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Alice Peacock, Chicago singer/songwriter, was gracious enough to spend an afternoon with Rec Arts students in the studio talking about her personal creative process of writing and recording.

Last week, among some 1000+ Chicago film enthusiasts, I sat and watched [heard] the first-ever Flashpoint Academy produced film The Collector in Grant Park on a gargantuan screen with a killer sound system. The film, directed by FP Academic Dean Paula Froehle, was not only accepted as a short to be screened at the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival, but is living and breathing proof our PRODUCTION-IN-ACTION component has real-world impact. Though the festival could not accommodate our multi-channel surround mix, the stereo playback system at the venue was first-rate and, of course, it was terrific to see it projected as a 35mm print.

One of my students asked me to do an interview about why I settled on sound design and teaching as my career path.  I thought it might be helpful for incoming Flashpoint students if I re-printed the transcription.

The interview was conducted by Dan Newman, one of the inaugural Rec Arts students, now awaiting his second year at Flashpoint.

April 2008

John Murray: I suppose it all started with a love for sound, and a thirst to capture it, harness it, manipulate it, and to tell a story with it.

My first recording device was a cheap portable Panasonic cassette recorder / player. I carried it with me everywhere. I was about nine years old. Once I discovered that I could start and stop recordings with the “PAUSE” button, and in effect, string together snippets of audio, there was no stopping me. Although I didn’t recognize it as such at the time, it was a way that I could “edit.” Much like a film editor tells a story by “editing” together discontinuous moving image sequences, I was editing little pieces of unrelated audio that once compiled together told a story that was formerly only present in my imagination.

That primitive methodology evolved through middle school until I became dissatisfied with the lack of precision. After all, the PAUSE button was mechanical, housed inside a really cheap device. I wanted the ability to make “cuts” that were absolutely, and precisely, in time with the music I was using. So around the time I started high school, I began meticulously taking apart cassette casings, carefully pulling the tape off the reels, cutting it with scissors at exact moments, rearranging the pieces and using scotch tape to mend the seams back together.

By the time I got to college and was allowed to use “professional grade” open reel tape recorders, splicing blocks, grease pencils, razor blades, and real bona fide splicing tape, I was completely hooked.

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Monday, May 12
Jeff Kliment
Newest Rec Arts faculty, coming onboard June 1. Former faculty at San Francisco Art Institute, former lead sound designer and project manager at LucasArts, and former music recording / Foley / ADR engineer at Russian Hill Recording.

Tuesday, May 13
Jun Mhoon
CEO of I Am Music Online, Jun is a digital aggregator / content supplier for iTunes, Amazon, Real Network, Napster, eMusic, Google, etc.

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Rob Fetters, Chris Arduser, and Bob Nyswonger, also known as the Psychodots, came into town this week for four days as part of our spring PRODUCTION-IN-ACTION. Part I took place Monday and Tuesday in the Flashpoint music recording studios as the band re-recorded Not a Pretty Face with Bernie Mack (below) engineering. During the afternoon session, RA students took the controls, punching through vocal parts for verses and choruses.

Part II takes place today and tomorrow on a soundstage where FP Film students will be involved in the shooting of a video for the song with Peter Hawley directing and Amy Rising producing.

Game and Animation students, who helped with our set-up on Monday, are also creating a game to go along with the video.

All in all, it’s another terrific immersive-learning experience for FP students.

Footsteps, cloth, and props. It’s messy; it’s physical; it’s a day in the life of a Foley Artist. Flashpoint Academy, in a continuing effort to bring high-profile, industry professionals inside the studios and classrooms of its educational facilities at 28 North Clark Street was fortunate enough to host Vincent Guisetti yesterday in two workshop sessions.

There was a simple theme to Vincent’s message: Foley effects can breathe life into faithful, but otherwise sterile, soundtracks for motion pictures. Though it’s not complicated, it does require an eye for frame accurate precision and a feel for the natural rhythms and cadences of actor’s movements. “You have to be willing to get inside a character’s head. In essence, become that character while you are performing Foley,” he said. Vincent treated our students to many of the stories of working on roughly 350 films, TV shows, and cartoons including Passion of the Christ, Mr. Brooks, Hostel parts I & II, The Pursuit of Happyness, Talladega Nights, Behind Enemy Lines, and the last five years of SpongeBob SquarePants.

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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Flashpoint, The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, has purchased two TRUE Systems P-SOLO single-channel microphone/instrument preamplifiers and installed them in two sound-for-film suites in its new 32,000 square-feet production/post complex.

Click to read press below:

Trans Audio Elite

AudioCourses.com

MixOnline

ProSoundNews

The Intruder wraps today with some pickups and the remainder of the visual effects shots needed for the end of the film. The crew, whose job is strictly production, are already thinking ahead to the next location. But for those of us who are firmly grounded in post, our job is just beginning.

FP Rec Arts students were fortunate enough to have several conversations earlier in the week with Director Mikael Kreuzriegler about ideas for sound design. We began first with the words “ethereal” and “eerie,” and perhaps as a layer or texture beneath the delicacy “the feeling that something is off.” We talked about styles of music and how much of it will work its way into the film. And because there is so little dialogue, the use of up-close “studio, not soundstage,” ADR may actually help to create a slightly unusual sensation. Lastly, Mikael explained that he usually hears the entire soundtrack in his head while shooting, but this film is different.

For sound designers, that’s code for “freedom.” So, we left the set Wednesday and had a great brainstorming session in the morning followed by an afternoon of effects gathering and research. Yesterday, we started dropping some cut effects on the timeline of a short assembly and recorded Foley to try to get a feel for the entry and living room spaces. Our goals were not too ambitious, just sketching a few ideas to play for Mikael. Today, we’ll fine-tune footsteps, clothing moves, and some of the phone and record player gags in the script.

In the end, it’s entirely possible that some or all of this work will not remain, but Rec Arts students are engaging in the part of the postproduction process that cannot be learned in books, that cannot be absorbed through lecture, rather, is only discovered experientially with a lot of exploration. The Intruder’s soundtrack will be better because of it, and along the way, young Flashpoint sound designers will to.

Nearly two-thirds of the Flashpoint student body joined a crew of Chicago film industry professionals today to begin principal photography on The Intruder. The production phase of our nine-month Production-in-Action curriculum component is a testament to a new and exciting educational approach that places students in the heart of the action, literally. Students were not only able to shadow the key department heads of set, art, camera, sound, G & E, and production office, but also shoot a film of their own [The Making of The Intruder] and operate several webcam stations capturing real-time low-res video that can be transmitted back to our main facilities at 28 North Clark.

It was as amazing to see the degree of collaboration between the crew and the students as it was to witness the level of professionalism by both.

Tomorrow, a new group of students will come on set while today’s group returns to 28 to begin editing, creating sound design, and animation for their footage as well as developing after-the-fact web content. Over the course of the next seven days of shooting, these two groups will alternate, rotating through one of the most engaging and alternative educational opportunities in any media arts program in the country.