INVESTIGATING AUDIO PRODUCTION
why sound is important
Sound is really important as it engages audiences and helps evoke emotional responses from them. Sound helps connect people to what they are seeing allowing you to indicate what mood you are meant to be feeling. You could say it adds a element of emotional contagion.
diegetic- sound/music that is within the scenes universe like music coming out of a characters headphones.
non diegetic- sound/music/voice that takes place out of the scenes universe and has been added on during editing. An example is background music.
Examples
Both of these can be seen in guardians of the galaxy scene : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i2oUp5fAQw&t=149s where the blue alien dude has the headphones and you can hear it, this is diegetic sound then it merges transitioning into non diegetic as the song becomes background music for the scene. This makes the music louder showing the scene is getting intense.
a really good diegetic movie is 'no country for old men' The movie is extremely silent adding to the tension of the movie. This : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqMdQBox15s is a great scene were Anton Chigurh goes into a gas station and he puts the wrapper on the side (around 2:30 mins in). The way you can hear everything thats happening is so effective creating a sense of realism.
Saving private Ryan just uses diegetic sound to make the scene feel raw and personal. They created a rhythm with the machine gun allowing the scene to flow without you even noticing. There is a part of the scene where is shows internal diegetic sound. This is where his character goes temporally deaf and we are perceiving the sound from inside his head, it gives the scene a moment of silence and you really take in the damage on the beach. With the handheld camera feel and the close ups it makes you feel like you are part of the scene. Having a war film you need to make it feel as real as possible and they achieved this here.
Star wars is an effective way to show how sound is needed and adds a huge contribution. Without sound you don't get the right context for the clips since background music and dialogue will creative the right atmosphere. Most people focus on the visuals but when sound is taken away you notice how much you actually appreciate sound.
how sound works
when recording multiple factors can affect the quality these are some of them:
- environment
- quality of recording equipment
- correct choice of recording equipment
- placement of microphone
- recording levels
Any large spaces like a sports hall will be difficult to record in. It would be reverberant and very hard to get a clear recording. background sounds would appear louder as a result of the reverb.
When recording outside you would have to deal with wind noises and background noise. These are called uncontrolled environment. To help prevent this you can use a wind shield also known as a dead cat furry to put over a riffle/shotgun microphone.
Ambient Sound
ambient sound- this is sound that is heard in the background behind your main elements like dialogue. It can also tie together all your sound providing a more even background.
I went onto Adobe Audition and imported the clips I recorded into a multitrack. I then placed each ambient noise I recorded into the timeline and started editing them down and keeping the sections I liked. I cut out areas where my group were talking, or even very loud noises that disrupted the ambient noise.
I also added fade in and fade outs to each clip allowing each one to fade into another separating them. The first clip is the cafe, second stairs then its the elevator, reception and finally the bathroom. these all show very different ambient sounds. The cafe is loud and hectic while the elevator is mostly silent other than mechanical noises than the stairs being more reverbent.
I learnt that ambient meant the background sound of your (characters) setting, then how to make that sound for my own videos. I would use this feature in most of my filming in the future because it will add the extra element the scene needs to make it feel more realistic.
I think my editing for the ambient sound went well as I added a variety and faded them all down so there are noticeable gaps small breaks in between each sound.
The recording for the ambient sound could have been done better as Austin kept moving around into different areas for one recording creating a background noise for more than one area. It also meant there was a chance of wind or any disturbing noise from moving the mic could appear in the recordings and I had to cut these out.
Sound Scape
stereo- different sound will be in the two separate channels (left and right).
mono- one sound source that either will be in one channel or both.
panning- sound that pans around the room from left to right headphones. It helps position certain objects or people on
screen.
For the sound scape task I opened up Adobe Audition and imported in downloaded ambient noises. My task was to make a layered audio video making it seem like you are in the room, like a 8D audio. I made an ambient sound of a house and people walking through but you follow one person. On Audition you have an option to change the levels of the sound and change the panning. For instance on the hoover I altered the panning so it starts on the left and ends on the right. I did this by right clicking on the blue line and manually moving the keyframes created to the correct areas. Then I also have this clock that goes off outside and every time the door opens it gets louder. I changed this by right clicking on the yellow line, adding a keyframe. I added enough keyframes to make the right levels I needed to be realistic.
I learnt the difference between stereo and mono sound through this task, and how you can pan sound on Adobe Audition. This is really helpful for future task so I can make my sound work more advanced.
Foley Sound Design
Foley sound- This is sound created in recording studios during post production. For example using celery to create a bone break.
Jack Foley pioneered foley sound, he was the first sound artist to break into the film industry and change sound for film, and create the techniques foley artist still use to this day.
Here we made foley sounds in class and added them over a video game on Adobe Audition. The photos on the right show us making the certain sounds for example bones breaking were made with celery and carrots. Once I was in Audition I continued to layer the foley sounds until I was happy with the outcome. I pressed the video tab to allow the video to play on the side, this is shown above. This let me link the sound effects better. If you prefer you can also add markers to match them all better. On one of the clips Joanna spoke after making the sound meaning I had to fade her voice out so I could get the whole effect in.
I went onto ALO and downloaded some extra sound effects to add into the timeline for the knife and body falling. So I imported them in and added the extra effects in to make everything in the clip look more realistic and tie together better. After that i decided I wanted high heel walking sounds for when she walks towards the alien. So I found a youtube video sound effect and imported it in. I then extracted the audio from the video and placed it into the timeline. I also added her walking away at the end and faded it out. Finally I wanted background music for the fight so I found some fast paced dramatic music and found the best bit out of the 2 minutes for my clip. I then faded it in and out and cut the rest out. Lastly I exported my whole session out and uploaded it here. Bellow is my timeline in Audition.
I learned how to create foley sound which I have never done before. This I can use in future productions as it allows me to have a much more professional sound quality since I could record my own more realistic sounding versions than looking up sound effects online.
I think my timing and accuracy for placing the foley sound went really well and I really enjoyed making it. I could have went up to take part in breaking the food to make the foley sound so I had experience doing it.
what I can hear for 10 mins on a bus-
- rattling
- engine
- squeaking of breaks
- bus door opening and closing
- beeping
- robotic voice
- chatter
- ding of the stop button
- scuffle of someone's plastic bag
- someone saying thank you to the bus driver
- someone paying for the bus by card(beep noise)
- bus doors banging closed
- someone whistling
- seats banging against the back of the bus
- laughing
- talking
- rustle of me putting my bag on
- footsteps of me walking down the bus
- bus door opening
- me saying thank you to the bus driver
For this task I had to show the difference between a low quality audio and a higher quality audio. To do this I downloaded the 'Audio Sync Task File' of ALO and started to open Adobe Premiere Pro. Once Premiere Pro was open I made a new project called 'news report' and dragged the two files into my timeline. The two files were the video/sound recording from a camera and a H4n sound recording that was captured with goose neck condenser microphone.
The next step is to synchronize my two audio files together, this is done by unlinking the video and video audio so the audio is separated. Once they are separated I held shift and clicked my two audios then right clicked so I could bring up the effect bar. On this bar I found synchronize and synced my clips together using an 'audio' point
Once the clips are synced you can delete the camera audio leaving you with the professional audio. I decided to have the camera audio for the first half and the professional audio for the last half allowing you to see the change in one video. So I knew what half was what I added some text on top of the videos. I used the font 'lemon milk' and put 'in camera audio' for the first half and 'professional audio' for the last half. The picture bellow shows the timeline on premiere pro and the task completed.
blinding lights garage band-
First I downloaded the file and made sure I had garage band downloaded. Once it was open I got up the musical keyboard by pressing 'command' and 'K' then i pressed 'Z' and 'X' to get the right octave on the keyboard.
Next I played the bass notes in the bass section which was done by pressing the letters 'H-D-G-S' on the keyboard. I held these notes for four seconds each. To record I pressed 'r' which gave me a quick four second countdown before I had to start.
Then i went onto the melody section and changed the pitch for the sound so it was higher. I pressed 'r' again and did the first section which was 'H-H-G-H-J-D-G' and I copy and pasted this for the repeat of it. Then I played the 'L-J-H-G' twice for the next part and arranged it so it was to my timing preference. Finally I played one note which was 'H' at the end which finished it all off. I made sure everything was in the correct places for timing again and unmuted the drums so i could listen to it all together. Lastly I saved it so I didn't lose the work I created.