Live recording and Filming Locals
For this week I went to Palermo in person to collect the assets I needed for the project. The first thing I did on arrival was going through the script in Italian and Palermitan with some local people to get their opinion on the storyline and the flow of the overall script. When we did this, many changes were made to the Sicilian script when new sentences were added to build the story and make it even more relevant to the culture. Working with cast also meant I was able to pick up on different parts of the language myself and think of ways to incorporate them in the script/ interviews. Following this I had to make many changes to the English translation due to the many changes from the Sicilian one.
Having an open mind and being flexible to changes was key at this stage so the end product reflected the culture even more than before. This also meant working with the voice actors’ expression techniques when saying the script and making sure the lines were clear and recorded well.
All of the recordings were taken by my iPhone due to not being able to book out a proper recorder from the technicians at university (there was no equipment available before the flight). Due to Covid 19, some of the voice actors couldn’t meet in person so sent their voice notes to me from other parts of the city.
The interviews of three Sicilians were filmed and recorded by myself with a Canon camera and my Iphone voice recorder. This was a fascinating part of the process as I was able to ask questions people might be curious to ask to locals of the city. I used the questions I prepared the week before and asked same questions to each person. I saved the files to compile together later on.
Recording Clips of the City and Taking Photos
To build the assets I could use for the 3D Blender creation of the city, I took photos of buildings and interesting objects around city. Below you will see a selection of the photos I took. In each shot I had to make sure the buildings were straight so they could be edited later in photoshop properly.
Whilst touring the city, I took audio samples of the sounds and music to eventually use behind script to set the overall scene. At one point there was a musician playing the song ‘Take Five‘ by Dave Brubeck on the guitar. I recorded this and added it later on to the intro of the script compilation.
I gathered all of the assets I created and sorted them into folders on my computer, lining up the sounds to the appropriate voice actor recordings and the photos to another folder. At this stage backing up my files was key so I wouldn’t loose any fundamental footage/ clips.
Premiere Pro Audio Compilation
Premiere Pro was used to combine the script recordings and the various sound clips around Palermo. I created time lines for each scene by lining up the audios in the folders and then added them directly to the PP timeline and then edited them accordingly.
The part I most enjoyed was the fight scene (scene 3) where I worked on layering the audio clips alongside extra crashing and clinging sounds I found online and created in person.
Sound Clip References:
https://freesound.org/people/Nox_Sound/sounds/554367/ – Crashing
https://freesound.org/people/CastIronCarousel/sounds/216781/ – Ow!
https://freesound.org/people/SpaceJoe/sounds/488614/ – pots clang
https://freesound.org/people/SpliceSound/sounds/260180/ – boxing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oROB_7A4oeI fight scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agUt-4yYBPs music palermo – festa a palermo privitera e il suo complesso, inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2eDNzVOX7c
The next part involved adding the script to the recording. I created a new PP file and added the recording to the timeline. Then I added two boxes for the background and started to add the Sicilian script above and the English below. I experimented with the text size and the colours for the boxes. I then decided that a certain colour would be used for each character. The list I created was as follows:
Colour identity of who is saying what:
Rita Caruso – Red – FF5964
Antonino Caruso – Blue – 38618C
Nunzio – Green – 48A9A6
Pino Gambino – Orange – FF9C33
Alfio Gambino – Blue – 38618C
Caterina Gambino – Red – FF5964
Nonna Gambino – Orange – FF9C33
Nina Gambino – Brown – 3C1518
With many amendments to the English script being made along the way, I spent a lot of time dedicated to this part as it was one of the most important elements to the VR immersive experience. I then exported the file as an MP4 and uploaded it to youtube to get feedback.
Peer Feedback from Video
‘Please could I send you the video of the audio and subs so far for some feedback? I need to know if it’s too quick etc… each scene will be broken up across the VR journey so it won’t we a continuous video but I have added a brief structure with the titles ‘Scene one’ etc. It’s very basic but just to give an idea of the structure of the experience.’
The feedback received was:
1 – Loved it. It’s already immersive. It is a bit quick, especially because they speak quick. Scene 3 happens too fast for me, but I love it.
2 – Some of the words are so quick I can’t read them… but does that matter? When you’re learning a language you can’t keep up with it and you miss things so it’s a part of the journey. It m makes it more realistic.
3 – Brilliant idea about the sauce thief as food is very important in their culture.
4 (Russell) – (I asked if I should have a written part at the beginning instead of voice-over in English and he replied) It can be changed anyway so it isn’t too much of an issue.
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