SONIC DESIGN FINAL PROJECT

13 Nov 2020 - 27 Nov 2020 (week 7 - week 10)
Ahmed Baahy Suhail
Sonic Design
Final Project

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INSTRUCTIONS

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FINAL PROJECT

For our final project, we had to select from a list of silent film clips provided by our lecturer and bring the scenes to life by recording our own sound effects. We were also required to add in dialogue and suiting background music. I chose to use "The Camera Man" by Buster Keaton. Given our limited resources in CMCO, I felt that this film was the most practical choice, given that it was set in just a room.

I first started by identifying the sounds evident within the scene and filled up the sound cue sheet accordingly.

I rewatched the clip over and over and made sure to track everything in order. 

Sounds needed for "the camera man"

-dialogue
-room ambiance
-get out of the chair
-hands in pocket and pants
-cloth movement
-footstep
-open cupboard
-take out clothes?
-put clothes back in
-bank of dime noise
-footstep towards bed
-shake dime
-footstep
-grab hammer
-hammer hit dime
-place dime on bed
-loud hammer
-break bed (metal vs m, metal vs ground, squeaking)
-footstep towards bed
-hammer hit
-wall break (debris hitting ground)
-hand through wall
-hand touching wall

-hand wipe back
-destroy wall
-grunt noises
-hammer hit wall
-plank falls on face and onto the ground (carpet)
-hammer drop
-scratch hat
-dime break
-music tune

After doing that,  I had to figure out which objects would be the best to use for the sounds needed.

1) room ambiance ( bedroom ) 
2) get out of chair ( body movement )
3) footstep ( shoes on wooden floor )
4) cloth movements ( denim jacket + pants ) 
5) hand on wall ( hand on bathroom door )
6) bank of dimes ( shake + hit coin bank ) 
7) bed fall ( jump on bed + drop drying rack + drop pillows on bed ) 
8) hitting bank of dimes on wall ( hammer + hit coin bank + mug w/ spoon ) 
9) Wall break ( cardboard box )
10) Wall debris ( shake protein shake container/ cereal filled can )
11) Plank fall ( drop small cardboard box )
12) Bank of dimes break open ( drop coin bank + coin scatter )

Here are a few pictures of some objects I used for recording. 

Spoon in mug/ coin bank

Protein shake container/ drying rack

Small cardboard box/ drawer with clothes 

After finalizing my objects, I went onto the recording phase. I had to wait past midnight as there were too many background noises outside during the day. I set up around my room and recorded the sounds using my Google Pixel 4XL in a span of around 2 days. I kept having to stop the recording as the hours went by and my microphone started picking up more and more background noises.

 I finally managed to record all the sounds and moved on to arranging all the sounds first in Adobe Premiere Pro as I had a lot of takes recorded and wanted to finalize the best ones for the scene.

Process of arranging sounds in Premiere Pro

To see all the sounds come together when layered was very satisfying. Here is my first draft.

I sent my progress over to Mr. Razif to get some feedback before I continue. This was the feedback I received. He told me that overall it's quite good and there's only some minor sounds to add such as ceramic sound for the coin bank hit and more debris sounds.

I then recorded these sounds using the suggested props. As I did not have any sand for the debris nearby, I used a can of cereal and shook it to gently turned the can to record the cereal flowing inside.

I also recorded my dialogue as well as played a musical tune using Garageband. 

After this was done, I added these in the Premiere Pro file, arranged them, and created a dynamic link by transferring the file into Adobe Audition, where I worked on adjusting the volumes and making sure the sounds sounded coherent.

Process in Adobe Audition

I noticed that some of the sounds started to clip, especially the high pitch sound of the ceramic mug and spoon, and the layered sounds such as the bed fall. 

Sound clipping

I lowered quite a lot of the sounds to make sure that no more clipping happened. After fixing that, I removed the noise from my dialogue and some other recordings. 

Here is the final video with sfx and voice only.

Here is the final video with sfx, voice and instruments.