Starship Farragut Trailer

[hetoreyn]

Hey guys,

Thought I'd post this as I'm going to talk about this on the next podcast. Recently I was invited to make some music for a Trailer to a Star Trek Fan production called Starship Farragut. Although I won't be scoring the episode there's the possibility of doing their new Vignette (short episode) in a few months.

I Love doing these things cos I finally get to do some actual composing. And giving my studio a workout. This was all made using the VI special edition and Logic Pro, and some of the trills from the First Edition.

This Trailer is significant for me because it showcases my first real works using the Velocity crossfade on the VI's. And I must admit that I have really got some great results out of doing music for this clip.

So, if anyones interested to take a lurk you can find a nice quality rendering of the trailer here:

http://home.comcast.net/~doc_tina/onlinestorage/Trailer2.wmv

There are other download locations, but this one seems to be the highest quality. Also if you are really interested take a look at Starship Farraguts site. www.starshipfarragut.com

The Visual effects are indeed amazing. (If you check out episode 1 there are some very nice shots of the Farragut, made by NEO f/x).

And of course I'll chat about the makings of this piece on the podcast for those who are interested to know more about controllers and practical .. yay even quick application in music.

[musicpete]

Hi!

I liked your piece! A very good effort for what looks like an extremely crappy amateur movie. Just the kind of movie I love composing music for! [:D]

I hope you don't mind me pointing out a few things. People told me I tend to come across as grumpy and ranting, so please don't take my words too serious:

* The composition and orchestration are nice. Very standard, though. I'd love to hear what you come up with in a bigger production.
* Why do those amateur filmmakers NEVER have the slightest idea of how to mix sound properly? The music was clipping badly and very often during the whole trailer... Please tell those morons to learn using a compressor. Or offer them to do the sound mix yourself. I am sure you could do it better than them!
* A few sound effects would have brought the trailer to live more. I am afraid the music alone doesn't convey the necessary excitement. The whole impression is like: "Hmmm, not bad but WTH is all this about?" At no point the trailer captures the viewers attention.
* The music is too overwhelming in my humble opinion. You write very nice and grand gestures over totally bland and unimpressive (boring, to be brutally honest) images. It simply does not fit (for my taste). First I thought you were trying for a comdey approach (you know, writing music for the opposite of what is seen) but it did not feel funny. It also did not fit the pictures, assuming you were really going for a serious approach.

So please, don't take any offense! I really, really liked your music but I think it is wasted for such a bad trailer...

Maybe with better editing, some sound effects and a complete overhaul of the sound editing part it could all work together. [*-)]:

[hetoreyn]

Hehe,

Well you're honest I'll give you that [[[:D]]]

To answer some of your qualms .. (I hope that's how you spell that [:P]), here's some reasons and counter arguments.

The sound is crappy cos it's been low sampled to mono at 22050 hz and frankly it really degrades the sound. It was presented in full CD quality audio but as you can imagine bandwidth restrictions tend to make it so that they have to sacrifice something. I did actually mix the sound myself and I can say it was fine at my end. I'm going to play it again next podcast so you can see ... or hear for yourself anyways.

Starship Farragut itself is .. to say the least .. not as good as the original series [[[:D]]] (Well I hope to get a job with these guys so I'd rather not say anything bad about them). I mean .. give em there dues .. there trying hard .. and there is a big effort that goes into these kind of things. It's all done on volunteer basis.

The CGI work is amazing if you get a chance to see any of that. And that's what I'm interested in.

As for the composition itself. Well I guess I just went with what seemed to work. I was trying to create the sense of awe and seriousness .. but as you say the photography of a musket and a phaser on the ground are quite a ways from being "Huge impact". What can I say .. I worked with what I had. I guess I have really grand impressions that I want to make and that perhaps may have been against the grain to give .. what I hope is .. a Hollywood class score .. to an amateur film. But at the same time, the fans of this thing love it. So there's no harm done I think.

And like yourself .. I'd love to see what I'd come up with to a much bigger production (And paid production [[[:D]]]) Hell I can barely give my music away these days so I don't feel bad about doing these kind of things. No professional company seems to want me so I'm just enjoying myself.

Anyways thanks for the comments. I don't mind that you tell the honest truth. You said you liked the music and that's a nice enough comment as it is. The fact that you think my music should be in something better I find very complementary.

Man what I'd give for a paid music job in a Fantasy Sci-fi film.

[musicpete]

Hello!

Thank you for not taking offense in my mediocre spelled posting!

I sincerely urge you to check the audio track in the finished trailer in any audio editor. You will notice severe clipping in many places. A compressor could fix that. You simply tried to increase the overall volume without realizing that in digital you can't go above 0dB (which is a common beginner mistake which I repeated too often myself...). If you do not know what a compressor is, I suggest you search this forum or Wikpedia.

I also would like offer my help, if you care for it. Maybe we could create a great mix of that nice trailer music together.

On the other points you made: I agree with you that this looks like a ambitious project. It seems that we both enjoy making music for those crappy but fine movies. [[;)]]

I also think it's great that you are looking forward to paid work. Personally I would not charge money for my compositions, simply because I find it unethical to ask money for bad craftsmanship. You music is great though, you can ask for payment. [[;)]]

[cm]

allow me to step in ... for me it is irritating, that the clip shows 44.000 Hz 16 bit stereo with 48 kbps (!) whereas you mention it to be 22.050 and mono.
in fact a video editor confirms the 44,1 16bit stereo with VBR.

since the clip has an overall bitrate above 1 Mbit i'd suggest to re-render the trailer using 192 kbit/s CBR 44,1 kHz stereo 16 bit for a better result.

there will be still enough bandwidth left for the video, which btw. shows a very unusual framerate: 23,97 fps ... either someone mixed up 29.97 for NTSC or the renderer didn't hit the 24 fps (like for telecine) ... also the pixel ratio seems to be unusual (1:1.2) so resulting in a 9:5 format

sorry if i might be too picky and there are good reasons for that ...
christian

[hetoreyn]

hmm .. well the Quick time version shows as 22,050 hz and shows 24 fps. Sounds quite bitty .. but that's to be expected from the lower sample rate. I think though that the flash and wmv are in different formats altogether.

In anycase. It ain't my fault.

http://starshipfarragut.com/Download-Episode/002_FWoaN.php

There's a few different types to download here if you chose Teaser 2 from episode 2.

Maybe I should just post a music link and give it to you that way. [:P]

[cm]

wel, well ... the quicktime shows 22.050 16 bit stereo compressed with IMA 4:1 with an average rate of 180 kbps - might sound even better than the wmv

flv (flash) usually uses mp3 for audio, but is a seperate format (didn't download it from youtube)

hmm, why is audio always so underrated by the video guys?
christian

[Mahlon]

hey hetoreyn,
I liked your music. Nice job.

Mahlon