Continuing on from where I left off on the last post about the ‘Zootopia’ sound replacement (titled Progress at Last) my colleagues and I have now finished the recording process.
This was done over the course of two more recording sessions in the studio. These sessions were the first time I met Zak which at least eased a few of my concerns, as he has become easier to contact over the last week. To continue where we left off from the last Foley sessions, I went back through our Spotting list and highlighted sounds we had missed in the initial session for the part of the video we had done. These were the sounds we focused on first which were wolf ear sounds. We then continued with the sounds from the manhole onwards. In the previous week I had written a list of some of the sounds and potential recording items. This came in handy as Reuben and I accidently moved a suction handle which made the perfect sound for the manhole. This was amazing as this was the sound, I was most concerned of as it is such a distinct metal sound. Another sound that was difficult to record was the creak of the door opening as we weren’t getting it with the door opening recording. Instead we ended up recording it separately. It took us a bit to realise the perfect item to use was the exact thing we were standing on and had complained about creaking whilst recording earlier, the floor.
I then at home chose the best takes and for sounds that could change the feel slightly I put both on the main track and muted on of the clips so that it was easy to find. Zak had to leave early from our first recording session.
Fortunately, we had finished the Foley recordings at that stage and so we went over to ADR. We started with the Bunny’s ADR as I was performing it and so Reuben could drive the recording session. We went by the loops I had made the week earlier using loop playlist recording. After getting the lines we watched the clip again as the script I had used did not include all the gasps and sighs that the video needed. One key element in the video is that at the end the speaking changes due to perspective. We decided to experiment and put the microphone on the outside of the glass door that encloses the recording booth as to see whether we could get the sonic change naturally. Once that was finished, we still had some time and as I can make snarl sounds with my voice we went ahead and recorded them.
The next session we came in all ready to finish up the ADR and consolidate the edits that I had made with the Foley. Reuben and I arrived first and spent the first bit of the session deciding on the final takes for the Foley. We still kept some of these sounds on the track muted as we felt they could be useful for sound design, in particular creaking sounds and manhole scrapes. Zak was running late but was communicating the reason why and estimations of when he’d arrive. With this time, we decided to do the two wolf guards ADR as Reuben was adamant on voicing at least one. We started with Gary and then once we got the two lines, we still had time until Zak arrived. I convinced to Reuben to see whether he could do a gravelly voice for the other wolf. This worked well as the takes were good however, they still felt a little to close in tonality. To combat this, I used elastic properties and dropped the clips two semitones which was enough to make them sound unique. Zak arrived at the end of these events and so we got him to record the Fox’s ADR. Zak even could do the American accent that is so elusive to my speech, despite always being asked if I was American when living overseas. We quickly finished the final recordings and then discussed our next step with the editing and mixing of the video. We agreed in the end that Reuben was going to finish the soundtrack which at the moment sounded too happy for the video, and Zak was going to consolidate all of the recordings and do the mixing. We then booked a final session for the beginning of next week for the final mix together to finalise the piece. A note to myself to learn from is that when uploading files to Google Drive doublecheck which folder they are saved in as I didn’t do that after this last session and when I couldn’t find them in the group’s folder I panicked and made Reuben return to the studio to reupload. Later I found that they had uploaded to My Drive instead so from now on I will keep a close eye on where my documents upload.
Consolidated Rough of the Foley Session Version 5
This piece is coming together nicely now with the recordings. My main concerns are the soundtrack as it is running late in its completion. However, I am reminding myself that I need to have trust in others that they will do the work they nominated themselves to do as my cynicism sometimes makes me forget. Next week you will get the finalised video which is exciting as I always want to see the end result of the hard work.
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