DIRECTIONS UNIT: SOUND LECTURE

Sound design is one of the most interesting and important parts of films and directing. The sound design for a film can make or break it.

Sound design in film and television is the progress of capturing, layering and mixing the individual sound elements to create one single Soundtrack for the project. Sound takes up 50% of a film/TV programme and sound design occurs at all stages of a production but it is mostly a post-production stage for the majority of the work.

The Sound Designer
Originally, the sound editing for films were edited by Sound Editor or a team of sound editors but there wasn't any creative input given by sound team for the project. This changed in the 1970's as a higher demand for better sound came along and much more input came from the sound editors then and the job 'Supervising sound editor' came about which meant that role had total over view of the sound design.
The sound designers role is to assemble a number of layers or tracks of sound, which are mixed together to form one whole track to work with the footage. On some productions there might be fifty tracks of sound. Most commonly there will be between 5-20 tracks of sound in a production

Types of tracks:
- Dialogue
- Sync
- ADR.
- FX.
- Foley
- Atmos
- Music

Dialogue
This is what is recorded on set or while filming on location. A voice over is recorded on a separate track. The sound designer would take out anything that isn't dialogue to ensure only dialogue is in this track

Sync
This is the recorded sound from the shoot that is not dialogue. E.g. someone walking, getting into a car, etc.

ADR
Automatic Dialogue Replacement. This is all the dialogue re-recorded or dubbed, after the shoot. Nearly all Hollywood films use ADR for the whole film.

FX:
Certain sounds effects for elements such as a car engine, a computer, or explosion. These will recorded specifically for the production or more commonly they will come from a Sound FX library.

Foley:
Foley is recreating the sound effects and matching them up to the footage. This can takes ages and takes a great deal of skill which is why they were known as 'Foley Artists'

Atmos:
Creating the atmosphere for a location, this can be with room tone, wild track, etc. it creates the atmosphere for the scene and the location is based at.

Music:
This is all the music in the film. Diegetic music which can be music from a radio in the scene, someone playing an instrument, etc. and the other is non-diegetic which can't be heard by the actors and helps to create all kinds of emotions or feelings. Such as tension, fear, hope, love, etc.

The Sound Edit
Through the sound edit phase, the sound designer will work with their team and edit the various sounds to the picture and making the creative decisions all the time. Sound cutting is just like picture cutting and will mostly be done with professional software.
The Mix is the final stage of the sound progress. This is where the Sound Designer, Editor, Director and Producer will come together and all together all the separate tracks of sound together to form one complete track.

The Art of Sound Design
The art of Sound Design is to add depth, feeling and emotion to the picture. It's not about making something sound LOUD, it's about making it feel real and work for the audience. If it's set on an alien world we need to make it sound like an alien world, even though we don't know how that would sound.

Silence is golden
To understand sound design, you have to be silent.
In a scene where you would need silence, say after a horrific battle scene has just finished and you want to convey the feeling of silence you can use sounds like:
- breathing
- Wind
- A fly
Sounds you wouldn't hear if it wasn't quiet.
Adding depth and emotion to a scene doesn't always mean adding in music. It can also be done with sound. A person alone in a house, you can add a clock or a dog break.

When you need to create a specific emotional moment, such as horror, fear or love, this can be done with sound design. A classic edit in horror or thriller is to cut from the image of someone about to scream to the image of a train or alarm clock. We see the picture change but not the sound of the train whistle or alarm that does the trick.

Sound Design
A production might spend 7 weeks shooting a film/programme, but they might spend double that amount of time on the sound design. You could have the most beautiful, clever and amazing footage ever see on screen. But if the sound design is poor it will bring down the quality of the entire production.

(All images taken from google.co.uk)