20T2 SAE Perth Virtual Showcase - Studio II

Jordan Costello & Theo Gianoli | Audio design: Jordan Alabakis

Pandora is a teenage girl, she is studying and very tired, she has overworked herself and is getting buried in work. When she decides to take a break and relax with some drawing she opens a portal into her imagination, a metaphor for being able to rejuvenate and empower herself. With this she is able to get motivated to get back to work and be more productive in her studies.

We decided early on, that to provide distinction between the rooms, we would be separating the rooms into warm and cool color palettes, with Jordan side being warm toned to reflect her stressful environment, while Theos side would be cool toned blues and purples to reflect her relaxed state if mind.

Theo begun by drawing this concept of the stacked room layout and the rough sort of colors we were going for in each room.

Next Jordan took the room blockout done in Maya and used it to paint over for rough color concepts for her rooms. Both Jordan and Theos concepts for this are shown just below.

As well as the colour palette, Theo drew designs for both rooms and the character, as shown below he initally trialled 5 different styles and outfits during the concept stage, this allowed us to narrow down the character and look that we really wanted to acheive.

Jordan was able to use these designs to base the 3D design off and Theo was able to further refine these for the final room and character design.

Next the finals for Pandora were produced and we decided on the final design, below are both final designs for the character used in the animations.

We decided on the name Pandora as we felt it was fitting for the character and the story, as the story of Pandoras box comes to mind and the other word accomponied inside the box she holds, fits perfectly with our story of the other side.

Below are some shots taken during the production process as well as videos used for the screen tests on Yagan square. By doing this we were able to identify any issues with the layout or our stylistic choices.

2160p.mov

composition file.mp4

the other side- please use this one.mp4

Final Screentest

One of the Final Character renders

Final 3D Room

I'm sure this will work0001.mp4

Theo's Final Video

Portal Front

Portal Back

Theo's Pipeline-

Jordan's Pipeline-

A far as the work on the Audio/Music for the animation was concerned, Jordan and Theo originally sent me reference tracks that reflected the (Fluffy Lo-Fi Contemporary Hip-Hop) compositional styles of Ujico*/Snail's House, and Shawn Wasabi.

However, I decided to go for a more (Deep House/Anjunadeep Label) sound, in the hopes that it would resonate more whilst layered with the animation.

So in this instance, I had to compose a very light and upbeat track that was not only meant for the audience to listen to. Keep in mind, the length of the track had to be no more than five minutes in duration.

Additionally, the track had to be composed to reflect the mood and plot of the story as the main character Pandora travels between the real world of her bedroom and into the scenery of her imagination when she takes a break from studying at her desk.

My Digital Audio Workstation that I used to compose and produce the track was Ableton Live 10, and as I progressed through the session, I made sure to keep tabs of the following (see Image One):

> Keep the low-end instruments comprising of the (Kick Drum and Sub Bass) in Mono format and in the center of the Stereo Field so that it would retain the most power to 'bounce' in the mix.

> Cut the majority of the frequencies in the mix between the frequency regions of two-hundred and five-hundred hertz (which can cause a problematic 'muddy' mix).

> Keep the high-end instruments such as the hi-hat, claps and percussion patterns between the regions of two-and-a-half kilohertz and eighteen kilohertz with extra swing applied so that more of a 'locked groove' could be formed.

> Experiment with the melodic note playing of the lead synth line through the usage of Native Instrument's 'MASSIVE' and an Arpeggiator Note Pattern Sequencer, as to liven and spice up the track in general (see Image Two).

> Apply some natural-sounding self-recorded Foley of bedroom ambience with rain occurring in the background, as to properly recreate a true atmosphere for the character to be set in whilst she studies.

Once the five minute original track was mixed and mastered, both Jordan & Theo told me to extend the track by an extra minute for an extended cut of the showcase animation that would be played for longer at the SAE Showcase.

In this instance, what I did for properly remaster the track, was by inserting the original master and apply the same percussive and light drum instruments such as the hi-hat, claps and percussion patterns, along with white noise riser sweeps and extra Reverb and High-Pass Filter automations that were placed on a looped portion of the original mix to create extra tension in the mix.

Lastly, I inserted an Eight-Band EQ to clean up the slightest frequencies and make the mix of the instruments sound tighter, as well as some Saturation, Multiband Dynamics and Glue Compression onto the Master Channel, in order to help bolster the loudness of both the Original Track and the 6 Minute Extended Version.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed composing this piece of music for both Jordan and Theo, (who reciprocated with some very positive feedback in response). Overall, it was one of my favourite Transmedia Projects that I worked on this Trimester!

(Jordan Alabakis [Trimester Four Audio Student] - 01/09/2020)