sound project

Sound project 

For my sound project I decided to choose the mayfly video because I thought it would be really interesting to try and find all the different sounds that would be involved. For the video I knew that I would need to record some dialogue, record some atmos sounds and would need to create certain sounds using Foley (like the sound of the wings).

The first thing I did was watch the video a couple times to establish what sounds I would need to make this video realistic. This is the list of sounds:

• ·         Dialogue
• ·         Mayfly getting out of water
• ·         Buzzing of the wings
• ·         Mayfly whooshing in air
• ·         Atmosphere birds chirping in distance
• ·         Mayfly sliding down the leaf
• ·         Mayfly picking the leaf
• ·         Other mayfly tapping the ball and hitting ball
• ·         Mayfly hitting the ball back
• ·         Ball hitting the web
• ·         Mayfly juggling
• ·         Atmosphere Sound of stream
• ·         Mayfly on leaf going down the stream
• ·         Two mayflies together
• ·         Mayfly picking flower
• ·         Atmosphere sound of cave (with water in it)
• ·         Lots of mayflies
• ·         Atmosphere almost still water (at the end of the video)
• ·         Atmosphere wind hitting the trees

I then recorded the dialogue so I could put that in the video ready for the sound effects. To record the dialogue I booked out the dubbing theatre and asked a friend if they would say the dialogue for me. I thought that the person speaking should say the dialogue in a calm but enthusiastic way, after a few tries I got a good copy of the dialogue.

I then created a list of possible ways I could make the other sounds in the video:

• ·         Mayfly getting out of water & mayfly on leaf going down the stream 

Ø  Bowl with water to make splashing sounds

• ·         Buzzing of wings & two mayflies together & lots of mayflies

Ø  Rubbing my knuckles together

• ·         Whooshing & mayfly juggling

Ø  Moving a large piece of plastic up and down next to the microphone

• ·         mayfly sliding down the leaf

Ø  Run the hand down the stem of a big leaf

• ·         mayfly picking the leaf & flower

Ø  Snapping a piece of pasta

• ·         other mayfly tapping the ball and hitting ball & mayfly hitting the ball back & Ball hitting the web

Ø  Record an actual ping pong ball

Once I had established my sounds and how I was going to make them I then went into the dubbing theatre with some other students and we took it in turns – someone making the sounds and someone recording them.

For the five atmosphere sounds (the birds chirping, the sound in the cave, the stream, sound of the wind in the trees and the sound of almost still water at the end of the video) I decided to go out and actually find these sounds. This was fairly easy to do as I new there was a stream and park with trees nearby, so I used a shotgun mic and recorder to get some atmos sounds. I then went into premiere and put an echoing effect on the sound of the stream to get the sound of water in a cave.

Finally I found some music for my video just to make it more upbeat. I got my music from freesound.org. However, the only good music I could find was only 36 seconds long so I have had to loop it three times.

I then put all of these sounds together in a premiere file and cut up bits of the sounds I wanted to use in the final video. I wanted to try and make sure that the sounds matched the right points in the video and I found this part of the process to be the most difficult.

I think that my sounds work well together. However, I need to improve some of these sounds by rerecording them as I feel that the levels in some of them are too high or low. I also think I could change some of the pitches of the sounds (buzzing of the wings) in premiere to make them sound more realistic and I could add some more sounds to the more silent parts of the video.