Pi Editing

So...I think I chose the hardest clip. It was my original intention to pick the clip I found the most interesting and the fact that I had chosen one from a film that I hadn't seen was also a plus (as I didn't want the original film influencing my sound design too much). I think I underestimated exactly what was needed for this clip however. There are some pretty odd things in there that are a little more difficult to design the sound for.

However I really did have a good time on this project and feel like I've learnt a lot. While my recordings have not been perfect I feel like they've gotten a lot better and I have a much better idea of how to record and then edit sounds. Especially elements like EQ and stereo panning.

I started my project by marking the whole video clip with every sound cue that I could see. This took a long time, but was pretty invaluable when I came to edit.

Yeah the markers become pretty meaningless at this level of zoom

I found that being able to stick all the sound effects that I recorded in and match them up to these markers was extremely helpful. Not only that, but going through and marking every sound effect helped me to compile the list of recordings that I needed to get. Though when I did go round my boyfriend's house to record my sounds I managed to forget that list and so had to record a lot from memory. Luckily I had left myself enough time to record the things I either could't get or forgot to get at a later date.

I named each individual marker so that later I could add the sounds with ease

The first thing I did when I came to add actual sound to the edit was lay down some atmos tracks. I ended up with two different sections of the film with completely separate atmos, but that was all. For the first clip of the film I used a mechanical drone and also a sound from the sound library on the server called "adding machine". I thought that this first section of the film could sound like it took place in a totally separate room that had more mechanical stuff going on. So the adding machine sounds much more analogue than the computer hum I used as an atmos for the rest of the clip. I wanted to keep my atmos tracks pretty simple and not fill the room with noises as I anted to get this feeling of loneliness and almost an emptiness. The computer hum I used for most of the clip was a contact microphone recording of a large computer tower and I think it works quite well.

Sticking the 20 second atmos track next to each other was as simple as overlapping them slightly in Soundtrack Pro

I struggled slightly with what volume to put the atmos, but settled on something that's quite loud and always present, but hopefully not overbearing. I think when you spend a long time editing sound (especially atmos tracks) you can slightly lose sight of what is actually a good level as you're hearing it over and over. I probably should have made an effort to get a second opinion on the atmos.

I used a fair amount of equalization throughout editing, especially on recorded sounds that had a little background noise (I think next time I'll try to use the studios to get more of my sounds). I found this to be pretty easy and natural to me which was a nice surprise as it had previously been something I'd worried about getting good at. There were also cases where I used the EQ to make a sound more like what I wanted. Such as making a thudding sound more heavy and more effective by cutting off some of the high end.

For a couple of shots where there was a close up inside the glass case I used a low pass filter on the atmos to make it sound more like it was outside the case. This ended up being a little redundant as I added a buzzing sound to the inside of the case that drowned out this effect, but I think it works in a subtle, subliminal sort of way.

Here you can see the POV shifting from outside to inside the case

I also used some stereo panning when adding foley to the mix. Mostly quite subtle uses, but a couple of times I was more obvious. The main point at which I used a panning effect is the close up inside the case where he is looking at the computer ship. I decided I would have him breathing audibly at this point as it is a close up and since he moves his head from right to left and so on I though having the breath pan across would be pretty effective.

This is generally how I like to do the automation. I add markers and precisely edit the envelopes rather than recording it manually. This is a simple example, but I like to get extremely precise sometimes.

I also used the envelope tool to make crescendos in the volume. Especially with the synth tone that I use to drown out the sound at the end of the clip.

I used Logic Pro to get that pretty simple square wave tone that I use first as a buzzing sound effect for inside the glass case and then as more of a musical bit of soundtrack at the end of the clip. I spent some time in Logic looking through the synthesizer patches trying to find the right sound and eventually settled on the square wave. I fiddled with the cut off, drive and resonance to make sure that when it was turned up it was pretty intense as I knew I wanted o end the clip with some kind of harsh tone invading the sound.

The main thing I struggled with throughout editing was getting the levels correct. My recordings were all extremely quiet and this meant I had to push the volume down on anything that was at a more normal volume when I added it. I then increased the master level by what is probably way too much so that when played through speakers it could be listened to without having to turn the speakers way up. I noticed that when I did play it through speakers a few sounds were not quite at the right level from when I was editing with headphones, but generally I actually felt I'd done a pretty good job. Everything sounded right (to me at least) and it'll be interesting to see where I've gone wrong as I really want to get good at this stuff.