Sound in Film

Sound in Film is a class that aims to improve all aspects of audio in student films. Students learned about professional film sound, multiple sound layer editing, techniques to help achieve common audio effects and how to put it all together on screen.

Students came into this course knowing little to nothing about professional audio editing. They were first introduced to professional examples of sound design. Here are a couple examples from the film Star Wars.

Students learned how to film dialogue with multiple angles and using multiple takes. This allows for easier audio editing in post-production. Then, the students learned about ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) or overdubbing all the dialogue in a film. They learned how to use high quality microphones to produce better sound than what is recorded from internal camera microphones. In this case we used the Zoom - H2 audio recorders, which are a great product and reasonably priced!

The students were then challenged to create their own film project, using their own scripts. Here's the catch: all the audio had to be created in post-production. This means that no audio captured during filming was allowed to be used "as-is." There were 4 groups and only 2 of the groups considered their projects complete. It was a challenging task that required hard work and dedication. It also required time, and sometimes we run out of that fast. And, although some of the final projects didn't turn out in the end, the learning along the way was invaluable. Students also learned the hard work and pre-production required to finish a project for a deadline.

Here is Clara and Lucy's final project, a trailer for an original gripping feature film called Code Red. It's an upcoming thriller (not really) about foiling a planned attempt to assassinate the president. (Spoiler Alert!) We asked, and he ends up being unharmed in the movie.

Thanks for reading!