MA in Composition for Film and Television

Professional Techniques
Assignment 4 - a final mastered project 4 December 2018

Specification
Produce any piece of music between 30 seconds and 2 minutes incorporating all of the skills you
have acquired so far. It is up to you what balance of instrumentation you use, but bear in mind that I
can only mark what you give me. The balance of marks allocated to particular production
techniques (sequencing, recording, mixing, mastering) will depend on the nature of the project that
you submit. Remember, this is worth 40% of the unit mark. If in any doubt about the nature of the
project you wish to produce, please come and talk to me about it before you start.

This project should encompass all of the skills you have studied and used so far: sequencing
technique, live recording, mixing and mastering. Credit will be given for: effective ‘performances’
in the sequencing; musically appropriate recording of the live instruments or voices; mixing that
makes the best use of space, colour, texture and dynamics and blends the live and electronic
resources appropriately; mastering that finishes the project in the most appropriate way for the
chosen submission medium and musical style.

You must include a commentary of no more than 1,000 words. As with previous projects, what is
not required is a simple description of what was done. Take a few (3 or 4) of the most interesting
examples of techniques in any of the areas: sequencing, recording, mixing, mastering. Give as much
detail as you can to demonstrate your knowledge of how to take charge of these resources, relating
your technique to the musical goals.

The assignment should be handed in as an audio file or video file (depending on the nature of the
production) plus a text file in a folder to your network ‘dropbox’. Please create a folder called
‘xy12345_ProfTech_Assignment4’ (where xy12345 is your UOB username, omit the quotation
marks). Audio files should be WAVs, sample rate either 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz, bit depth either
16- or 24-bit, called ‘xy12345_ProfTech_Assignment4.wav’ (where xy12345 is your UOB
username, omit the quotation marks). No other audio file formats accepted. Video files should be a
Quicktime ‘.mov’ file using one of the standard installation codecs for the picture and an
uncompressed audio track at 48kHz, 24-bit. The text file should be in one of the following formats:
Word (.docx) or PDF.

This project is worth 40% of the final unit mark.

Deadline: On Blackboard.