sound design for 10 minute piece

The first two minutes where pretty much the same as our 2 minute film. My initial idea was to complete re do the sound design, so it wasn’t the same. However I was already short of time and what I created the first time I thought sounded quite good. I would rather spend more time dong the sound design for the rest of the film. As the start was slight different to the our two minute film it meant that the sounds where out of sync, it took me a couple of ours to re sync all the sounds, at the start we have a couple of new shots that weren’t in the original two minute character piece, I searched for the clips and simple added them to the time line. Other changes I made to the start was the song, I had to tweak it slightly so when it ended it wasn’t cutting out half way through a line, I also made slight changes to when Louie speaks I took a lot of the reverb out. I thought I would be a little bit overpowering, because there is a lot more dialogue in film and I would have to add it to every single line.

I started with the first scene in the park with Louie on the roundabout, the film I about a child’s imagination and this was something I wanted to show through sound. We are not hearing the everyday sounds we expect to hear but we hear what he wants to hear. When he takes down his hood, I wanted it to sound like he was taking off his helmet, and the oxygen was been realised from his helmet. This sound was created when I pressed the steam button on the iron, I came across this sound accidently when recording Foley sounds for my skills module.

When he sits on the roundabout he delivers his first line of dialogue when recording I had a couple of problems with background noise so I had to EQ lots of that out, it sounds a little flat so I added a little bit of reverb. When importing the file film I left the sound on so I could match up the dialogue, as I already sync the sound with clips the waveform would be exactly the same so it was just the case lining them up.

With the rest of the scene, I added a clunk, a swoosh and squeak sound effect. I found a swoosh sound effect on a free copyright website. I had planned on creating this effect my self-using the EQ tool and white noise. But this sound clip work really well, the rest of the sounds I found in my own sound library that I have been creating from when I started the course, ever recording ive done goes into the folder.

In the film there are lots of shots of Louie walking, but on different textures, concrete, metal and grass. this was the last thing i did spent a lot of time editing each and every footstep so each step he takes has its own sound clip. I wanted the footsteps to quite loud and quite symbolic, so instead of using the footstep I recorded on the day, I used the sound of a metal bar hitting the floor. This makes each step quite dramatic, when you put that to the visuals and the way Louie is acting, it makes it quite symbolic. When he is in the playground the surface of the floor changes to grass, I used the recording I took on the day but I still had line up every footstep.  When he’s climbing up the stars I used the same sound I used early but took a little bit of the reverb so it sounded a little bit different. I switch between the recording on the grass and the metal foley sound, depending on the surface but also Dylan state of mind. When he’s in his own little world I used the metal footsteps as its more dramatic and sounds more spacey.

I created two different midi tracks that are played throughout the film. These combined with sound of children playing, music box really helps create that space atmos but also a child’s imagination. The only time you notice the outside atmos in the playground is when he’s on the slide. All the sounds build up around him, the midi track, the children playing and music box all helps build the tension.  Before all these sounds are dropped out of the mix when Louie gets stuck, we go from louie state of mind back to reality, as we hear the space sounds and then the just the traffic around him.

Whens he walking to amphitheatre, I used the same footsteps as before, i synced up each footstep and when he walks onto the grass the sound changes. Whens he’s in the amphitheatre that’s when I slowly start to bring more of the reality sounds back into the mix, I slow fade the midi composition out and what we then hear is just the traffic around him. This seen the mood of the film changes, when Dylan starts to realise that he might not see his dad again. There is a very faint police siren in the background as it gets close it becomes quite overpowering in the mix, that sound triggers the flash back. When Louie closes his eyes we cut to black and the sound track becomes silent, then when he opens his eyes that when he hear the siren again.

finished sound design top

Bottom

The final scene where Dylan and his mum have the discussion, I made quite a big decision to bring the song back. The song acts as a very powerful and emotion motif, as is played every time we are in Dylan’s room. The song at first is very quite in the mix and you only notice at the end of the scene as Dylan looks out of the window. I end the film with the line “the next time I’m flying by your side” the one sentence pretty sums up the whole film, the reason for him making the suit was to see his dad again. I know some of the group weren’t too happy with the song, but I think it helps tie the whole film together.  

Overall I’m very happy with final film, the sound design works really well and complements the strong visuals and edit.