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Sound Editing Workshop



Please listen with headphones.

Sound Editing.

As mentioned in my previous post, sound is a very important feature when making a film or any kind of production. However sound isn't always straight from the set. Sometimes the sound on set doesn't match what is happening in the scene and a sound editor will have to put in pre recorded sounds to make the scene more believable. Sound editing is also about removing any sounds we don't want.
In this workshop we had to edit together a soundscape for a photo by Gregory Crewdson. Crewdson's images are set up like film sets, with incredible attention to detail, which required us to have that same attention when editing in our choice of sounds. I decided to use the following separate clips:

  • A base atmosphere- for this I used wind and turned the volume down to make it more of a base for the other sounds
  • birds- this draws attention to the trees in the back
  • slow jazz music- I imagined that one of the buildings was a bar and you could faintly hear the music coming out onto the street so I turned the volume right down and panned it all the way left
  • A car driving by
  • Rain- it's not clearly raining in the image but the puddles on the ground made me think that it would be a nice detail to include that could run throughout
  • footsteps- whether they are from the viewer or other people on the street is up to the viewer, from my point of view they're from the viewer
  • conversation- I included a conversation recording and turned down the volume and panned it right so it was like you were hearing the conversation from across the street.
To edit this all together I used Adobe Audition as it's a bit easier to edit sound in this programme, with more editing options available. I had to import the image into Premier Pro to make it a 1 minute MP4 and import it into a multi-track session on Audition. 
I made these choices for the sound because I wanted to create a calm dusk scene- I also wanted to be able to close my eyes and still see the scene I was creating. It was interesting to take into account just how many things you hear in a seemingly quiet scene. It was also good to take into account that some sound effects may be missed on set and there are hundreds of free downloads online. Everything I downloaded except for the music was from freesound. The music was from bensound which is also a good source for music but the music is extremely popular for productions such as videos on YouTube so a lot of it is instantly recognisable, which can be a problem. 
I've done a project very similar to this at college which you can find here. It's great to know just how much is available online and it will come in handy in the future and for this project, I know I will need to add in a sound of a cuckoo clock as that is something I wasn't able to get myself. On set we recorded the sound of the knife being picked up off the counter and also buzz tracks of all the rooms we used, so we can use that over any sounds that are out of the ordinary.
There are a few different kind of sound tracks you can use in your production:

  • Dialogue- speech recorded on set during filming
  • Sync- Live recorded sound, not including dialogue
  • ADR- Automatic Dialogue Replacement- dialogue recorded after filming
  • FX- explosions, gunshots etc.
  • Foley- creating sound effects yourself
  • Atmos- Room sound
  • Music- Any music, diagetic or non-diagetic.
If you're using music it's important to think about where it's coming from. Is it diagetic or non-diagetic? Each will create a different feel to the scene. It's important to invest time in sound as good sound will make your film look good.
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