SOUND DESIGN
MY BACKGROUND WITH THE TASCAM
Most of my projects last year used a tascam to capture sound, however, I didn't do much work with the tascam, because I never really learned how to use it. When I would work on projects, I either had Jarrett or Stephen with me to work sound, so I didn't have to worry about it. However, I don't have either of my sound guys in B block so I should definitely learn to use it on my own, so I can still get clear audio in future projects. (picture to the left is of a DR-05, not the DR-40s we use in class)
BIGGEST TAKEAWAYS
The most important things I learned about using a tascam and the importance of sound design (links to videos embedded down below)
embedded links to the videos
tascam tutorial video
importance of sound production video
silent film project
Adding audio back into this film was a really interesting experience for me, as I've never done a huge amount of work with audio in a film. The most I've done is with Meme Dealer, where I layered audio of Graham, music, and sound of Stephen fliping through papers. I had a lot of fun looking up the individual sounds I wanted, changing speeds, adding audio effects, and cutting clips so they lined up with the video. It's kind of crazy that I spent three days editing audio for a one minute clip, but overall, I'm happy with the way it turned out. Theres definitely more work I could have put into it, but then again, I never really feel like I'm finished with any
project. One problem I had to overcome was when I added in a snort from the horse. When I listened to it back after adding it into the film, I realized that there were birds in the background. To overcome this, I found audio of birds chriping and placed it over the whole video. I also had to find four different footstep sounds, so that they were distinguishable between all the people. I tried my best to get the footfalls to match up with the footfalls in the video. I almost forgot to add in the wagon sound effect, but after adding it in, the audio really seemed to tie together. Towards the end, I used the same audio for two parts. I used the sliding metal for both the bedspring in the cart, and the head of the bed. For the head of the bed, I sped the audio up 370%. I also used the bouncing of the metal effect twice. For the first time with the bouncing bed spring, I added in the audio effect "monster" to deepen the sound. The one sound effect I don't like is the "hmm", when the main character is looking at the horse and cart. I think this was a very important experience for me, and I definitely think that this will help me in my future projects, to help me create more full and real environments to suck people in. I got all of my audio clips from youtube, using clip grab.
my editing process
The audio for the birds chirping had silent moments in it, so I had to listen through and chop out the silence so it's constant birds, this is why it's not one solid audio clip. There's a lot more change in speed than shown here, becuase all of the walking is sped up to match the speed the main character walks at. I added the horse grunt, to make it seem more realistic, and so that theres sounds on the long shot of the horse.
This was where I had the most audio levels, with the music, birds, footsteps, horse hoofbeats, wagon sound effect, and another layer of footsteps.
The end was probably where I did the most of my audio editing, with a lot of speed changing, layering of the two different types of footsteps (having to line up times for the actors stopping, and then starting again), as well as adding a sound effect to the "metal ting". A lot of times I used a fade out on the audio so it wouldn't sound so choppy when it cuts out. I think overall, it's good but it definitely could have used a lot more work.