Exploring Sound Design in Film

In the world of audio production, the realm of multimedia sound design stands out as a unique and exciting field. It requires a blend of creativity, technical skill, and a deep understanding of how sound can enhance the overall experience. For those looking to delve into the world of specifically video game sound design, a strong portfolio showcasing one's talents is essential.

Imagine a portfolio that brings together a collection of meticulously crafted audio works, each demonstrating a deep appreciation for the power of sound in multimedia. This portfolio features example works of both film and gaming inspired projects, and is continously growing through an array of various results. Let's start with an exploration into all things film audio - ranging from ADR (automated dialogue replacement) to Foley.

This project had all spurred from a University project in my final year. After being given a list of films varying in genres, I chose the blank canvas (the scene, audioless) of a segment of ‘The Gun & The Pulpit’, a Western film from 1974 directed by Daniel Petrie.

Before diving into my creative process, take a look at the final product via this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1_Tja6w2gQ

The catalogue of sounds showcased in this reworking all came from various places. Being from in the studio, out on location, and simply from sound libraries available to me. Inspiration struck me all around the place, and what a better place to showcase one of my old bands' tracks 'Scraps' (https://open.spotify.com/track/28NEJelg6GK6PwvxDK9PJq?si=2db66b102d5444dc)

Here we take a deeper look into how every sound you hear in this video, where they came from, how they were processed and what my role was on the production side of things:

Table of Sounds:

Sound	Format	Category	Role in recording	Description
Balloon Pop	WAV.	Foley	F	Popping balloons with key-rings to emulate a gunshot.  Processed with distortion and reverb to give it a saturated and accurate sonic quality.
Splice Gunshot	WAV.	Foley	N/A	Pre-mixed sample from Splice to alternate with other gunshot.
Rice bowl striking	WAV.	Foley	B	Striking a bowl full of rice with a fist. Imitating footsteps through sand for character movement in the excerpt.
Bell striking the rice bowl	WAV.	Foley	B	This recording uses a small bell instead of a fist, to sound like a horse’s hoof walking in sand for all the horses’ movements.  High pass filtered at the beginning when the camera's perspective is under cover.
Building Collapse	WAV.	Foley	R	Shaking a bag full of metal poles to sound like a building collapse. Layered with glass smashing sounds from Splice.
Multivitamins tub shaking	WAV.	Foley	B	Shotguns appear commonly in this film.  The sound effect impersonates the sound of reloading the barrels into a shotgun.
Wind Noise	WAV.	Ambient	R	Recorded with the built in Zoom H5 condenser microphones in a remote location.
Vinyl Hiss	WAV.	Ambient	N/A	Used as an ambient, crackling noise. Sourced from Splice.
Water Splash	WAV.	Foley	F	In this recording a rock was thrown into a big crate of water.
Door open/close.	WAV.	Foley	R	Opening and closing doors representing multiple instances throughout.
‘I want that Preacher’	WAV.	ADR*	A	Recorded on a EW112 G3 lapel microphone for the first line of dialogue.
‘Grab your guns boys’	WAV.	ADR	D	Second line of dialogue. Recorded with the NTG-3.
‘Still with you Preacher’	WAV.	ADR	A	A line that’s said during the gun fight, recorded with a C414 from an ADR session in the Courtyard.
Grunts and Giggles	WAV.	ADR	R	Grunt recorded to encapsulate injuries, to add realism to the piece, and the giggle to add character to the protagonist.  Multiple takes spread out amongst scenes.
Preacher movement	WAV.	Foley	R	Realtime audio of rustling deodorant cans in the opening scene.
Opening soundtrack, entitled ‘Tumbleweed’.	WAV.	Soundtrack	P	A simple, suspenseful piece of music consisting of synthesiser loops to create a mysterious atmosphere for the lead-up to the fight itself.
‘Scraps’ by The Vicar’s Mustang.	WAV.	Soundtrack	P	An instrumental piece of music written by my rock band.  Faster tempo than the first song used to signify a change in piece to match the scene when intensity increases.
Wooden floorboard walking.	WAV.	Foley	R	For the scenes where the protagonist and antagonist are sneaking around the house.  Audio is walking downstairs taken on a Zoom H5.  Also chopped and filtered for effects when characters hit the ground.

*ADR = Automated Dialogue Replacement

Role in recording key

• R = Recordist

• D = Actor (Dialogue)

• A = ADR Technician

• B = Boom operator

• P = Producer

Listening back to the original audio from the film excerpt whilst preparing the ADR takes, provided guidance to myself and the other voice actor on the vocal delivery. The original actors have gritty projections and a range in accent strength. The antagonist has an angry persona to which Tom (voice of Mr Ross), put on a stern tone whilst delivering the lines, imitating the original accents. This was then replicated for the other vocal takes - multiple takes were made with a variation of different levels of angry delivery. I subjectively chose the one that sounded the best executed. The same process was carried out for the other pieces of dialogue. The remaining pieces of human voice included in the final mix were a laugh and a wide variety of grunts with differences in pitch, duration, and amplitude. Many characters are seen to be injured whilst the fight is occurring, therefore supplying me with a sufficient range of sounds to differentiate the grunts to all the characters. 

To accompany all the sound effects of each action in the excerpt, I began thinking about the approach of the soundtrack needed to accompany the changes in the scene. I created a mysterious soundscape for the introduction, consisting of ambient drones and simple bass loops. I made sure to keep a tempo that matched the cuts in frame and added in new instruments or certain drones to accompany when something new entered the scene. Examples include the high guitar bend when the horses are approaching, as well as the pulsating bassline and kick drum that come in whilst the preacher is sneaking towards the antagonist. The main reference track I used here was ‘Datura (dusk)’ by Boston Manor because of the choice of instruments and textural development. The mix then fades into the second song called ‘Scraps’ written by myself and my band The Vicar’s Mustang via volume automation (decreasing at the end of soundtrack 1, intro ‘Scraps’). This is a faster paced song with a punk style sound, which helps signify the transition in the scenes. 

Justification of Sounds

When initially analysing the scene and making a list of all the required sounds, I wanted to make sure I encapsulated a realistic capture of each human movement created. I put a lot of processing and editing into the footsteps and ensuring they were as accurate to the movie as possible. Other necessary effects that needed to be included consist of the range of gunshots, especially as some characters use shotguns whilst others use revolvers which resulted in two different gun shot sounds to distinguish the two from each other. Whilst the fight scene erupts, I made a creative decision to add in a small laugh when the protagonist smiles at his sidekick to enhance the charming persona and likeability of the character. My justification for the soundtrack choices falls into matching the suspenseful atmosphere of the build-up to the fight, hence why I used a lot of synthesisers inspired by the sound design of Netflix TV Show ‘Stranger Things’ which relies on many mysterious aspects in its storylines and main antagonists. The transition into ‘Scraps’ which centres around the increase in tempo to help signify that something intense is about to go down. The remainder of the effects are spot effects for the building collapses and the damage created because of the character casualties, and the wind noise is there to match the desert environment where wind speed is prominent in a realistic scenario. For the horses that run wild during the scene, I used the bell striking the rice bowl which was submitted in coursework 1 as it had a more metallic timbre created the metal material.

Mixing and Mastering

I consistently mixed and balanced the audio whilst adding to the project. Below is an example of how I processed the dialogue.

Most loud noises such as the footsteps and the human ‘thuds’ were compressed to increase their impact with a threshold remaining around -20dB and a 4:1 ratio. To alternate movements and the locations of where the horses and actors are moving from, I cut high and low frequencies for the horse hooves at the beginning where the protagonist sees the horses from behind a window and removed the filter when the camera focuses on the movements. I also created an aux send and bounced multiple layers of this audio file, to get creative with the sound as a wider texture for when multiple horses are running wild. I made sure to balance every sound in the mix to around -2dB before mastering and aimed for around -16 LUFS after all my mastering processes - detailed below the upcoming image. 

When mastering the track, I mostly focused on applying multiband compression, exciter, linear phase equalisation (EQ) and tape saturation on the master chain. In addition to optimising the low end in terms of the amount of bass present to enhance the impact of the soundtrack on the scene itself; the compression and the exciter were used to ensure the high end and the harmonics, that may have been missed were brought out.  To avoid any time delay which occurs occasionally when using a multiband EQ, with cuts at around 18kHz and 400 Hz with a steep slope to avoid ruining the mix too much, a linear phase EQ over normal EQ was applied. Tape saturation was more of a creative approach to emulate the film quality you would expect from a 1970s movie. I achieved this with a tape delay plugin and minimised the feedback and delay time and adjusted the gain settings to achieve saturation as detailed below.