Black Coffee – Stop Motion Animation
Animation: Joe Michael McDonald and James Crawford
Music: Anja McCloskey
A stop motion music video telling a story of love and diamond eyes.
This is the B-side to Anja McCloskey’s single “A Kiss”, available on www.anjamccloskey.co.uk
Sound Design Showreel 2011
Sound Design Showreel: Foley, Sound Effects and Dialogue recording.
Wizards and Robots – Gameplay Demo
Game and Sound Design: Joe Michael McDonald
A gameplay demo of a 3D audio computer game designed for partially sighted and blind players. The game uses no visuals, requiring the player to use binaural audio feedback to navigate rooms and puzzles.
The on-screen keyboard illustrates player interaction for the benefit of this gameplay demo.
Headphones must be worn whilst listening to this demo, due to the nature of Binaural 3D audio.
Full Cast: James Crawford, Leonie O’Mahony, Amy Singler
The Forest – Stop Motion Animation
Made by Joe Michael McDonald and Leonie O’Mahony
A short stop motion animation for the play ‘The Forest’ by Lantern Light Theatre. Made using a Kodak point and shooter, a Mic stand as a tripod and 3 household lamps.
Wizards and Robots – A Binaural 3D Audio Game
Illustration by Billy Mather
Wizards and Robots is an audio interactive game designed for partially sighted and blind people. The game uses Binaural 3D Audio as the primary player feedback and provides audio descriptions of game environments and objects.
There is no visual feedback with this game, so users must rely on their ears to navigate through the game environment, completing audio puzzles to progress to the next area of the game.
I have created a simple PC demo version of the game for people to try out.
Link to Windows demo version is here.
Headphones must be worn whilst playing this game, due to the nature of Binaural 3D audio.
The controls are as follows:
Face North: Up Arrow Key
Face East: Right Arrow Key
Face South: Down Arrow Key
Face West: Left Arrow Key
Turn Audio Descriptions On: Control Key
Select Objects: Left Shift or Right Shift Key
Interact with Objects: Space Bar
Facing Information: Alt Key
Hint: Tab Key
Exit Game: Escape Key
Skip Tutorial: Enter
Aether – Gameplay Video
Game Design: James Crawford
Sound Design: Joe Michael McDonald
Gameplay demo for Aether. Sounds were recorded using a NT2-A and processed in Pro Tools 8. The beach wash was generated using Xpand!2 plug-in. The game is currently being finished.
Jane Eyre
Camera Operators: Ben Pethick & Sam Nicholls
Sound & Editing: Joe Michael McDonald
Here are scenes from a short film I produced for a group of students studying Drama at Winchester University. The film supported a final year performance and is to be projected on three screens at each performance.
The footage was shot on 2 Panasonic HVX-200 and the sound was recorded using a Rode NTG-2 with a boom pole. Additional narration was recorded into Pro Tools using a Rode NT2-A. All post production was done using Final Cut Pro, including editing and colour correction.
Full Cast: Amy Singler, Carissa Garnett, Leonie O’Mahony, Chena James, Chris Rogers and Andrew Pickering.
Purple Hole – E4 e-sting
Animation: Daniel Collins
Sound Design and Music: Joe Michael McDonald
This was created for an E4 E-sting competition. The sound design used a large number of household items, including a hoover, cutlery, tupperware boxes and a minto’s tube. These were all recorded using a Shure SM58 Beta (the only microphone I had access to at the time!) and processed in Pro Tools 8. Although the SM58 doesn’t have a particularly spectacular signal to noise ratio or frequency range, it was more than adequate for capturing the sounds needed.
The music was created using Xpand!2, one of the plug-ins that comes with Pro Tools 8 as standard, and a M-Audio MIDI controller. The music is very ambient, with sounds representing sattelites and the spaceship blending with minimal percussion.
The voice of E4 was provided by Leonie O’Mahony.
