Adam Robertson Showreel for Application to the Lucasfilm "Jedi Academy" (Audio) Internship 2011

My Showreel for Application to the Lucasfilm "Jedi Academy" Internship from Adam Robertson on Vimeo.

This is the showreel I created for my application to the Lucasfilm "Jedi Academy" Internship program for Summer 2011 (n.b. Audio Intern Position).

In this showreel I have created a customised version of the 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm logos. The rest of the film samples 3 pieces of work that I have completed as part of University courses. As these works are intended for no financial gain and were completed as part of an educational course, then any copyright issues are covered by Creative Commons. I only lay claim to my own sound design. Any other attributes / collaborators are credited under the notes for each individual video, further down this page.

Abstract Sound for Animation Student's Work

Abstract Animation by Neil Wong from Adam Robertson on Vimeo.

I was asked to use Reaktor5 to create a 30 second piece of audio which would then be used by animation students to inspire their abstract animations. This piece was created by animation student Neil Wong. The audio was created using a variety of different patches, recorded from Reaktor5 into ProTools. I have another by Akbar Khan to upload, but as I've hit my upload limit, I'll paste it here later when I have some more space.

Biffy Clyro String Arrangement

I was listening to an MTV Unplugged session of Machines by Biffy Clyro, which was posted to their facebook page the other day, and thought I'd test out my arranging skills by making an arrangement to accompany the performance.

I arranged everything in ProTools using a Midi Keyboard and some plugins. They seem to have cut the Xylophone/small bells out of the MTV Unplugged official video but you can hear them on the recording I have which was sourced here:

http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=14930

the MTV Video version is here for your comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6LuWPmEfBM

I don't claim rights to the original song, only my arrangement which sits around it; As far as I’m aware, the copyright to the original recording is held by “1967 Ltd. Nokia Music Group”.

Feel free to let me know what you think.

City Lights

City Lights from Adam Robertson on Vimeo.

This was an assignment as part of my course.
We were asked to come up with our own videos based on a theme and to create the sound to go along with it.
I chose the theme of City Lights and used a poem titled "City Lights" (In Memory of Jack Kerouac); by "jon1jt", sourced from online-literature.com
My aim was to use the out-of-focus lights to force the viewer to be more aware of the audio. I highlighted certain lines in the poem by using spot fx and city ambiences.
I split the lines of the poem up to give the impression that the narrator is walking around the city, commenting on the scenes they are looking at which the viewer doesn't necessarily see.

Bittersweet

Bittersweet from Adam Robertson on Vimeo.

A Uni project for our Narrative class. We were put into teams and had to come up with a short story which we eventually had to develop into an animatic. I had a lot of fun on this project. I find cartoons/animations give lots of creative freedom. Anyway, here's the result.

Bittersweet was written (and Greyscaled) by Julia Zweygarth.
Cells drawn by Steve McDermott.
Video Compositing by Allan Mann.
Sound Design by Adam Robertson.

Shootout!

Shootout! from Adam Robertson on Vimeo.

As part of my Film Theory class, I was assigned the task of making a short film (90secs-2min) based on theories of genre. I decided to have some fun with the genre of the Western and the typical cowboy shootout.

I was really pressed for time with this as I could only access the camera for one day, and then when I received it from another student he hadn't charged the batteries. Failing light also meant I had to take whatever shots I got, but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

Persona Intro

Persona Intro from Adam Robertson on Vimeo.

Well, since I've already uploaded The Elephant's dream, I decided that I should upload the videos I've been working on as part of my course at the Glasgow School of art.

For this assignment we were given the intro to Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" and asked to re-imagine the sound for this. This was my attempt where I've used some music by Steve Vai, a whole load of sound fx and just generally had some fun trying to tie it all together.

You can let me know what you think.

Elephant's Dream

This was one of my first attempts at post-production audio.
During my final year at UWS, Craig Nicol and I were tasked with removing all the audio from this short film and rebuilding it. We used several creative commons pieces of music, auditioned voiceover artists and created all our own sound fx (a stipulation of the task was that no library effects could be used).

I spent many hours performing all the Foley work.
We created a 5.1 surround mix, although this is the stereo version. Upon first uploading this to Vimeo I noticed the process created some lag on the video - I got around this by uploading it to YouTube instead.

Feel free to comment :)

ProTools 9

So,

Tonight I went along to a function suite at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for Avid's demonstration of the new ProTools version 9 range.

I was heavily impressed. For a long time I've felt like I was missing out with ProTools LE 8 - missing basic functions that other front-end programs contained as standard (such as the option to bounce to mp3).
With PT9 comes the shake-up that I was beginning to think I'd never see. Not only have Avid ditched the M-powered and LE versions, but the fact that any DAW or control surface (or none at all!) can be used (thanks to ASIO and Core Audio Support - yay!), has really opened up the avenues for further creativity.

One or two other features that were demonstrated were increased track count, delay compensation and Avid "Heat" (a lovely, warm, "make-sound-nice-button" that induces a sort of tube-amp/tape-saturation warmth to your mix).

Equally impressive were the range of new Euphonix control surfaces. Not just limited to use with ProTools; these magic, slim, ergonomically designed wonders of invention adopt the EUCON Ethernet protocol, allowing them to be used in conjunction with any program that also adopts this protocol (Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer, Final Cut, Maestro... to name but a few) - and to top it all off for all you non Mac-type people; it works on windows 7 too.
You don't get away Scot-free... you still have to buy/have an i-lock (a small price to pay and these have been given a makeover too).

All in all, I'm really impressed with Avid's new "customer based" approach to it's products - long may it continue!

Thanks to Mediaspec and Avid for organising the event and I look forward to the next one!

My First Post

So,

I've decided to enter the fatasmical (yes fantasmical, this is my blog and I'll make up as many words as I wish), world of blogging. The main aim of this blog is to allow people to experience some of my audiovisual works. Please let me know what you think (I prefer positive criticism to negative, and some to none at all).