During the making of the Sound Project, I learned about the influence audio can have on creating the context of a scene and establishing a setting. Watching examples from films and focusing on their audio made me notice and appreciate the level of detail that goes into this aspect of filmmaking that most people don't really take into account. It is more likely for viewers to comment on the acting or cinematography than bring up the layering of audio as its supposed to be so natural you don't think about it.
The sound project had us take on this challenge, to create a purely auditory scene that could still communicate what is happening. We also had to include our own self-made foleys. While brainstorming, my partner and I discussed everyday places where there is a lot of noise. To us, a zoo was the perfect setting as they have several animal/nature sounds in addition to the people attending, so we had a lot of content to work with. Our outline included the range of animals that we would hear, visitors taking pictures and laughing, but also had footsteps between "exhibits" to emphasize the idea that the scene was following a person walking around the zoo. Dedicating time to making the outline was useful during the editing process as we could label which parts each person would work as well as helping visualize which sounds should be grouped together (layered and heard at the same time). We also used the outline to decide which sounds we would be able to make ourselves for the foley aspect of the project.
I used Premiere Pro to edit together the soundscape. With the continued use of this editing software, I believe I am improving my editing skills as I got to play with more tools and effects. For instance, I believe the layering of different sounds was successful as I tested out different volume levels and transitions so that no one sound would overpower or unnaturally stand out. I particularly was proud and enjoyed editing the moment shown in the screenshot below, where we hear someone walking from the lion exhibit to the monkey exhibit, as I had to time the fade in/out of the different animals with the audio of the footsteps.
However, I want to improve on how I used the more subtle sound effects. I ran into this problem when I was editing in my foley of petting an animals fur, as when it was too low it was not audible, but when I increased the volume it sounded overwhelming. This could be fixed by recording a more accurate sounding foley or limiting the amount of sounds that will be layered so they all get to be heard.
This screenshot demonstrates how I used other objects to replicate sounds that would be in our zoo setting. For example, to imitate the fences people lean over to feed and pet animals, I pushed and pulled a creaky chair
No comments:
Post a Comment