How crowdroller about music from around the world was preparing and filming

At 14:00 Moscow time, a lot of events take place in the world at once and many sounds sound. From these sounds you can collect music. And after a dozen “impossible”, we still decided that such a movie could be shot.

Work was carried out in 17 countries at once, the director was physically only on one set, and teams all over the globe are 80 ordinary people who were found thanks to social networks.

Below in the post about how we searched for different sounds at the same time, mixed them into music, received rejections from composers, found people around the world for crowdshots, set them tasks, fought off security guards, collected everything in one video and did it that was previously considered almost impossible.

The initial task was to make advertising convenient roaming. MFIVE proposed the concept that people can call each other on the phone and transmit sound signals from different places that connect to the melody.

The main difficulty of implementing the idea was that it was extremely difficult, firstly, to find suitable musical places around the world, secondly, to compose music from sounds, thirdly, to actually remove it - and with all this, it was far from being in the astronomical budget , immediately and without options, eliminating the appearance of film crews in 17 countries on the same day.

Work began with a search for sounds. Colleagues began to search the Internet, directories, encyclopedias, friends and acquaintances, even went to travel agencies near offices. It was necessary to find various interesting sounds with a known time: for example, a clock, a gun shot, the sound of a train arriving at a station, and so on.

The algorithm was as follows:

• We found information about an unusual sound attraction or just an interesting sound.
• Then there was confirmation that the contraption was still in place (for example, according to the latest photographs in Wikimapia or Panorama). If there was an opportunity, a fresh video of tourists on Youtube was immediately searched to confirm the fact of the thing being in place. Sometimes we had to contact our tourists on social networks and ask if this object works: tweets and statuses really helped, it was possible to catch those who are right there on the spot.
• The object was entered into the database: where, what, how, links to proofs.
• After that, it was necessary to determine the notes that were created by the attraction. To do this, either video from Youtube was used, from which the key sound was cut out, or older videos from various tourist sites and reviews. The composer drove the passage into a special software that produced accurate sound frequencies (notes).

Here is a part of the base on the map (final movie sounds). The working draft looked about the same.

About half of the objects have not yet been synchronized in time, but about half of the base "sounded" at 14:00 Moscow time. At the same time, not every sound began exactly at 14: for example, one hour needed about 10 seconds to play an introduction and start to beat.

The first base included about fifty sounds described in this way. It was necessary to find a composer. They showed it to several professionals - and received a rejection from everyone. According to people involved in music, it is impossible to compose a melody from the sounds of the world, because most of the sounds-fighting bells and others are not tuned according to a single system and, accordingly, how many do not add them - there will be no harmony. The director continued to persistently search and inspect objects with sound and compile tables with their musical affiliation and playing time.

At the same time, for the presentation, we put together just such a simple video with cannon shots in different countries, which are repeated every day at the same time:



And then they showed the concept and base to another composer. He looked at all this for a while, thought hard, and then said that in principle it was real (hooray!), But nothing would come out directly from this base. It turned out to be a kind of arthouse mix, because there were few sounds, plus they were not very coordinated by tonality. I had to supplement the base - I needed a second call, more sounds (here all the friends in social networks were already questioned and questions were simply asked in popular groups and forums), but the composer still said that it would only be possible to collect something like dubstep.

Second iteration

Then we decided to introduce new harmonic elements, slightly changing the concept of the video. The original plan was: to find objects that sound themselves at the right time. It became clear that it would not work out with them only - therefore, we began to supplement the base with what also sounds with the participation of a person. With these things, it has become much simpler: they can “play” at any time, that is, exactly when it is needed for our melody. The task was for a person, for example, to tap a certain rhythm, and thanks to this, we would get a missing instrument. They made a third approach to the base, and they have already increased it to almost 300 sounds.

The composer with great patience sat down at work again. After several days of hard work, his thoughts turned out to be a sketch of the melody. It was a success - and it was possible after 5 different professionals said that nothing will work!



Further it was necessary either to travel to specific places, or to search for people who would shoot on the spot. As a result, it was decided to find people on the spot, otherwise no budget would be enough. At first, contacts of all acquaintances and friends of acquaintances in different countries were raised: this closed about half of the base. Somewhere there were freelance correspondents for agencies, television people, just people who lived abroad. Another half of the base of sounds selected for the video had to be closed by people about whom we knew nothing at all. Then the colleagues from mfive began to search on social networks - they sat on Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter, even Odnoklassniki and various local networks, wrote ads, or contacted pointwise. If the ad didn’t work - they just made a selection in search of those who are online in the right country - and wrote to everyone in turn, talked. Units were sent immediately and without question, but most of the people were very interested. When they got acquainted with the concept, if there was an opportunity, they almost immediately wanted to participate. Interestingly, the issue of money went by the wayside. They told the idea - everyone was interested in trying. And, of course, there was no problem finding professionals: any people who had a suitable smartphone or camera (needed HD-shooting) could come to the object and take it off.

Then we began to prepare for each impromptu team on-site shooting requirements. The director collected dozens of photos of the place from various services and social networks, watched videos, satellite images, panoramas - and imagined exactly how the point looks at the right time. Then he wrote detailed requirements for how to take pictures, how to stand, where to bring the phone, and so on. Clearly, it was necessary to take into account the technical features: smartphones microphones against the wind do not fit at all, the cameras give a rather narrow dynamic range, plus there are a number of other features. All this is reflected in the requirements. Here is an example of such a document (different pages for two different objects: in some places they painted, in some places they rendered):





In the end, it turned out that the entire video was filmed by the director directly from behind the computer: he visited only one central film set (where the sounds came together), and even communicated with the composer mostly remotely.

At the pre-stage stage, each team examined objects. Surprises began: for example, three people came to Amsterdam to the music classics. But the classics do not work - the locals complained that they interfere with sleep, and the city administration removed them. I had to urgently seek a replacement - fortunately, the classics were not alone.

Here we are gradually approaching the most important issue of Youtube comments - is it possible for everyone at the same time. No, not at all: the installation was. 80% got into synchronization, but somewhere they had to remove duplicates, somewhere they went wrong on timings and so on. Interestingly, not one of the impromptu teams “dug” the object, that is, everyone came and did everything right. For this worried most.

After such projects, I want to believe in people, in their sincerity and kindness. Here are a couple of stories with how everything went: for example, on St. Martin's Island there are few residents as such, and there are almost no Russian tourists. There are dozens of compatriots there in a year. Of course, no one was found by the time of the video. They began to "wool" local online - also no one. Then they just started looking at who is active on the Internet - and found the site of a local freelance designer. He was ready to go down and take off the plane at the right time. The guy rode his bike already in a few hours, waited a long time at the strip - and all for a couple of seconds. Then he called and, literally choking with joy, asked whether it worked out or not. It turned out there is in the video.

In India, a girl plays in a temple: this was perhaps the most difficult shooting in terms of organization. The couple has been traveling in India for almost a year and a half. At the moment we contacted, they were in another state, but they liked the idea, and they drove to the place. They traveled by train, on mopeds, almost across half the country. As a result, on the spot it turned out that the temple was closed for restoration, there is no one from the administration, but there is an evil guard. I had to apply all the skills of social engineering: nevertheless, it turned out to quietly get inside.



Yes, all the people at all points of the survey are the most ordinary people who just liked the idea and who agreed to take part in our experiment. Even in Moscow, they did not invite professional actors, but called those who were really interested: the guys in the studio are a real musician, a real didiJ and a real student.

Next was the final installation. Sounds did not “pull up” anywhere, that is, they completely retained their original sound. And then - a lot of joy of those who participated and a lot of views of the video. And - an unexpected question from the security service: “why did they shoot such an expensive video” - it was still hard to believe that the shooting was done using crowdfunding methods and without simultaneous trips to a bunch of countries.

And then, a few months later - a bunch of prestigious professional awards. At the time of publication of this topic on Habré, the video had about a million views (of which the original video on Youtube collected more than 860 thousand).