Echo
The opening interview sequence between Mike and Lewis is very echoy in places. Rod voiced his concerns about the sound when being played on the cinema projection screen at our Sideways Looks exhibition, he felt that the echo may mean that the audience are unable to pick up certain parts of the dialogue. Patrycja and I tried exporting the sound and editing it using audacity. We took a clip of ambient sound in which the echo is not present and then used this to reduce the additional echo noise using the noise reduction tool. Although this eliminated the echo, we were unable to get a balance that sounded naturalistic. Following several failed attempts we looked at some tutorials to see if there were any tools on Final Cut Pro but none of these worked very well either. I didn't want to eliminate the echo completely as I feel that it adds to the intensity of the scene making the two characters seem very alone, Patrycja agreed. We tried adding echo to the second interview to try and make it more similar but again I quite liked the contrast in atmosphere between the two scenes. Patrycja told me that she was sure the echo wouldn't make the vocals hard to understand in the exhibition set up so I have decided to keep that element of the sound as it is.
Levels
I spent a lot of time going through the clips and making sure that the volume level remains the same across all of the clips. Some clips were really loud in contrast to others so I had to reduce the levels quite drastically in some places. I have managed to even everything out and am happy with this.
Mono/Stereo
I had already begun converting some of the clips from mono to stereo which was quite a time consuming task. This week I finished this and now all of my clips are in stereo.
Audio Transitions
Patrycja showed me how to use the audio cross dissolve transition on Final Cut Pro so the sound from each clip carries across smoothly between. This worked well in some places where I had to quite quickly cut the clips as to avoid the characters talking over each other. It also made the cuts in the second interview between Mike and my mum much smoother.
Ambient Sounds
Patrycja suggested adding some ambient sound and having this running continually throughout the first interview. As there is a lot of echo, some of the sudden breaks in sound cause a split second of silence. The ambient sound made this a lot smoother and kept the sound continuous.
General Feedback from Patrycja
Having watched my video through in full, Patrycja was able to give me some feedback. She asked if the initial scene was a flashback and I agreed that in a sense the use of some of the initial interview clips in the second interview aim to draw the audience's memories back to the first interview. The characters roles are never defined and in the same sense neither is the timescale.
I have exported an initial copy of my film as I feel that I need to look at it in my own time away from the editing suite. I also wanted to show my actors a copy to get some of their feedback.
This is the link to my initial export:
http://vimeo.com/40971590
No comments:
Post a Comment