Week 9 - Support, Feedback and Development

Finishing the edit

Coming towards the final parts of the editing process, my work was listened to by the teacher. She advised me to focus on specific parts of the soundscape, like when the man was being choked for example; I was told that I should make it quieter because it is not happening that close to the camera and so it should not be that loud.

As well as this, I was also told to find another basement ambient sound effect to fill some of the silence sections in the video. This would also create more believable background noise for an underground basement. When I was recording my sound effects for my soundscape, I turned the tap on ever so slightly so I could record the sound of water dripping. I repeated this sound effect throughout the soundscape using the copy and paste technique on Premiere Pro; I also made it sound as if it was distant using the SFX editing tools and added some room reverb which created a subtle echo sound. From this echo sound, a quiet ringing sound was formed which you can subtly hear being repeated throughout the soundscape.

Although my teacher said this was very successful, she told me that I should also look for a basement ambient sound. Here's a link to the sound that I used.

There were a number of different ambient sounds that I much preferred to this one however they were not free and this was the only free one that was more so along the lines of what I wanted use. The reason I did not want to use this one was because you can hear the sounds of wind, however, in the scene that I am working on you can see that it is quite a small space so you may not hear the wind outside. But then I realised, because you can see that it is an old and damp basement, there are probably some holes in the walls which would let the sound of wind in from the outside. As well as this, it can also depend on the weather outside, and so in this soundscape it is a windy evening.

On the other hand, I did turn down the volume of this ambient sound so that it was not too prominent, and due to the other sounds happening on screen you probably wouldn't notice the sound of the wind until it was silent. I also made it sound distant as I have done with a lot of the other sound effects to make it look real.

Another student in the class watched my soundscape back and said it was really successful because of the timings of the sound effects and that the sound effects were very realistic. Even in the silent parts, you can hear the ambient sounds which made it seem like the real thing. I took everyone's feedback on board and finished the edit by focusing on reducing the volume of specific sound effects and making them blend into the background more by using the fade out tool and adding some small reverb onto the sounds, but not too much as there would not be much echo in a small place. When anyone listened to my soundscape, they jumped / were startled at the points where I wanted that to happen, (gun shots, light-bulbs blowing etc) which for me, is another sing of a successful soundscape.

I was very pleased with how the edit came out. Focusing on the small details definitely helped me make the soundscape sound as realistic as possible. The final edit was very scary, jumpy and eerie which are all of the factors that I wanted to shine through the soundscape. I was also happy with the sound effects themselves as they fit in with what is happening on the screen. Referring back to the video while recording was a big part of how I got the timings right and it paid off because that was one of the most complimented areas of the soundscape. If I do a project like this again, I will make sure to utilise Adobe Audition more and if I am struggling with how it works, I will watch some YouTube tutorials or ask others for help.

From now on I will be aiming to export my work, write my critical introduction and hand in my portfolio.