Sound Editing for fun

A most gruelling week indeed it has been, sitting in front of a Mac with me headphones on trying to make a vaguely decent sound design out of the somewhat dodgy source material I am provided with . There's an awful lot of background chatting from the crew which has been an utter pain to get rid of and a million other things. Well actually I don't want to bore you with the fine details, but it's been a hell of a lot of work and it still ain't over. They say you can't polish a turd, but I'm certainly giving it a go, it should have a least a dull sheen by the time I've finished (and then obviously I'll have to go and wash my hands).

I've been recording my football commentary voice over as well this weekend, doing a very shoddy impersonation of John Motson - which the guys at work seem to think is really convincing. Hurrah, it's a good job that nobody english is EVER going to hear this cos it really is terrible, but to the Malaysian ears it will do just fine. Hurrah.

A LITTLE SIDE TALE: Picture the scene, it's Thursday night, I'm just ready to go to bed early, preparing myself for a hard day at work. The phone rings, it's Vanessa. Her parents had bought tickets to an expensive dinner, a magazine launch do in a colonial mansion on a hill, a very posh soiree for the KL elite. Tickets to this dinner are pretty costly (200RM, which is around 30quid - this may not seem so expensive at all, but consider my lunch normally costs 3.50RM, or 50p , and that's a good lunch, an expensive lunch would be 20RM and then you're talking a real nice splashing out job).
They can't go, so we're to go in their place. The only problem for me is the dress code.
It's a traditional, formal do and the dress code is "Batik".
Batik, for those who don't know, is the process of dying silk with the aid of wax to form the edges. Malaysian batik styles range from the gaudy to the excessively gaudy - basically silk Aloha shirts that cost a lot of cash for a nice one.

The only time available to go batik shopping was in my half hour around lunchtime (my breaks are self governed but I'm on a tight deadline) so off I charged with no clue whatsoever, in search of a shirt that looks like it's been washed with several types of curry. How the hell was I supposed to know what looks nice, when the choices were a big shocking swirl in blue, a big shocking splat in red or any other number of options.
Well needless to say, I chose one that I thought looked nice, in a get-your-sunglasses kind of way, paid then legged it back to work. I chose a sort of mustardy, yellow, orange shocking swirl affair.
Why oh why, whenI asked all these people for help and advice on buying a batik shirt, why did none of them tell me that Yellow is the colour for royalty. Why. I think this is just about the only rule for batik, so why did no-one tell me, and why did I happen to pick out the only sodding colour which may prove contraversial without any clue whatsoever.
Don't ask how many people told me that yellow is the royal colour last night (in that sort of tone of voice that people generally reserve for dribbling mongs in wheelchairs, or cold callers from Mumbai).

Oh well.

A SIDE NOTE ON A SIDE NOTE: After my excasperating shopping trip, I finished work early with a list as long as my leg still uncompleted. I had a fairly mad dash to get to Vanessas house on time for the meal. I leave work, walk round the block to the bus stop, cross over the pedestrian footbridge (in a bit of a rush, afraid the bus would drive off, no paying a great deal of attention to where I put my feet) and bam. I tread in a giant turd. This turd had not been laid there by a canine however, no siree, that would be just too lucky. Oh no, this monstrously smelly mound of solid effluvia was borne of man, a very filthy degenerate "human being" had seen fit to empty his colon directly in my path. Just sodding fantastic.
So I try and scrape it off, scuff around in grass, on grit and a variety of other methods of clearing out the impressively deep treads of my hiking boots. But I also have a very pressing time frame on which to get back to vanessas house. So I sit on the bus, I normally draw stares anyway, but this time there was no mistaking the big tall blonde guy who smells like he shat himself, especially if you're sat next to him on a crowded rush hour bus. The same thing then on the LRT (after I might add I lost precious minutes trying to wash it off discreetly by sticking my boot in the big pond directly behind the Petronas twin towers, and then again with a hose in the LRT station toilets). The lady next to me was very politely trying not to vomit.
All of these pailed into insignificance however when I got into the taxi from the station to vans house. Whilst the public transport was embarrassing, I could at least breathe and look as if it might be someone else who was so offensive as to smell like a toilet, but there was no fooling the taxi guy who nearly honked up there and then as soon as I closed the door. All the windows were opened and he nearly threw me out - as we were stuck in rush hour traffic jam - until I begged him and then gave him an extra 20RM just to let me stay in. Poor guy the car probably still reeks to high heaven.

So I got back with minutes to spare, then had to scrub my boots with bleach to get the stench off.
Sadly the hour or so of being suspended above the turd stench proved not so jolly for my jeans, cos they'd decided (very decently I thought) to absorb a good portion of the stench for themselves, so that I made vanessas bathroom reek, had to borrow trousers from her dad and shoes from her brother, scrub myself raw in the shower, rub tiger balm on my nostrils to remove the fetted lingering poo fragments lodged in there and then go off to a very posh dinner where the Minister for Arts and Culture would also be dining along with with creme of KL society.
Just fooking marvellous



Here's a handsome young fella, shame he just chucked up all over himself