Directions: Editing & Sound Design Task

For this lecture we looked at editing and sound design, two things a director has to think about carefully when creating a film.

Editing

We began the lecture by looking at directing the edit. We focused on:

• Continuity editing-
• Predominant form of editing style in narrative film and TV.
• Taking discontinuous shots and creating a continuous flow.
• Montage Theory-
• Used in early Russian cinema.
• Four distinct forms:
• Metric- Cutting to a set amount of frames.
• Rhythmic- Cutting based on time and visual composition.
• Tonal- Using the emotional meaning of the shots.
• Intellectual- Creating a higher meaning.
• Continuity editing: Story-
• First layer creates a continuous story.
• You create the story of the scene through temporal and spatial editing.
• If it's not needed, cut it.
• Continuity editing: Drama-
• Creating drama through pacing, rhythm and emotion.
• Quickness/slowness of cuts.
• Think about: what are you showing? How long are you showing it? Why are you showing it?
• Think about use of POV. Going from CU to POV puts audience in position. Whose POV?
• Tension can be created by holding shots and cutting quickly.
• Match on action-
• Allows for dramatic and artful shifts in time and spatial narrative.
• Matching action in one shot, with a similar one in another shot.
• Cross-cutting-
• Helps create suspenseful action sequences.
• Cutting between two or more scenes that are occurring at the same time in the story.
• Montage-
• Collection of shots showing a series of similar shots over a period of time.
• Can be used to show time passing or character development.
• Fade/Dissolve-
• Can show time passing or end of a scene.
• Dissolve is the merging of two shots (slightly different to fade).

We then looked at the stages of editing:

• Log: Log and arrange footage. Work out wheres and whats.
• Assembly Cut: All the scenes assembled in the right order.
• Rough Cut: Cut into assembly, adding shots in, cutting and removing.
• Fine Cut: Cutting into scenes, and creating drama.
• Final Cut: It's all done, though you may still tweak a few things.

Sound Design

For the second half of the lecture we focused on sound design:

• Sound design makes up 50% of the film.
• It is the capturing, layering and mixing of individual sound elements.
• Sound Layers-
• Dialogue: All recorded dialogue from the shoot (V.O. has different track)
• Sync: Sound from shoot that is not dialogue.
• ADR: Dialogue re-recorded or dubbed, after shoot.
• FX: Sound effects recorded for production or taken from library.
• Foley: Cover personal action elements. Specific sounds.
• Atmos: Sound elements that make up the atmosphere of the location.
• Music: Diegetic and non-diegetic music in the film.
• Good sound design adds depth, feeling and emotion to a picture.
• You can add details the audience can't see.

The Task

We were then given a sound design task. The task involved taking a silent clip from a film and then adding all the sound back in using sound effects. We were given a clip that had already had the sound removed, so we had to use the visuals to work out how it might sound.

I started by taking the clip into Premiere and then adding cuts on the track that lined up with the cuts in the actual clip. This would help me lengthen and shorten sound effects so they cut with the shots. I then focused on atmos first. I used the YouTube Audio Library to find atmosphere sound effects that I thought worked with the scene. Once I had insert all my atmos, I moved onto foley. I started by using sfx to create footsteps. There was a lot of walking in the scene and that's why I focused on this first. I then went through and added in FX. For example, I added in the sound of a phone ringing just before the man in the scene answers his phone.

I then went through all the sound layers and messed with the balance and volume of each sound so it fitted into the scene. I wanted to add depth, and messing with these settings helped achieve that.

Here is the final product:

If I were to continue working on this, I would work on improving the footsteps. I would also think about adding in dialogue and maybe so music, to give the scene a meaning and add some more tension.

I found the project very enjoyable and it made me realised how important sound design is. For this project I will think very carefully about how I can use sound design to add some depth, feeling and emotion to my scenes.