"Take a walk within the walls of my mind and watch my thoughts ravage the spaces between the walls"
- David Sawang
- David Sawang
Freelance8/23/2018 For this trimester, we were required to do a compulsory of at least 20 minutes worth of freelance work in order for us to complete our baseline assessments. At first I thought it was going to be a piece of cake, but then it later proved difficult because my freelance project didn't revolve around my schedule, it revolved around the artists schedule. Initially for my freelance I scheduled a solid plan for an upcoming Korean artist who's name I will not mention due to privacy concerns. The artist was keen on me recording, mixing and mastering his EP which contained 4 tracks, each roughly 4 minutes long along with 2 solo tracks which he was then going to direct a music video with. Unfortunately I fell sick for about 2 weeks in between, which didn't seem to hinder the freelance much as he was still working on the lyrics. We however managed to record, mix and master one of the tracks to his liking upon which he asked me if we could record the next 3 songs after 2 weeks. I was all in for it and devised a plan which would allow me to finish all the recording, mixing and mastering and have it uploaded on soundcloud by the deadline, but week after week he kept postponing and I was stuck in a pickle. I realised I needed a backup plan and so I went asking around until I found a legitimate client. The clients name and workplace is confidential, but I will link in the video so you can view it. I hit the jackpot. They wanted me to record a step to step directional video on How To Make A Cruffin. A cruffin is a hybrid of a croissant, a popular French pastry, and a muffin. The pastry is made by proving and baking laminated dough in a muffin mould. The cruffin is then filled with a variety of creams, jams, crème pâtissières or curds, and then garnished. Sound funky and cool but it was a difficult task considering the amount of prep it took. I had to first meet the Chef who then explained to me the step by step process (Yes, I now know how to make a cruffin like the back of my hand) after which I had to craft a monologue and send it over to her. She then had to remember the monologue since it was designed in such a way that it didn't sound forced, repetitive and robotic. I knew how to write a proper screenplay style story since I had studied Storytelling in Contemporary Media (MDU111) for my elective the previous trimester. While I gave time for the chef to practice her monologue, I had to go to the site where I was to record the video. The problems I faced were simple, i wasn't a videographer and when I was handed a camcorder i had absolutely no idea how it worked. so I had done research beforehand and learned how to use the focus, white balance and essentially how to obtain the best quality I could. I was also given a RODElink by Rode, it basically comprises of a belt pack receiver, belt pack transmitter, lavalier (lapel) microphone and camera mount. The best part of it was the fact that you could walk 100 meters away, and the signal would still be as strong as it is when kept a meter away. This proved handy on the day of recording since I noticed how much the chef liked to move around, and so I decided to leave her be and do what she does best since I was in her domain now. I used to watch a lot of cooking shows and I still do these days, but my whole perspective has now changed whenever I watch cooking shows now. Usually the show doesn't last for more than an hour, and if it's just one dish, then it's usually about 30 minutes of screen time. Here comes the part which I wasn't ready for, the baking. The thing about professional food channels is that, they precook everything so as to waste minimal time. I hadn't taken this into consideration and I went in there thinking we would be done in an hours time, but no. It took us a flipping 4 hours to shoot the whole thing. The first hour and a half went by so fast, and we were just done with making the dough, the next hour we waited since the location we were shooting at was a legitimate kitchen in a cafe with chefs waiting on us. We chucked in the dough and let it bake, meanwhile the other chefs prepared sandwiches for the Cafe. They took roughly about an hours time, and once they were done, the cruffins were done too. I was surprised at how fast they had cleaned everything, enough time for us to start setting up to record the second half of the video. The second half was quick since the cruffins were lukewarm and we didn't have to wait for them to cool down. She explained that you need to wait till the cruffins are cool in order to plate it, else you'll burn your hand. After everything was done I quickly went to their office and started editing the video on their system. The editing process proved to be a nightmare since I had to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro and have the video ready ON THE SAME DAY. I managed to obtain copyright free music and lay it in the video to make the video more vibrant. This is what the final product looks like. personally it's not one of my favourite works, but to be able to apply techniques that I've learnt outside the Audio Engineering spectrum proved very valuable to me. I didn't expect that I would be writing monologue scripts for a video that I would be recording and editing by myself and having a client like my work and posting it up on their page. The work I've done shows me how much I need to improve, but it has also shown me how many skills I've learnt during my time in SAE. Skills that had laid dormant, now awakened once stimulated.
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