Simon - Editing and Sound

Simon – Sound and Editing.

The editing and the sound design to a film/TV production are vital components; these elements can make or break a production. That is why I found the lectures on both of these elements extremely interesting and they gave me much food for thought.

What I took from it was focusing on the thought process behind the edits, cutting for a reason, that nothing is arbitrary. If I wanted to create an intense scene, I could speed up the pace of my edits, conveying that sense of rapidness and motion, heightening the intensity.

Also editing for evoking emotional responses, as creating dramatic emotion is the cornerstone of great editing. The lecture left me asking a lot of questions in my own head on my own production, how long will I hang on a shot for, why, what for?  Where is my focus meant to be, where do I want the audience to be looking.

Another point, when we went into detail about certain edits, e.g match cut, cross cut, etc. It triggered something within my own cognition's and gave me some inspiration on how I could potentially place a match cut within my sequence. There is a moment in the scene in which one of my actors will be placing down an empty packet of peanuts; I’m thinking to possibly cut straight into my next scene to an opening shot very similar. These are plans that are being taking into deep consideration though and are still in the process of being a final shoot day plan.

                        (2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick - 1968 - The infamous cut)

We then looked at sound design, which is a tool which occurs at all stages of production. This intrigued me also as the amount of work that is put into sound was something that I would never of imagined! It also explained why there are so many end credits of different sound occupants, as there are so many different sound jobs, 7 to be exact. These include: Dialogue, which is all recorded on shoot. Sync, which is recorded sound from shoot that isn’t dialogue. ADR, (Automatic Dialogue replacement) This is all dialogue re-recorded or dubbed, most Hollywood productions use this for films. Then we have FX, which are sound effects like car engines, explosions, recorded specifically for certain scenes. Foley, this one put a smile on my face when we were shown a clip on how these sounds were actually captured. This is sound created to go with visuals, they’re created in studios (Jack Foley creator thus the name, Foley). The next one is called Atmos, this sound creates the atmosphere for a specific location, e.g desert – scorching sun beating down on the vast sand dunes, sand sweeps across the landscape. Finally, Music, which is all the music within the film, diegetic, music on the radio, non diegetic, composed piece of music on top of the film.

But the key thing is with sound design, is that it’s there to add depth, feeling and emotion to a film. It is about making the audience believe in what they’re viewing. ‘ Silence is golden ‘, what I found very useful about this phrase was its truth within it. To create/convey silence, you add miniature sounds e.g a fly, buzzing around a room, this emphasises that silence brilliantly.

What I also took as extremely useful advice and to apply straight away in my production, was to record a buzz track, to record on set for about a minute long, taking in all the naturalistic sounds, so when it comes back to the editing suite, I have a seriously authentic look and sound to my production.

To conclude, I found this lecture extremely useful and a lot of fun, as it gave me concepts to play around with, not only on shoot, but off it as well. It’s had me thinking about the whole line of production, as if I do want to try and pull off that match cut, I’ll have to plan meticulously and make sure the framing is right in both shoots.