress, Best Director, AND Best Overall Play in the first round of the competition! Winning best play in Totton means we perform again on the 10th May 2024 at the Merlin Theatre in Frome.

The challenge this week was drawing up lighting plans to send to the organisers ahead of time. I’m a fairly new and self taught lighting operator/designer. I’ve learned from others, and figured out the rest through trial and error and instinct from working in theatre on the sound and stage side of things!

But I hadn’t done lighting plans before, very limited experience in technical drawings!

My director was very patient with me as I learned the ropes, and there were some examples of plans I could find online to take inspiration from. I drew up something basic to give the organisers the gist of what BOUNCE’s lighting looks like!

Otherwise, it’s just thinking about the sound and projections! Can’t wait to perform this show again in front of a new audience!!

—

Cosmara (Radio!)

The third and final project I’m working towards this week is an actual play TTRPG podcast for Cosmara games! I can’t say too much about it, as the podcast releases next month, but I can confirm it’s a wonderful bunch of people to work with and I also have the pleasure of playing in the show as one of the characters!

The main challenge was sourcing specific microphones for hire, and knock on wood this should be sorted! There are wonderful kit hire places that can courier equipment across the country, and the prices were reasonable – so in collaboration with my co-producer we should have equipment sorted for our recording day next week.

Other fun challenges include scheduling for a multiple episode batch-record day, drafting up a call sheet for the first time in forever, and considering timings for the edit and distribution of the podcast episodes. Fairly tight turnaround rate, and I love the challenge!

—

This post was cobbled together quickly, I’m sure you can tell! I ran out of time to do anything extra this week because all of the above’s happening at once, and it’s been exciting!! Looking forward to seeing how these projects develop – with all three coming to fruition during the month of May!

Until the next time, dear reader, juggle those projects!

-J

Joke of the Day!

Did you hear about the plate spinner who never drops anything?

Don’t tell him I said that. I’ll never hear the end of it!