Sonic Design - Final Project

30/6/2020 - 30/7/2020 (Week 12 - Week 16)
Lee Yu Hui | 0335787
Sonic Design
Final Project

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Final Project

For our final project, we are required to do sound foley for a silent movie of our choice. Mr. Razif gave us a series of silent movie clips to choose from, and we are required to create the sounds from the movies.

After giving some consideration I decided to work on the silent film called "The General".

Reference video

Before we start recording, Mr. Razif introduced us to audio storyboard. This would help ease our process of recording and help us organize and identify the exact sounds that would be needed in the scenes.

Audio storyboard

After I identified the audio needed, I then proceed to look for items in the house that could replicate the sounds in the film.

These are some of the items used to replicate the sound:

Wood creaking - Shaking wooden bed frame

Wooden dowel - Wooden roller hitting on a wooden chopping board

Hitting sound - Wooden roller hitting a pillow

Footsteps in rain - Wet cloth in a plate filled with water

Opening and closing windows - Friction between the wooden roller and the chopping board

Trees falling down - Plastic with shredded paper

As for the rain sound, I tried multiple ways to imitate the rain sound, but most of them sounded off. I tried using rice to imitate the raining sound, but the recording sounded too hard, I've also tried recording it in the shower, but as I was recording it alone, I couldn't succeed in replicating the sound as the floor texture is different from the clip.

Fortunately, I was able to record the live audio of the rain sound as it has been raining quite frequently in my area. I manage to get the recording after two trials as I have to take the environment noise into consideration.

Editing in Adobe Audition

The process of editing and recording has been rather challenging for me as this semester we can only do the recording at home, and there's a lot of distractions coming from my house. I'm forced to record the audio after everyone is asleep. Editing wise, I have to clean up most of the recordings as most of them had background noise to it. 

I've also added in some dialogue as this was part of the requirement for the project. I recorded them and pitch shift the recordings to make my voice sounded more masculine. 

First attempt

After sending the recordings to Mr. Razif, he pointed out that the volume of the audio needs to be higher, and I also have to make some of the falling sounds more impactful. He also suggested me to add more sounds to the crawling part of the clip and some distraction noise when the character is in the room to make have more details into it. 

When I first send in the audio, I did not put the lightning sound in as I had a hard time trying to look for items to replicate the lightning sound. I tried recreating it using a hard plastic sheet but its lacking a solid sound to it. However, due to the time constraint, I have to use what I have to make it work.

Second attempt

After sending in to Mr Razif for feedback, he said that I could try to adjust the volume and make some of the sound less sharp. 

After I amended according to Mr. Razif suggestion, this is my final outcome:

Final Outcome without BGM

After I'm done with the audio, I proceed to create the background music for the film in BandLab. Since I barely have any knowledge of music, the outcome that I came up with is also very limited. 

After adding in the background music, this is the outcome:

Final Outcome with BGM

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Reflection

This module has been quite interesting and fun for me as it is very different from the other modules. It's a shame that we didn't have the chance to visit and enter the audio studio this semester as all of the modules are being held online. However, I'm happy and grateful that Mr. Razif promise to bring us to the studio once the campus is open. Overall this module has been really fun and Mr. Razif has helped and guided me a lot throughout this semester. It was fun doing the sound foley project but it is also kind of frustrating at the same time as we were forced to do all the recordings at home. It is also kind of frustrating when I couldn't find the right items to replicate the sound. Nevertheless, this is a fun experience and I'm glad I get to do sound foley for the final project. This made me appreciate sound designers even more as they had to be very detailed when it comes to recreating the sounds from the scenes.