Audio Editing 2

Okay, so what things can we do to make our film work better in terms of its continuity and emotion for the audience.

One thing that kills emotion is when we stop watching a film because we stop BELIEVING it. And we stop believing whenever we see or hear something that breaks the continuity; stopping the 'dream' we are watching from feeling 'real'.

Couple of things to help here:

Adjusting volume level for dramatic effect
J-cuts
T-cuts
Patching


OVERVIEW

It's a good thing to remember that loads of little sound touches can increase the drama on screen. Here's a class little video which shows you in real time what the sound editor did to maximise what is a fairly basic piece of filmmaking. You can skip the talking and get to the video bit if you want (at 3.30) but the guy is worth listening too.

First of all - here's probably what you're film sounds like now and some suggestions the sound editor might make.

http://youtu.be/aQOs9j3ZooA

Then, here's the next step, of what the film sounds like once he's sound edited it, with a live text track showing you exactly what he did. It's great.

http://youtu.be/5KWtnqJkUNQ

So, what do we learn? Adding little bits of audio really sells shots for the audience and enhances the picture. So here's how to do some of these tricks.

STEP ONE

Just listen to your film. Not watch it, just listen. And make notes on every problem and every idea you might have to make it better. That's always the first step. Editing in the head first.


ADJUSTING VOLUME LEVEL

Well, from the first video you now know how to adjust the audio using keyframes. So, start there. Go through the whole film and adjust the audio to broadcast safe level - which for us, for now, is -12db.


J-CUTS AND L-CUTS (editing the video)
I'll also show you how to do j-cuts and l-cuts editing the audio

http://youtu.be/4orAPK1Sutk


J-CUT AND L-CUTS (editing the audio)

Is very similar, except instead of editing the video, you leave it alone, and edit the audio. To me this is the way j and l-cuts should be done, since the pictures should already be cut the way the editor wants them. However, sometimes you're audio might be so bad you need to change video too.

There's no video for this so I'll demo it live in class.


ADDING FOLEY

Well, you've seen how much of a difference it makes. It's not hard to put foley in, however it can be difficult to build up a good foley bank. For that, you've got to hoke far and wide, or make your own.


ADDING MUSIC

Not many videos on this that I can find. But the first video shows you how a piece of music can work. Best thing to remember is not to drown your film with music that is too grand, or kill the emotion of the film with something that is inappropriate to the scene itself.

It's a matter of taste, reflection and consulting with other people.

Having a Sound Designer would help too.


PATCHING

Patching is a cheeky thing. It relates to taking bits of audio from other places in your film and using them again for something else - usually atmospheric sound where you didn't record any atmos in the first place. This helps a lot in student films and the videos above use examples of it.