Soundtrack Production

In this assignment I will be analysing and discussing the mood and meaning created for the audience by the audio content (music, sound effects, dialogue).

 

The first scene that I am going to be talking about is the house explosion in Fast and Furious 7. The scene is roughly 3 minutes long and contains a variety of emotions within the scene with a sudden change of events.  Throughout the entire scene it contains music in the background, sound effects and spoken work. At the start you see Brian (Paul Walker) leave the house with his son on a nice warm sunny day. To fit the scenery and mood, the music is calm and soothing and makes the audience seem like it is just a normal day. The scene mainly contains diegetic sounds such as when the little boy throws his toy car on the floor and when he claps his hands. A technique that I noticed while watching this scene is that whenever the mood or topic of narration turns negative or positive, the music will quickly change in order to fit the mood. For example when Dominic (Vin Diesel) and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) are talking about Brian, the music in the background is quite sad and it let’s the audience know that Brian has trouble adjusting to his new life. However, Mia then leads on to telling her brother that she is pregnant and without the music drastically changing the volume of the music increases and the mood is a lot happier. Halfway through the scene the mood suddenly changes and the audience become aware of it due to the sudden changes in music. The volume of the music starts to get louder and more non-diegetic sounds are added to build up tension and suspense until the explosion. Dominic shouts “GET DOWN” as soon as he realises that there is a bomb outside his house. This not only informs the other characters but also the audience so that they are aware something bad is in the package. 

The second scene i will be talking about is from the film Jaws (1975). this scene is when hooper is underwater in the cage waiting to see the shark. the scene starts off with the audience being able to hear exactly what the character can hear which the water flowing. Then there is a distinctive piece of music is being played when the shark starts to approach him. this technique is called sound motif. sound motif is a technique in which music is created to represent a certain character and in this film the character is the shark. this alerts the audience that the shark is on its way and that something bad may happen. the music used to represent the shark is quite dark and makes the audience feel quite scared and curious. the closer the shark gets the faster and louder the music becomes too. during the scene the shark comes close to the cage the second time, but during this clip there is no music being used. this is because it will be very unexpected for the audience as there is no music to imply they will be seeing the shark again. 

Autumnwatch is a British documentary where people talk about ‘the UK’s wonderful riches of nature right across the year’. The episode is filled with diegetic sounds as the filmmakers catch all sounds when filming live. At 2:32 the presenters are outside in the woods and whilst they are talking you can hear the birds, insects and rain. One of the presenters is talking while standing next to a lake and you are able to hear the waves of the water hit the shore. All the sounds from the wildlife are called ambient sounds. These are sounds that come from the atmosphere that someone is in. For example, wind, water, birds, wildlife etc. All these sounds can be heard in the background of the functional and conversational dialogue carried out by the people within the episode.

There is a scene in The Matrix where Trinity and Neo are having a conversation in the club. Towards the end of the club scene as Trinity starts to walk away you start to hear a faint ring of an alarm clock. This gradually gets louder as the scene transitions from the club to then a close up shot of an alarm clock. This technique is known as a sound bridge. This is when sound travels from one scene of the film and continues across to the next scene.

Workshop 1

You will be muting the original audio, then recreating the spoken word content of  short  film scenes   and dubbing it over the original moving image sequence. 

For this workshop, your main focus should be timing and technical accuracy in lipsyncing and editing: you will not be graded for how similar  your voices or acting  are to the originals. 

Evaluation

For this workshop

Once I had been set this workshop assignment I went through the second soundtrack production folder containing all the examples of film scenes I could use. For this assignment I chose the salesman scene from Shaun of the Dead, I chose this scene as it was an interesting scene for my to try and sync my voice to Shaun lazily selling a TV to a random couple in the film. Afterwards i went through the first part of the scene and taking noted of all the pauses and stutters that the character makes along with the actually words that the says. I then went into the classroom next door to once again record my lines into my phone. However, this time I got a laptop to watch through a muted version of the scene so i can record the lines whilst watching Shaun do the same to get a timing perfect. Once i had recorded the lines as a video file on my phone I emailed it to myself so I could use it on a computer. With both the recording and the scene i put them both into Garageband. Finally, for the editing part of this assignment I once again muted the original scene at the exact time where the character Shaun sells the TV to the couple, I then place the recorded audio at the same point so the words match the character's mouth as he spoke.

Workshop 2

INTERVIEW RECORDING ON  LOCATION (INDOOR AND OUTDOOR)

In groups of 2/3 , you will be planning and recording a brief interview  , using  audio hardware recording equipment . You will then be recording this interview in specific indoor and outdoor locations and explaining  the technical  results.

Plan

The audio content itself is a 4 question interview on my current a future academic progress;

Question 1 - What is your name and age?
Answer 1 - Carter, 18
Question 2 - What are you currently studying?
Answer 2 - 30-Credit Media & 60-Credit Business
Question 3 - What would you like to do after you finish college?
Answer 3 - Go yo university to study Marketing
Question 4 - What are your top 3 choices for University?
Answer 4 - Solent, Portsmouth & Brighton

Evaluation

For this assignment I partnered up with a classmate and planned the questions and answers above. We then planned to record in an empty classroom and then just outside of the college, this shows a difference in indoor and outdoor audio. For this we used the Apple Voice Memo app and recorded the 4 questions with the 4 answers in the 2 locations. Once these were recorded we sent the audio files to our computers via email and sent them to our Art/Media Drive folders to complete the workshop assignment.

Workshop 3 : Adding Music

Download a  suitable  television or film videoclip that does not contain music and add music to the scene to compliment or chance the mood/atmosphere.

Plan 

Film: The Dark Knight Rises

Scene: Bane vs Batman

Music: Newton's Law (Epic-Heroic-Intense-Powerful-Drama) [Youtube]

Evaluation

For this assignment I researched the best scenes that had no music and from that selection I picked the scene where Batman fights Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. To compliment the mood and atmosphere for this scene I research royalty free dramatic movie scene music and added the audios together but slightly tweaked the timing so the audio matched what was going on in the scene. Furthermore, I slightly lowered the audio of the film as I wanted the music to be the main element but still wanted the talking and sound effects to be heard.  Finally I exported the video to an Mp4 files and placed it in the Art & Media drive. 

Workshop 4 : Creating Music/A Score 

Plan 

Film: War of the Worlds

Scene: First Attack
Music: Intense and Sinister Sci-Fi Music created with Garage Band Synths

Evaluation

For this assignment I initially went for the same scene as the previous workshop (Dark Knight Rises). However, i decided to change the scene as i couldn't create any fitting and or good music for the fight scene as garage band was limited on the sounds for this genre. Eventually, i decided to go for a scene from War of the Worlds as a lot of the synthesisers were fitting for sci-fi and alien films. Furthermore, for this scene in question, I used various synths and made simply chords that sounded sinister and yet intense to fit the mood of the aliens coming to life and attacking the civilians in the streets. In conclusion to this method of scoring compared to the mix from the previous assignment it is safe to say that creating your own music allows you to be more flexible with a scene and precisely time the moments and events. Although, it is also clear that with the mixed assignment the mood and tone created is far better as getting pre created music sounds a lot better than the music i failed at making in garage band.

Workshop 5 : Adding & Creating Sound Effects

Plan  

Film: The Wolverine

Scene: Bear in Forrest

Sound Effects: Thunderstorm, Fire Pit, Gunshot, Bear Roars, Drawn Knife, Stabbed Knife, Sliced Knife, Clothing Movement (Custom Sound)

Evaluation

For this assignment I instantly wanted to use a scene in which there was rain & thunder as that is a easy to find sound effect on YouTube. Due to this I chose a scene from The Wolverine where Logan is living in the woods and finds a shot Bear that is still alive during a thunderstorm. For this scene I gathered the main background sounds such as Rain, Thunder & Fire (for logan's camp) to create the atmosphere of the scene being an dark and quiet night in a forrest during a storm. Additionally, I gathered all the sounds required for the Bear's death such as the distant gunshot, the roars and the knife sounds of Logan killing the injured bear. Lastly, I neatly cued up all the sounds so they correlated to the scene and saved the film as a garageband file. Additionally, for the custom sound i simply used my phone to record my coat moving to make the sound when logan turns in head into the direction of the gunshot.