Sound Editing

In today's lesson, we learnt about the various layerings of sound, and what effect it can have on the audience. As our group had already put some sound onto our video, we knew a little about both the effect and the program used to add the sound.

Firstly, we were shown a trailer for the James Bond movie: Casino Royale, and then had to think about the sounds used, and what effect they had on us as the audience. We were then given a series of entertaining, interactive tasks on various Casino Royale clips and stills, along with several Sound Producer's videos. I liked the task where we had to place the sounds onto the still image, as it was interesting seeing what the different placements did to where you heard the sound coming from. I managed to make it sound like a truck was driving from one side of the screen to the other. (It was most amusing!)
I particularly enjoyed layering different sounds onto a clip from Casino Royale, as it gave me a chance to see what sounds could fit where, and which were better suited. I got two crashes and a tyre screech in the right place by complete fluke. Also, some of the sounds were quite amusing, particularly the "grunts".

One of my favourite pieces of work was the sound layering work we did after the James Bond stuff. We were given a video that we had recently edited some clips from, and told to give it a soundtrack using the program "Soundtrack Pro". (This is what my group and I used to add a soundtrack to our short thriller practice piece.) I found that, for this particular footage, middle-to-high-pitched violins worked quite well, along with a high-to-middle flute here and there, as well as a soft beat and a low violin at different points. Giving each instrument it's own layer meant that I could control the volume of each one individually, how long they all went on for, and whether or not they overlapped at all. I also learnt how to fade the music in and out, which made it sound better than a straight stop. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to finish it, but I still had fun making it.