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.

I thought it was crucial for the Rec Arts students at Flashpoint to understand that so we began the program last September with a guest lecturer, Michael Santucci, president of Sensaphonics, Inc., a Chicago-based hearing conservation company that provides audiophile-quality in-ear monitoring for hundreds of high-profile musicians and protection for anyone with a few bucks to spend on a lifetime of hearing safety. Now, a new group of students have started at FP and it seems appropriate to once again bring to the fore hearing conservation.

Stand on any street corner in the Loop and you’ll hear the roar of the city in which we work and live. Move from point A to point B using the city’s mass transit and you’re likely to encounter loudness levels exceeding accepted OSHA standards. Take a look ahead and behind and you’ll see a world of iPod users, donning earbuds that can produce sound pressure levels at particularly important frequencies well beyond what would be considered safe practice. Go to a club to “hear” a show and it’s almost a certainty you’ll need a day or two for the ringing to stop. The list goes on. And on. What it all adds up to is a recipe for disaster if critical listening is a job requirement. And if your hearing isn’t what puts food on your table, then at least consider quality of life.

The bottom line is that unlike just about every other major organ/part in your body, your hearing system comprised of the outer, middle, and inner ear does not repair itself if damaged. Ever. And very much like the things we as humans often seem to do even though it’s nearly effortless to avoid them, protecting you’re hearing isn’t that intrusive. In fact, it’s downright pleasurable to go to a show with -15dB earplugs in.

It’s really pretty simple. If you need them, protect them.

HEARING HEALTH RESOURCES
Sensaphonics, Inc.
Online Simulator - What Hearing Loss Really Sounds Like 
OSHA’s Occupational Noise Exposure Guidelines
American Tinnitus Association
House Ear Institute

Not surprisingly, “Be nice” was his number one piece of advice for Rec Arts students during an all-day professional workshop last Friday. He told the story of a handwritten thank you note that led to years of work with network television and how the willingness to “Save As” a mix to try it different ways often leads to better creative results. He emphasized that all work today, whether it’s music for commercials, corporate films, or released on its own, is collaborative, and that the creative process never works if you try to control it on your own.

Rob brought the framework of a song he had written for his 11 year-old son into the Flashpoint recording studios with the intention of reworking some of the parts and letting Rec Arts students have a shot at mixing while Film students documented the event. During the morning part of the workshop, the students tracked several acoustic guitar parts, live drums, background vocals, and electric guitars. As Rob spoke to high school counselors and students about his career as a composer and musician in the afternoon, Flashpoint students broke away into four controls rooms and created different rough mixes. By 4:30, we were all back in the main music control room listening.

Thanks to Rob for a great day.

Michelle Shocked is a remarkably powerful singer/songwriter I’ve admired since her first major label record Short Sharp Shocked was released in 1987. Late Thursday evening I found out what an engaging and sweet person she is too. Yesterday, Flashpoint Academy was fortunate to witness that power, talent, and thoughtfulness up close and personal in the recording studios and on the directing stage at 28 North Clark.

I’d inquired months ago about the possibility of Michelle coming to FPA to hold a “master-class” of sorts, and just recently received word that she really liked the idea and wanted to explore options. She told us she wanted to record a song purposed specifically for the visit and to shoot footage for a complementary music video that would be uploaded to YouTube, her own site, etc. Needless to say, we were as excited about Michelle coming in as she was about working with the students in such an intimate and experimental way.

Before entering the studios, Michelle talked to the students about her highly-successful, but turbulent career in the music industry, her life-long desire to change social stratification, her devotion to an African-American church in South Central Los Angeles, and what was particularly opportune for Flashpoint students, balancing the creative and technical with commitment, discipline, and passion. She told us the recording and video of A True Story would be the first part of a much larger project she is working on with her fiancé and fine artist David Willardson called HEART or HEAR THE ART.

As she rehearsed the framework of the song with the students and staff who served as a rhythm section, it was clear that this was a special moment in the humble beginnings of our small school. By the time she was ripping through lead vocal overdubs with all the heartfelt passion of the genuine gospel singer she is, we were mesmerized.

It was a real treat for the Rec Arts students to be able to record and Film students be able to roll cameras on such a seasoned professional. The resulting recording, video, and archival documentary footage is testament to FPA’s hands-on, immersive learning. The experience and memory is a gift for committing to the ground floor of Ric Landry’s vision.

Great news from Florida! Tiffin, a film directed by Chor Ai Lene, won first place in the Narrative Shorts category of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. Last month [Oct. 2], I blogged on my work as Sound Designer for this beautifully photographed story “that traces the changes in the landscape, hearts and minds of vibrant Malaysia over the span of a decade.” Congratulations to the Ai Lene and the crew.

Ai Lene is also working with Flashpoint as Editor on Paula Froehle’s short film, The Collector, which is currently in postproduction.