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This is the sound plan indicating the sound elements and where they appear in my design of the 1993 film intro of Falling Down.
my sound plan includes, time codes in and out, what the sound is, weither it is Spotfx, Foley, ADR or Atmosphere and notes including, Recorded/Sourced. What they’re recorded with, and how they were recorded. Here I have included an arrangement of images that show how I recorded my self generated sounds.
I used a condensing microphone created by Tonor due to having difficulties in acquiring proper recording equipment from the college.
I found using this microphone quite handy and enjoyed the use of it. I also used a H2N for some sounds in the college. These sounds were however rushed and didn’t sound as good as I hoped.
Here I am showing how I got the sounds for the character clicking his Air Conditioning, I used the window button in a ford fiesta.
this is an image to show how the microphone stood.
This image is to show my use of foley in the production of my sound design, Here I am using an Air filter pumping system to create the sounds of a broken window winder handle.
Here is an image to show the basics of my set up when creating some sounds inside the house.
The used microphone.
In order to achieve the sound of the swatting of the fly in a car, here I used a newspaper and a chopping board to create the dense thud sounds such as you would hear in a car.
Inside a car I used garageband and the microphone to achieve some of the door sounds required.
In order to create the sound of an exhaust or even a harsh blow of wind I had someone use an electronic cigarette to blow into the microphone, The achieved sound was really good.
I also included the sound of inhaling air flow to add to the atmosphere, I enjoyed this sound as i could use it for many different things.
i used it as an atmospheric sound and was extremely impressed with the outcome.
Using a fan part from an old boiler system we tried to create a sound for the broken window winder, this didn’t work so well but the sound was still used as a atmosphere sound.
Using a sqweaky stool in the kitchen, I had managed to achieve sounds that were similar to a old squeaking car. This sound worked well and I enjoyed mixing it.
During our sound production unit we had learnt about multiple uses of microphones;
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D Ma. (2010). Microphone use. Available: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=microphone+use&biw=1433&bih=802&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWnpfFkK3LAhXra5oKHfCIAdAQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=NEwPaKxj2kBMBM%3A. Last accessed 20 september.
Looking at this table we had to following during our time learning about different microphones and placements and uses, we had learnt small but very important things to do with our recording time
we had learnt that spaced pairs aren’t friendly for film production, as spaced pairs have phasing issues delaying sound from one sound to the other, making it difficult during editing, this could also make the film sound not up to film quality.
this is a example of part of the panning I have done for the 5.1, This is a sound I wanted to project through out all of the 5 speakers.
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Here is how a starting pan is first like, set to left and right.
in this setting you can create the sounds to come from any speaker you want, 5.1 is a basic surround sound set.
During this we had to learn direction of sound, this bases from what you, the watcher, could be focussing on as to whats in the scene.
For example:
in this scene, from Star Wars: The Forces Awakens. Viewers would be focussed on the main object in the scene, obviously the Light Sabre, which has its own sound. you’d cut out all other sounds when the object is central to the shot. when the object moves to spin to the right, you’d hear the light sabre ‘sound’ more so in the right speaker. This is described as direction of sound, this also helps the audience to follow the sound.
another important part of sound is shaping the sound to the narrative, Using Star Wars: The Forces Awakens again as an example, Upon watching Star Wars: The Forces Awakens, you’ll quickly catch on to the iconic sound of a lightsabre which as been a popular toy since the saga began, Now once the sound is set to the object it quickly fits. Now Imagine a lightsabre sounding like a pig squeal. Doesn’t make sense in a saga set in the futuristic era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber#Sound
This link is here to give you more insight as to how, Ben Burtt (A famous sound designer) created the iconic sound.
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9Here is a shot of the work station you will have when you work on audition to mix, here I am showing that I am mixing one sound to the video. The sound is panned essentially to the right.
In audition there is 4 modes to edit in;
Read: the mode used to go through your mix.
Write: the mode used to write your mix.
Touch: the mode used to go through a written mix but where you can only change one thing
Latch: the mode used to go through and change things without editing the saved pieces
10Here is a select piece of the film intro Falling Down, I worked on. I began in premiere where I timed the sounds to the shots, This was proved difficult as in premiere you can only edit by frame making it quite difficult to properly time up short sounds such as a Car honk or the foley required for the brushing through the hair clips.
As we mixed to 5.1 surround sound, dolby digital, the file extensions we’d be working towards were AC3 files, AC3 is a file extention for surround sound audio files for DVDS this particular file extention was created by dolby labs.
as for our video that would be an MPEG 2 file.
During the sound mix we would be learning about things such as the use of reverbs, In my selection of Falling Down there wasn’t much areas for use of reverb but I attempted it in the form of the sound of traffic, Reverb is a frequency dependent piece, During a reverb the sound would effectively be sucked up by the area and come to a silent stop.
when learning about sound we had to learn about KHZ to, we learnt that 48 khz is the standard for DVD sounds.
we had also learnt that bit rate affects dynamic range.
WAV – Windows format
AIFF- Apple Format.
a sound design team will often compromise of 5 groups:-
Foley
Atmosphere
Sfx
ADR
Music
In our edits we mainly had foley, atmosphere and sfx as we were told to concentrate more on the sounds than we should the ADR which meant most of our edits did not have dialogue.
referencing my sourced sounds:
Freesound.org, Offtheline, morning sounds.
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freesound.org, GowlerMusic, Radio Static.
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freesound.org, wikusv, idle engine with revs.
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freesound.org, niedec, downtown traffic and crowd noises.
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freesound.org, yacou, children shouting.
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Freesound.org, Sengjinn, Jackhammer Drill.
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I sourced my sounds from freesound.org
Reflecting on my own work:
During the edit I chose to not watch the original and try to work out as best as possible what it could sound like and working towards it sounding as much as the original as possible. I noticed when I had finished I was completely off but still quite impressed with my finished piece.
I ran into equipment issues during the recording of my sounds and had no other option but to use one microphone throughout the whole thing, I had use of a different microphone for about two sounds, which didn’t sound as good as i wanted due to having rushed time to use the equipment.
I chose to find artistic ways for my foley sounds, Having used multiple different tools from the back of a british gas van I was impressed with the different sounds I could achieve by using broken or old pieces of rubbish.
when we were given the project we were also given another project along side that shared the same deadline, meaning it came across rushed in the beginning, We were then given an extra 5 week deadline due to the college not having the actual equipment fit for the deadline, this gave us extra time to put a little more effort involved in the work. I still came across equipment issues.
Having then done the edit at home on a personal computer due to having to concentrate on other projects this was the only way I could of finished the project. I then came across the issue of the college computers having not been updated they couldn’t open my finished project, this meant, due to the college also having issues updating, I had to restart the whole edit 2 days before the deadline and have it finished in a day. Therefore I personally think the finished piece is awful, I enjoy sound design and I’m absolutely devastated this happened.
During the mix I found the sounds easy to edit and mix using Adobe Audition, the panning system required to be used in 5.1 was easier to use than I thought, It was a learning curve but I felt I could of done with more time using the mixing software.
During my edit I turned a lot of the sounds down as I felt they were too overpowering to the sounds I had recorded myself, In premiere I had used keyframes to induce Exponential Fades, Whereas in Audition I had the option to turn the sound up and down manually whilst mixing and saving.
I found the panning for 5.1 really enjoyable and easy to figure out.
When it came to working along side a plan I felt I worked quite happily along side it it went perfectly apart from the last hurdle.
I will be posting my finished piece for viewing once I have received feedback from my tutors on the work to go along side the finished piece.`
Just here I will be placing my finished piece and the feedback I have gathered from the practitioners/employers in the industry once my work has been shown or evaluated by the tutors in the up and coming few weeks.
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Harvard Referencing System – Sourced Sounds.
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Brooksby Melton College. (2015). Sound Design. Available: https://moodle2.brooksbymelton.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/10872/mod_resource/content/1/Sound%20Design%20Assignment%20Brief.pdf. Last accessed 7th March 2016.
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Adobe Audition software used to edit the mix.
(george lucas. (2016). Lightsaber – Sound. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber#Sound. Last accessed 20th january.)
Adobe Premiere, used to edit the sounds.
Freesound.org:
Offtheline – morning sounds. 20th February 2016
Gowler Music – Radio Static. 20th February 2016
Wikusv – Idle Engine with revving. 20th February 2016
niedec -Downtown traffic and crowd noises. 20th February 2016
yacou -Children Shouting. 20th february 2016
sengjinn – Jack Hammer and Drill. 20th february 2016
Melmane Shake 