Soundtrack Design

https://vimeo.com/cymoeddmedia/review/293133710/6800c52ccc

Overview –

I was told to choose between 3 scenes from movies that are heavily detailed in sounds, they were from Lord of The Rings, The Matrix and Star Wars: Rogue One. I chose the Lord of The Rings one as it seemed more fun to do so and then remove all sound from the original and then remake the sounds with non copyrighted sound effects from freesounds.org.

The Process –

I first wanted and started to do the Rogue One video, until I couldn’t find a good sound effect that I wanted. So I decided to go for the Lord of The Rings one. I only wanted to do around half of the video because the whole video was around four minutes long. I spent around 2 and a half lessons editing and finding the right sound effects & music. I then asked Scott to check it and he told me to add a few more sound effects and so I did. Then I exported the video, uploaded it to Vimeo and now here I am.

The Types of Sounds & The Purpose –

I used a variety of sounds in this video. Obviously the most common one I used was sound effects, the examples I chose were sounds from lighting and thunder rumbling, feet stomping, spears stomping, growls, arrows flown and making impact and the sound of pulling back the bow. I did this because that’s what the people were doing within the video, without it, then it wouldn’t make sense. I also used atmospheric sound effects such as; rain, wind blowing in the background and again thunder and lighting. This makes it more immersive when you are watching it yourself. You can understand where they are and what type of situation or environment they are in by adding these sound effects. So by me adding these in people know that they’re in a rain storm while its thundering and it’s also windy. I used one more sound and that was faint background music. I wanted to add this because it adds to the scene. It makes you feel excited for what’s about to come while also mixing the cinematic feel of the song in the scene. This is a non-diegetic sound making it so the characters within the video cannot hear the music, only you, the viewer can. I also have examples of diegetic sounds in this too, the first sound effects I talked about at the start of the paragraph. The atmospheric sounds and general sound effects such like the thunder, rain and growls can all be heard by the characters.

How I Used Sound to Create Meaning and Mood –

I added thunder and lightning sound effects with the extra wind blow in the mix to make it seem more realistic and dramatic. The main sound I used to create a mood was the music I chose. The music is a non-copyright piece I found on YouTube and when I was looking for it I was looking for something that had an epic sense of scale, while also being a dramatic sounding score. I found the one I used and I thought it fitted in very well. It helps the scene a lot in my opinion. I’m glad I chose this song. It also created a sort of meaning to the scene. Where the song felt like a build up song for the battle to come, which was the first half of the video.

Evaluating Personal Strengths I Have Identified –

Well since this was my second time editing and my first time adding a handful of sound effects and I think I did a decent job at it, with just trying to learn the ways of the software and how to add sounds in certain places just clicked in. As I said before I really like the music I chose for this project and how I was able to do over half of it within 3 hours.

Evaluating Areas For Further Development –

I can definitely improve my editing, but I am still learning it I am pretty sure it’ll get better. I also am not too happy with some of the sound effects I’ve used. They are from a website where you’re able to get sound effects for free than can be uploaded by anyone. So, they aren’t going to be the best match or use for what you need. Some were too quiet or the quality wasn’t the best either so it kind of made the video not as good as it could’ve been. I also could improve the fact that I’ve only done half of it, so an improvement will be to finish the whole scene full of sounds.

Viable Solutions For Further Development –

A solution with the editing is that i just need to use it more, get help and possibly watch some editing videos on YouTube in my free time. I can spend more time into looking for more sounds and find other sounds on other free websites too, or even make my own.