Sound... What would you do with this?

[gorillaonabike]

Nearly finished, this is the 95% completed version. A couple of little edits to make, the occasional bit of removal of stuff we don't want in there etc... on the visuals side.

Also needs a few audio pans and a touch of psycho acoustics but otherwise, what you would do with the sound here? Sure, I am aware of the audio pans but what would add / take away? This short appears very visual but soundies will probably recognise it is more than 50% sound based. In fact, when the short was designed, it was designed as a sound-driven short. Very unusual, I know, but I wanted a learning experience.

And we deliberately went for lots of contrast. e.g. sound vs absence of sound and in one place 'rough' sound (the yellow bit) which is an artistic decision as we wanted the roughness, the amateurish, clumsiness for that particular element. Also we have lots of layers vs almost no layers. Effectively, this was sound driven from the beginning.

In general am delighted with how it turned out and have come a long way since Alcove reviewed the sound on my first ever short (he said it was absolutely unusable...) So for this reason, I wanted to try a short where sound would be more than 50% to see if I could do it. So what would you do with the sound other than the obvious pans?


Thanks in advance.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I don't know how to say this without sounding incredibly harsh, so I'll just say it and hope you take it constructively!

To be honest, I hardly know where to start. I read your post and then watched the short but what you described and wrote in your post appears to have nothing to do with the short itself, it's almost as if your post refers to a completely different short. For example: 1. Your short doesn't appear to be sound based at all, why do you believe it is 50% sound based, in what way is it sound driven? To be blunt, it seems like you spent days writing the story, planning, filming and editing the visuals and then half an hour cutting in some Foley, 20 mins cutting in a few sound effects and another couple of minutes setting some rough levels. 2. You mentioned contrast and lots of sound layers vs almost no sound layers but what I heard was; almost no sound layers vs no sound layers. You also mentioned the contrast with the "rough" sound in the yellow bit but actually the sound in the yellow bit had a more believable atmosphere than most other parts of the film! "Rough" and "amateurish" are comparative terms, for something to sound rough you need to compare/contrast it with refined and sophisticated, while amateurish has to be contrasted with professional. Contrasting amateur noisy rough with amateur non-believable rough just sounds like a rough amateur film making error.

In addition to the horrendous panning errors, of which you are aware, there are some other very serious basic technical audio errors which you don't seem to have spotted; editing clicks and a lot of distorted/overloaded dialogue.

In general am delighted with how it turned out ...

Of everything you've said, this statement worries me the most! It implies you are incapable of being objective enough to tell the difference between very poor and very good, which is a serious problem considering the huge gulf between the two. I want to try and say something useful and constructive in this post but without being able to tell the difference between good and bad, it's hard to know what to suggest. I know you are aware of the Principles of Sound Design thread but maybe another and closer study of it would help. Also, maybe post #9 of this thread I wrote earlier will help.

Actually, I've just thought of an exercise which might really help! Mute/delete all the music! Now redo the whole short from scratch, just using sound and no music whatsoever. When you're done, post the result and we'll see how that's helped and if there's something more I can come up with to take you another step forward.

G

 

[CraigL]

Definitely rework it without the music. Music can be wonderfully emotional, but I think it'd definitely distracting you from _hearing_ the sound.
Definitely there could be more Foley, a lot of it was absent, or totally overpowered by the music.
But as far as Sound Design, there are a few things I'd have done.

I liked the kettle whistle in the beginning, but it ended too abruptly it seemed not part of the scene any more.

You really wanted to amp up the tension, breaking it just before he flips back into our world. In the ring scene, I'd have shot some noise making device such as a fan or air conditioner, then you could have easily had that sound get louder and louder as the tension increased. Have the scraping around of the people on the ring floor get louder, grittier. Perhaps the voices get slightly more echoey, culminating in a reverberating echo when we cut back to a very quiet street scene, and then have the diegetic sounds slowly come back up as he realizes he's safe.
For the horse scene, I would have loved a close-up or horse snorting and whinnying or nickering (especially on a cold morning so there was some nice steam), as well as him pawing the ground, of course accompanied with an appropriate sound. Then again, these are sounds that can be amped up as the scene culminates in the protagonist reverting back to his world. We should have heard more clanging of armour also. And that would have been a good end with the knight inhaling sharply as he brought the blade up, or perhaps issuing a war-cry of some sort. Again, the sound slowly echoing away and the diegetic street sounds slowly coming back up as he realizes he's "back".

You used a heartbeat from time to time, but it was hard to hear, and it didn't sound like it did anything. Having it increase in speed as well as volume would all add to the sense of tension.

I have no idea whether this would all actually work, but it's the planning I would have done to get the shots I needed to try it out in the final edit.

Sound is hard, it seems easy as we can all hear, but to isolate and really, really listen is very hard and takes practise, a lot of practise.

One final note, a follow-up to turning the music off as an exercise, I feel there was way too much music in this. It's not a music video, it's a narrative short.

Great production value with that horse and knight though! Lots of good things to say about the overall short, but this was just about the sound.

Hope this helps.

CraigL

 

[gorillaonabike]

I don't know how to say this without sounding incredibly harsh, so I'll just say it and hope you take it constructively!

To be honest, I hardly know where to start. I read your post and then watched the short but what you described and wrote in your post appears to have nothing to do with the short itself, it's almost as if your post refers to a completely different short. For example: 1. Your short doesn't appear to be sound based at all, why do you believe it is 50% sound based, in what way is it sound driven? To be blunt, it seems like you spent days writing the story, planning, filming and editing the visuals and then half an hour cutting in some Foley, 20 mins cutting in a few sound effects and another couple of minutes setting some rough levels. 2. You mentioned contrast and lots of sound layers vs almost no sound layers but what I heard was; almost no sound layers vs no sound layers. You also mentioned the contrast with the "rough" sound in the yellow bit but actually the sound in the yellow bit had a more believable atmosphere than most other parts of the film! "Rough" and "amateurish" are comparative terms, for something to sound rough you need to compare/contrast it with refined and sophisticated, while amateurish has to be contrasted with professional. Contrasting amateur noisy rough with amateur non-believable rough just sounds like a rough amateur film making error.

In addition to the horrendous panning errors, of which you are aware, there are some other very serious basic technical audio errors which you don't seem to have spotted; editing clicks and a lot of distorted/overloaded dialogue.



Of everything you've said, this statement worries me the most! It implies you are incapable of being objective enough to tell the difference between very poor and very good, which is a serious problem considering the huge gulf between the two. I want to try and say something useful and constructive in this post but without being able to tell the difference between good and bad, it's hard to know what to suggest. I know you are aware of the Principles of Sound Design thread but maybe another and closer study of it would help. Also, maybe post #9 of this thread I wrote earlier will help.

Actually, I've just thought of an exercise which might really help! Mute/delete all the music! Now redo the whole short from scratch, just using sound and no music whatsoever. When you're done, post the result and we'll see how that's helped and if there's something more I can come up with to take you another step forward.

G

No. The audio, as it stands, has a creative choice behind it. You seem to want 'real' for everything but this is not the idea.

They are hallucinations - they do not look real so why should we be reaching for 'real' sound? However, they have visual impact so need a similar auditory impact. It is not 'reality' we are seeking - far from it as the visuals are not 'real.' The elements which are 'real' (e.g. the yellow bit) sound real or alternatively have no sound. This is a creative choice which mirrors the short wherever possible or wherever we want ambiguity which creates tension.

Once all the cr@ppy bits and pieces are sorted out such as the pops, pans, dialogue, a couple of sound choices, (a few of the visuals) I think we will add a few bits and pieces.

So I fundamentally disagree with your assessment. We are going down a specific route with precise creative goals. If you believe this creative direction to be nonsense, by all means let me know, but unreal visuals equal unreal sound. Real visuals equal real sound (e.g. yellow) or silent (the ending) - unless we want to hold tension through ambiguity. Lack of reality equals noise whereas reality equals quiet or silence. Peace vs noise, reality vs non-reality, danger vs safety all communicated through sound and visuals.

Why should the visuals be unreal and the sound be real? No. In my opinion, they need to be joined at the hip.

 

[gorillaonabike]

Definitely rework it without the music. Music can be wonderfully emotional, but I think it'd definitely distracting you from _hearing_ the sound.
Definitely there could be more Foley, a lot of it was absent, or totally overpowered by the music.
But as far as Sound Design, there are a few things I'd have done.

I liked the kettle whistle in the beginning, but it ended too abruptly it seemed not part of the scene any more.

You really wanted to amp up the tension, breaking it just before he flips back into our world. In the ring scene, I'd have shot some noise making device such as a fan or air conditioner, then you could have easily had that sound get louder and louder as the tension increased. Have the scraping around of the people on the ring floor get louder, grittier. Perhaps the voices get slightly more echoey, culminating in a reverberating echo when we cut back to a very quiet street scene, and then have the diegetic sounds slowly come back up as he realizes he's safe.
For the horse scene, I would have loved a close-up or horse snorting and whinnying or nickering (especially on a cold morning so there was some nice steam), as well as him pawing the ground, of course accompanied with an appropriate sound. Then again, these are sounds that can be amped up as the scene culminates in the protagonist reverting back to his world. We should have heard more clanging of armour also. And that would have been a good end with the knight inhaling sharply as he brought the blade up, or perhaps issuing a war-cry of some sort. Again, the sound slowly echoing away and the diegetic street sounds slowly coming back up as he realizes he's "back".

You used a heartbeat from time to time, but it was hard to hear, and it didn't sound like it did anything. Having it increase in speed as well as volume would all add to the sense of tension.

I have no idea whether this would all actually work, but it's the planning I would have done to get the shots I needed to try it out in the final edit.

Sound is hard, it seems easy as we can all hear, but to isolate and really, really listen is very hard and takes practise, a lot of practise.

One final note, a follow-up to turning the music off as an exercise, I feel there was way too much music in this. It's not a music video, it's a narrative short.

Great production value with that horse and knight though! Lots of good things to say about the overall short, but this was just about the sound.

Hope this helps.

CraigL

Hi Craig

Thanks for this, it is useful. As a note, they are all supposed to be, well, the final character so the knight is a woman so wanted to avoid warcries to give this away. When we screened it, the men all assumed it was a man but the women all spotted she is a woman (albeit a 6'2, sword wielding woman) and it is obvious if you look at the hair, the hips etc... She is, well, the next character, but only the women in the screening saw this.

Also, good idea about armour clanking around. Will find a way of doing that - but need to figure out a 'sound' for this. In reality, it sounds particularly unimpressive. Will also use a fan or similar in the background of the gym and amp up the noise of them scraping around. That's a great idea.

We went with a theme of foley for the hallucinations and real sound / silence for the elements which were 'real' and ambiguity for the bits which we wanted to be ambiguous. However, both you and Alcove clearly have concerns around this. Should I be concerned or is this acceptable as a creative choice? Clearly, a knight is not real but has impact so we wanted sound which was not 'real' but had impact. I am strongly in favour of this type of creative direction but am wondering what you think? Alcove has clearly indicated he would have 'real' sound for the hallucinations but I do not like this.

As for the knight, we just ran out of time and were in too much pain for the pawing around etc... Our actor was exhausted (try getting chased by a 6'2 woman waving a sword on a horse with 'character' in a hailstorm...), we were on our knees and at one point I stepped over the filming line and had a facefull of horsebutt. Still managed to get the shot, though!

Also will need to sort out all the nonsense - levels, pops, pans, dialogue issues etc... but thanks for the assistance - most appreciated.

Incidentally, thanks for mentioning there are lots of good thinkgs about the short. We are all proud of this, especially the feedback received from everyone concerned and am happy you like many of the elements. We have had universally positive feedback at the unfinished version but the sound needs to be worked as you can hear.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Okay, I'll chime in...

The tea kettle cuts off abruptly, it really needs to "descend" when its "turned off."

The Foley sounds like it's from the production track.

It needs a lot more Foley in the opening; the chair creaking, his footsteps, picking up the picture, etc.

I would put in a much "heavier" "darker" grandfather clock sound to make it more ominous.

I know, it's "real" but I dislike the swish, swish, swish of his coat when he's walking down the driveway.

I would have a more "constructed" ambience instead of the production sound (or whatever you used) for the traffic sounds. (i.e. when the bus goes by at 01:20 it could sound more "dangerous.")

You need the footsteps of the protagonist and the guy chasing him to build the tension.

The heavy breathing should start with the close up of his eyes in the boxing scene.

During the boxing scene, again, it sounds like the production sound, not a constructed sound design.

You need some big, powerful, painful, almost overly exaggerated punches in the boxing scene and a big body fall.

I can't easily understand what either of them are saying during the boxing scene.

The ambient sound is too loud when it switches back to the street.

The jump from the dream to "reality" needs to be more abrupt.

Again, the swish, swish, swish of his coat sounds weird (more production sound?).

The footsteps again - too much high end, no definition. (production sound again?)

[Personal choice - no ambient sound, just echoey footsteps in the yellow alley to emphasize the disconnect from reality.]

Motorcycle need LOTS of work (production sound again?) to make it more dangerous.

Ambient sound MUCH too loud.

If you want the heartbeat to be more effective you need to drop or really tone down the score.

The horses hooves need to be big and beefy.

Crunchy footsteps on the leaves.

Better horse sound effects.

Knight armor Foley.

The sword needs to sound more dangerous.

At 04:09 just bird sounds to make it more peaceful; little or no traffic.

The train cuts off at 04:24, needs to be less abrupt.

At 04:09 the footsteps seem to be out of sync.

Traffic/ambience is much too loud at the bridge; several abrupt audio cuts.

Girl in mask needs footsteps.

I would put the grandfather clock in when they're in the living room for more tension.

Living room scene needs lots of Foley work.

No ambient traffic sounds 06:46 through 07:20.

Footsteps//Foley throughout 06:46 to 07:20.

Footsteps in white hallway, exaggerated.

Big, ominous door latch.

Cliché door squeak when opening.

Chair across floor when woman stands up, womans footsteps.

Footsteps as they walk.

Dialog needs to be there, even if indistinct.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Overall the sound is poor to fair. It sounds like you are relying heavily on the production sound. Also, the score needs to breathe more, much too wall to wall.

Also, good idea about armour clanking around. Will find a way of doing that - but need to figure out a 'sound' for this.

Sound design is all about sonic illusions. Pots and pans, sheet metal, etc. Experiment; think WAY outside the box. When doing sound design many sounds are created with props that have zero connection to what you are seeing.

Alcove has clearly indicated he would have 'real' sound for the hallucinations but I do not like this.

Yes, real sounds; but you exaggerate them and mix them in a way to emphasize the disconnect from reality. It's reality to him, but it's a distorted reality.


I would ADR or pull cleaner dialog from alternate takes or dialog wilds.

 

[gorillaonabike]

Okay, I'll chime in...

The tea kettle cuts off abruptly, it really needs to "descend" when its "turned off."

The Foley sounds like it's from the production track.

It needs a lot more Foley in the opening; the chair creaking, his footsteps, picking up the picture, etc.

I would put in a much "heavier" "darker" grandfather clock sound to make it more ominous.

I know, it's "real" but I dislike the swish, swish, swish of his coat when he's walking down the driveway.

I would have a more "constructed" ambience instead of the production sound (or whatever you used) for the traffic sounds. (i.e. when the bus goes by at 01:20 it could sound more "dangerous.")

You need the footsteps of the protagonist and the guy chasing him to build the tension.

The heavy breathing should start with the close up of his eyes in the boxing scene.

During the boxing scene, again, it sounds like the production sound, not a constructed sound design.

You need some big, powerful, painful, almost overly exaggerated punches in the boxing scene and a big body fall.

I can't easily understand what either of them are saying during the boxing scene.

The ambient sound is too loud when it switches back to the street.

The jump from the dream to "reality" needs to be more abrupt.

Again, the swish, swish, swish of his coat sounds weird (more production sound?).

The footsteps again - too much high end, no definition. (production sound again?)

[Personal choice - no ambient sound, just echoey footsteps in the yellow alley to emphasize the disconnect from reality.]

Motorcycle need LOTS of work (production sound again?) to make it more dangerous.

Ambient sound MUCH too loud.

If you want the heartbeat to be more effective you need to drop or really tone down the score.

The horses hooves need to be big and beefy.

Crunchy footsteps on the leaves.

Better horse sound effects.

Knight armor Foley.

The sword needs to sound more dangerous.

At 04:09 just bird sounds to make it more peaceful; little or no traffic.

The train cuts off at 04:24, needs to be less abrupt.

At 04:09 the footsteps seem to be out of sync.

Traffic/ambience is much too loud at the bridge; several abrupt audio cuts.

Girl in mask needs footsteps.

I would put the grandfather clock in when they're in the living room for more tension.

Living room scene needs lots of Foley work.

No ambient traffic sounds 06:46 through 07:20.

Footsteps//Foley throughout 06:46 to 07:20.

Footsteps in white hallway, exaggerated.

Big, ominous door latch.

Cliché door squeak when opening.

Chair across floor when woman stands up, womans footsteps.

Footsteps as they walk.

Dialog needs to be there, even if indistinct.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Overall the sound is poor to fair. It sounds like you are relying heavily on the production sound. Also, the score needs to breathe more, much too wall to wall.



Sound design is all about sonic illusions. Pots and pans, sheet metal, etc. Experiment; think WAY outside the box. When doing sound design many sounds are created with props that have zero connection to what you are seeing.



Yes, real sounds; but you exaggerate them and mix them in a way to emphasize the disconnect from reality. It's reality to him, but it's a distorted reality.


I would ADR or pull cleaner dialog from alternate takes or dialog wilds.

Thanks, awesome. In terms of sheer 'numbers' of sounds, it is heavily foley-oriented. The knight scene is virtually all foley with a couple of exceptions in the forest where he cannot see the horse. All the horse sounds, forest ambience are foley without exception (the snorting, whinnying, galloping, birds twittering, rain noises etc...) Tried to keep it really subtle and now need to pan. Will probably push the heartbeat up and turn it into the horses hooves using the rythm turning the bike into the horse.

Just to keep you aware, there is creative choice in quite a few of these elements (e.g. no footsteps when she walks across the bridge) as we want her to be silent. She is a ghost from the past so has no footsteps. Similarly, there are other 'silent' points where we chose this. For example, the traffic cutting off abruptly at the bridge is deliberate as the cars disappear and the hallucination starts.

The absence of noise signals the start of the hallucination and also the end of the hallucination.

The foley has been professionally recorded in a soundproof studio by a couple of sound engineers. These guys have had their work on all kinds of low budget movies and I am surprised it sounds like the production sound. There may be more layers than you expect because we did take some of the production sound and layer it over the foley in a couple of places to blend it a little but tried to keep the volume down. I suspect when we listen to it through several different speakers, we will want to play with it.

Motorcycle needs to be junked and started again. It is terrible, terrible, terrible.

Also, I have some personal preferences - just from my boxing days, I hate big exagerrated punching noises. Drives me nuts.

The lack of sound, St Pauls in the background, the ethereal white walls are together heaven. Do angels need to talk? Danger and noise become peace and heaven. Finding Angels.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

So I fundamentally disagree with your assessment. We are going down a specific route with precise creative goals. If you believe this creative direction to be nonsense, by all means let me know, but unreal visuals equal unreal sound. Real visuals equal real sound (e.g. yellow) or silent (the ending) - unless we want to hold tension through ambiguity. Lack of reality equals noise whereas reality equals quiet or silence. Peace vs noise, reality vs non-reality, danger vs safety all communicated through sound and visuals.

Why should the visuals be unreal and the sound be real? No. In my opinion, they need to be joined at the hip.

This raises several points:

1. Your stated contrast between real and unreal does not work, there is no contrast, it ALL sounds unreal! The very fact that I thought you were attempting to create a realistic sound throughout and had no idea you were attempting to create contrast with a surreal feel at times, let alone believe in or identify with the surreal feel, is evidence that your execution has failed catastrophically!

2. Unreal is not a creative goal, it is simply a film making error! With extremely rare exceptions, everything in film has to sound "real" (or to avoid terminology confusion, "believable"). Maybe it's believable reality, maybe it's believable surreality, say a believable hearing perception of one of our characters, a perception coloured by our character's state of mind, maybe even an understandable and believable aural symbolism but whatever else it is supposed to be, it HAS to be believable!

3. In real life, human beings NEVER experience silence, so there is no way that silence can equate to reality. Additionally, silence is virtually never used in film because it can't be achieved and doesn't work! Silence (no sound) in film just results in the audience becoming more aware of the ambient sounds outside of the film, say the audience sounds in a cinema, the washing machine in the kitchen or the kids playing upstairs if watching on a computer or TV. Silence therefore always takes the audience out of the film rather than involving them! In practice, silence in films has to be faked with sound! In other words, you've got your creative goals backwards and you need to come up with some other plan/ploy rather than no sound, if you want your film to stand any chance of working as you intend.

4. contrary to your last question, it's exceedingly common for a film to have unreal visuals but real sound. There are countless examples of this; A Star Wars light sabre does not exist and is not real but it sounds utterly real, exactly how you would expect a light sabre to sound and is therefore a great example of sound effects design. Same is true of the tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park and you can't get more unreal than Shrek, yet audiences identified with the character because he sounded real. In fact, it's usually the case that the more unreal something is visually the more real it has to be sonically, in order for the audience to believe and identify with it. Occasionally it's done the other way around, the visuals are real but the sound is not, say in the Omaha Beach scene of Saving Private Ryan for example, when the sound completely changes from reality to symbolise that we are now hearing through the perception of the Tom Hanks character but even then, the sound design is done in such a way as to make it understandable that what we are hearing is a believable reality of what the Tom Hanks character is hearing/experiencing due to shell shock.

It wasn't until this last post of yours that I had any idea of what your sound design goals were, or even that you had any design goals beyond using sound in some scenes and no sound in others, apparently randomly and for no logical reason. So at least you have answered one of my questions and I now understand that you are in fact trying to drive the short with sound design, even though the execution was so poor that I wasn't able to see it. BTW, are you saying that the only scenes/sequences which are supposed to be real (rather than just inside the main character's head) are the ones with no sound? If this is the case, then virtually everything which happens in the film is not supposed to be real, with the exception of: A second or two in his sitting room during the opening scene, the first second or two of him kneeling/cowering on the pavement after the knight scene, another few seconds here and there of the bridge over the motorway scene and all of the final scene?

If I've understood your artistic sound design aims correctly, you are trying something really quite sophisticated and ambitious and to be honest, you're not ready for it yet. Surreal is difficult to pull off convincingly and virtually always needs to be counterpointed with an entirely believable realism. In fact, believable reality is the benchmark and/or starting point of pretty much all the more esoteric sound design aims. Your problem is that you are not yet capable of creating a believable reality and in effect you are trying to run before you can walk. All I can see is you falling down and had no idea whether you were trying to run or walk.

I'm not going to try and list all the individual faults, it would take pages and pages as almost every sound you have used is flawed in some way; it's balance, it's sync, it's perspective, it's editing, etc., and there is a considerable number of sounds missing for those sequences which are supposed to be believably realistic. This last point is covered to an extent in the #9 post I linked to in my previous post, as well as in the principles of sound design thread.

If, as you state, this short is supposed to be an exercise in sound design, then you will take my advice and redo your short (with sound only and no music), just for the learning experience. I hope/believe this exercise will cause you to identify and solve many of the current faults yourself and what remains will be a much more manageable number of faults which we can deal with individually. Of course, it's up to you whether you choose to believe me when I tell you your sound design is currently poor, whether you believe you have anything to learn in the field of sound design and whether you take my advice and try the exercise I've suggested.

G

 

[Alcove Audio]

She is a ghost from the past so has no footsteps. Similarly, there are other 'silent' points where we chose this. For example, the traffic cutting off abruptly at the bridge is deliberate as the cars disappear and the hallucination starts.

Sorry, but that just doesn't work for me. It seems like you are attempting to use sound to turn her into a ghost; there are no visual cues to support this. I can only go by the visual cues, and she's just some girl with a mask over her face; there is nothing that makes her a ghost.

Silence can be effective, but in films it is mostly interpreted as lack of sound, therefor a technical problem/defect. Instead of silence you need to think in terms of contrasts.

The absence of noise signals the start of the hallucination and also the end of the hallucination.

Again, this does not work for me; it just sounds like bad editing. Perhaps you need a transitional sound effect of some sort, ot really work on the idea of sonic contrasts.

The foley has been professionally recorded in a soundproof studio by a couple of sound engineers. These guys have had their work on all kinds of low budget movies and I am surprised it sounds like the production sound. There may be more layers than you expect because we did take some of the production sound and layer it over the foley in a couple of places to blend it a little but tried to keep the volume down. I suspect when we listen to it through several different speakers, we will want to play with it.

Once again, it Foley with a capital "F".

Okay, maybe they were sound engineers and have even done a few low/no budget films; were they experienced Foley walkers or Foley mixers? It sure as hell doesn't sound like it. I've been doing audio post for a dozen years now, doing my own Foley on many projects, and consider myself only fair to good when it comes to Foley. Foley is a tough gig. Perhaps it was mixed poorly (did you do the mix?).

Also, I have some personal preferences - just from my boxing days, I hate big exagerrated punching noises. Drives me nuts.

Get over it; this is filmmaking and you have to play to your audiences expectations, even if it is ridiculously cliché or goes against your personal grain.

Always keep in mind that this is filmmaking, not reality.

The lack of sound, St Pauls in the background, the ethereal white walls are together heaven. Do angels need to talk? Danger and noise become peace and heaven. Finding Angels.

Again, it doesn't come across that way. I didn't hear St. Pauls. The white walls are threatening (to me) and I don't see anything even resembling peace in his actions. I don't see any peace at all after he enters the room, I see more struggles. Peace might begin when the other group member touches his shoulder, but not before.


Th big issue is, from my POV is that although you may know what is going on, your audience does not. You did not visually explain in the film the things that you just explained in your post, and, although sound will help a great deal, it cannot rescue things.

As I mentioned, the score was much too wall to wall, and needs to show a lot more contrast

 

[gorillaonabike]

Sorry, but that just doesn't work for me. It seems like you are attempting to use sound to turn her into a ghost; there are no visual cues to support this. I can only go by the visual cues, and she's just some girl with a mask over her face; there is nothing that makes her a ghost.

Silence can be effective, but in films it is mostly interpreted as lack of sound, therefor a technical problem/defect. Instead of silence you need to think in terms of contrasts.



Again, this does not work for me; it just sounds like bad editing. Perhaps you need a transitional sound effect of some sort, ot really work on the idea of sonic contrasts.



Once again, it Foley with a capital "F".

Okay, maybe they were sound engineers and have even done a few low/no budget films; were they experienced Foley walkers or Foley mixers? It sure as hell doesn't sound like it. I've been doing audio post for a dozen years now, doing my own Foley on many projects, and consider myself only fair to good when it comes to Foley. Foley is a tough gig. Perhaps it was mixed poorly (did you do the mix?).



Get over it; this is filmmaking and you have to play to your audiences expectations, even if it is ridiculously cliché or goes against your personal grain.

Always keep in mind that this is filmmaking, not reality.



Again, it doesn't come across that way. I didn't hear St. Pauls. The white walls are threatening (to me) and I don't see anything even resembling peace in his actions. I don't see any peace at all after he enters the room, I see more struggles. Peace might begin when the other group member touches his shoulder, but not before.


Th big issue is, from my POV is that although you may know what is going on, your audience does not. You did not visually explain in the film the things that you just explained in your post, and, although sound will help a great deal, it cannot rescue things.

As I mentioned, the score was much too wall to wall, and needs to show a lot more contrast

Fantastic, thanks very much for this.

However, you are wrong about the audience as the Euro audience we test screened this to 'got it' first time around and if anything, we wanted to leave a ton of nuances in there. On the test screening, 9 of the 10 individuals who had not seen the short, were a mixture of film types / non film types understood what was going on. 9 out of 10 marked it as 'very good' (not earth shattering or good etc..., they used the words 'very good.') The tenth was Russian where English was her third language and there was a translation issue. One of the comments (which came from an indie movie director whose last budget movie was around $3m USD), was that we should use a little more silence! The caveat is I will have to check this out with some Americans to check if they understand as there may be cross-cultural miscommunication.

Thanks for the audio cue which is an excellent idea. Thinking about a couple of subsonics as well. Trying to work this one out.

In terms of 'rescuing,' it therefore needs no rescuing. The story comes from a real story. The man (a real person) was mentally ill and when he was asked 'what was the hardest thing you ever did?' he replied 'going to my therapy group every day' (because he would suffer visual and auditory hallucinations on the way). Arriving at the group there was a degree of safety and peace but not completely because he was still mentally ill and ironically this feeling is what you appear to have communicated to me. This is peace but not real peace. Safety but not real safety. Angels but not real angels. St Pauls is in the background - but it is indistinct, almost invisible.

When we checked with the mental health specialist, we ensured the feelings and context were accurately portrayed and there are lots of elements around this.

As a note, the man would suffer auditory and visual hallucinations and one of them was a knight on a motorcycle which is why this has been chosen. Need to sort out that motorbike - this is terrible.

Sure, I take the point that there is a lot more to do in terms of sound but there are creative aspects within this that we will be keeping. In particular, although your comments on silence are extremely useful and we may well go with them, the issue is both Pete and I (Pete being the other co-director) have experienced moments of total, absolute silence.

For example, during my rugby days, the best ever feeling was the 'hit.' During the massive collision, I was unable to hear - or rather when I dished out the pain, for that split second and even a few seconds afterwards, my ability to process sound was nonexistent and I was left with purely the 'feeling' of the hit. No sound, just feeling. It is a beautiful sensation - a beautiful feeling without any sound or vision - unreplicable in normal life.

Pete had similar experiences when he was in special forces and in the heat of the moment there were seconds when he was unable to process sound and these moments were beautiful. Both of us therefore agree on an absence of sound.

However, I take your point about contrasts and it is a good one. Something for us to think about and maybe we will incorporate this.

As for the foley, although created and mixed by pros (one of whom you would likely know but the fact he is uncredited), it is quick and dirty admittedly and now we need to play with it a little. However, as a note, some of what the earlier individuals mentioned was production sound is foley (although you have not made this error).

It clearly needs work but I don't want 'clean' sound in the yellow element (for example) as the visuals are rough, wobbly etc... Sure, it needs to be atmospheric but I want it a little dirty.

The knight - sure, need deeper sounds around the hooves and that's a great idea. But having a different sounding clock is not what we want (once the pan has been complete). This is a creative decision. If you notice the visuals, nothing is lingered on, nothing is touched in depth in terms of the shots and this is how we want the sound. It is all about moving quickly through the short and this is a stylistic and creative decision (sure, need to clean it up, work it etc...) but this is how we want the soundscape. Nothing accentuated, lingered upon, nothing too pronounced.

So this is why I fundamentally disagree with some of the comments on purely a creative level and one or two comments which are simply wrong (e.g. the audience does not understand...!!!!!). No, we test screened this and yes, there is still a load of sound to play around with but we want a certain direction.

Although we definitely take on board a lot of the comments about levels, how the sound could work etc...

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Pete had similar experiences when he was in special forces and in the heat of the moment there were seconds when he was unable to process sound and these moments were beautiful. Both of us therefore agree on an absence of sound.

OK, so you and your producer believe you have experienced an absence of sound, whether this is true or not is irrelevant, have all of your audience? If you believe the answer to this is "yes" and if you further believe an audience will understand this lack of sound then how are you going to create an absence of sound, you going to put each member of the audience in a sound-proof box?

I'm not sure why you posted on this thread asking what others would do with the sound when in fact you don't want any advice. Maybe it was just to bask in the glory of all the sound design praise you expected? You have somehow managed to convince and delight yourself that you've created some great sound design even though you are trying to use ideas which patently cannot work but hey, maybe I don't know anything about sound design and maybe you do know more than all the great film makers!

I said that your most serious problem is that you appear incapable of telling the difference between good and bad sound design but actually there is an even more serious problem; which is you refuse to believe that you can't tell the difference and you seem willing to say anything to support this belief rather than actually do something to address the issue.

Any further info or advice from me about this short seems pointless at this stage, I think the only way you are going to learn is the hard way. Good luck!

G

 

[gorillaonabike]

OK, so you and your producer believe you have experienced an absence of sound, whether this is true or not is irrelevant, have all of your audience? If you believe the answer to this is "yes" and if you further believe an audience will understand this lack of sound then how are you going to create an absence of sound, you going to put each member of the audience in a sound-proof box?

I'm not sure why you posted on this thread asking what others would do with the sound when in fact you don't want any advice. Maybe it was just to bask in the glory of all the sound design praise you expected? You have somehow managed to convince and delight yourself that you've created some great sound design even though you are trying to use ideas which patently cannot work but hey, maybe I don't know anything about sound design and maybe you do know more than all the great film makers!

I said that your most serious problem is that you appear incapable of telling the difference between good and bad sound design but actually there is an even more serious problem; which is you refuse to believe that you can't tell the difference and you seem willing to say anything to support this belief rather than actually do something to address the issue.

Any further info or advice from me about this short seems pointless at this stage, I think the only way you are going to learn is the hard way. Good luck!

G

Actually, no... You're completely wrong... again. I specifically wrote:

"Although we definitely take on board a lot of the comments about levels, how the sound could work etc... "

What I would dismiss are suggestions which do not align with the creative direction and definitely not with my real world experience (e.g. silence). I will happily take on board a whole host of ideas e.g. audio cues are a great idea, levels are all over the place, explore contrast rather than silence, balance being out, dialogue needing work, pans not in place (yet), all the hierachy issues, contrast vs silence and it's crude etc... Sure I get it - I have a list and now I will work on it.

And sure, I get it - Ben Burtt, Tarkovsky etc... would entirely disagree but hold on a second... this isn't Star Wars or a Tarkovsky experimental movie. This has specific, creative elements which need to be addressed by sound which in turn should be in the style of the piece.

 

[CraigL]

This has specific, creative elements which need to be addressed by sound which in turn should be in the style of the piece.

OK, well I guess my point is then, it didn't work at all for me. The distinct lack of sound in places, given that it could be heard, albeit quietly but quite realistically, meant that to me it just sounded like it was missing. I "got" that it was in his head, but I didn't get at all that the sound was missing on purpose. This might be the fact that the music was still bip-bopping away in the background, I'm not sure. But with no visual or audio cues that those parts were intentionally different, it just seemed like an oversight.

Overall, I thought the short looked great and had some really good production value. I watch it on IT and I think about what I perceived as the technical deficiencies. But if I were to watch it elsewhere, I'd just think "meh, I didn't get it".

CraigL

 

[Sweetie]

Hi Gorilla,

Going to chime in for a sec. While APE often come across a little grumpy, and while I don't claim understand everything that he said, when I watched it I couldn't sit through the entire video. I remember that there were elements that disturbed me (not your story, though it could also do with some work, but that's another topic, I took this as an experimental style), which removed me from the suspension of disbelief. Some of it was shooting/editing choices, but the majority of it was sound issues. For instance, the boxing hits sounded weak compared to what I was used to hearing. There were sound effects used in some places and not in other places where it also fit. I'd suspect that at least some of what APE said will be correct.

I'd suggest putting the project down for a little while, coming back to it with fresh eyes in a little while and still see if you have the same perspective.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I specifically wrote: "Although we definitely take on board a lot of the comments about levels, how the sound could work etc... "

Yes you did write that, so I'll try again, even though you frequently contradict this statement in the name of creative direction/artistic intention. The thing about being creative in film is that your audience have to realise you are trying to be creative, rather than interpreting your creativity as mistakes, and have at least some inkling of what it is you are trying to create!

What I would dismiss are suggestions which do not align with the creative direction and definitely not with my real world experience (e.g. silence).

I very much doubt that you have ever experienced a true lack of sound, few have. Almost certainly what you experienced was NOT a lack of sound but a lack of being consciously aware of sound. This may seem like a fairly semantic difference to most people but not for a filmmaker and certainly not for a filmmaker basing artistic decisions on it! I have experienced real silence (a complete absence of sound) because I've been in an incredibly expensive and difficult to construct environment designed for this purpose, an anechoic chamber. It's a really very surprising experience; the human brain, never having experienced silence from the moment it first developed the capability to process audio signals as a fetus, simply cannot accept the existence of absolute silence and starts doing some very weird things to compensate. One of which is to completely ignore the information coming from the ear, which unfortunately also includes balance information from the inner ear. Most people, on their first visit to a real anechoic chamber experience audio hallucinations and/or a removal of the usual aural masking mechanisms but usually have to leave after a minute or two because they become disorientated and nauseous. On my first visit I noticed a bucket strategically placed just outside the door! Is this really the effect you are after or do you think it more likely that you do not understand the true nature of absolute silence and are basing your creative decision on a fallacy which cannot work? The vast majority of the time, when people use the word "silence" they do not really mean a complete absence of sound because they don't know what "no sound" actually sounds like (it's quite loud by the way!), instead what they really mean is relatively quiet, indecipherable sound. As a filmmaker who has to deal with these matters and create aural perceptions, you need to have a better understanding of silence than an average member of the public. In practice, this is all academic because unless you are going to screen your film in an anechoic chamber to one audience member at a time, you cannot achieve an absence of sound! As Alcove pointed out, just putting no sound in parts of your film is most likely to be interpreted as a technical fault/film making error and even if it isn't interpreted as a fault/error it still will not accomplish your creative intentions because as I said, instead of silence, the audience will just become more aware of the ambient sounds of the environment in which they are watching the film, say the cinema or their home and/or be taken out of your film. I don't believe that any of the potential outcomes (actually experiencing true silence, thinking it's a fault and/or being taken out of your film) is what your "creative decisions" were designed to achieve, in which case, the ONLY solution is to change your "creative decisions".

And sure, I get it - Ben Burtt, Tarkovsky etc... would entirely disagree but hold on a second... this isn't Star Wars or a Tarkovsky experimental movie. This has specific, creative elements which need to be addressed by sound which in turn should be in the style of the piece.

And Randy Thom, Gary Rydstrom and indeed every experienced professional sound designer on the planet, as well as pretty much every commercial film director, regardless of the genre or style of the movie they are making!

As I said, this silence issue is just one example of a number sound design issues in your short, caused by you not understanding (or mis-understanding) principles of sound design and therefore applying sound design inappropriately. As with all film making crafts there are principles/rules to sound design which it is sometimes OK to break but you'd better know what those rules are and when and how it's OK to break them, if you don't, you just end up with a mess which only the filmmaker can appreciate. I'm sure you've seen this exact same thing many times here on IT with different film making crafts, such as cinematography and picture editing?

To compound the problem you are apparently trying to achieve something with sound design which is quite sophisticated and would be difficult for even an experienced professional sound designer because your visual images frequently do not support very well what you are trying to achieve with the sound design (a point I specifically raised more than once in the principles of sound design thread).

G

 

[Alcove Audio]

Part of the problem is that there is a sound design "language" of "clichés" that an audience expects.

For example, during my rugby days, the best ever feeling was the 'hit.' During the massive collision, I was unable to hear - or rather when I dished out the pain, for that split second and even a few seconds afterwards, my ability to process sound was nonexistent and I was left with purely the 'feeling' of the hit. No sound, just feeling.

It is unreplicable in normal life.

Precisely. I would bet that 99% of your audience doesn't play rugby or other violent sports, or have been in the Special Forces, so has never experienced this affect. The big, meaty, beefy hit is a part of the sound design language; it's expected by the audience and puts across the violence.

... both Pete and I (Pete being the other co-director) have experienced moments of total, absolute silence.

Actually, you have not; your senses were focused in other directions, most probably the sense of feel/touch. You only have two senses to play with when doing a film - sight and sound. During the D-Day scene in "Saving Private Ryan" Capt. Miller experiences the shock of a very close explosion, and we experience the disorientation and aural disconnect with him; sound becomes very quiet and muted, but does not disappear completely. This may not be reality, but is required by the demands of the audience that there be no total absence of sound, which is interpreted as technical problem, not an artistic choice.


Both Greg (APE) and I have given our opinions on how we, as working audio post professionals, would approach your project, but you have obviously already made your decisions, so further discussion is obviously fruitless.


Good Luck!!!!!!

 

[gorillaonabike]

Hi Gorilla,

Going to chime in for a sec. While APE often come across a little grumpy, and while I don't claim understand everything that he said, when I watched it I couldn't sit through the entire video. I remember that there were elements that disturbed me (not your story, though it could also do with some work, but that's another topic, I took this as an experimental style), which removed me from the suspension of disbelief. Some of it was shooting/editing choices, but the majority of it was sound issues. For instance, the boxing hits sounded weak compared to what I was used to hearing. There were sound effects used in some places and not in other places where it also fit. I'd suspect that at least some of what APE said will be correct.

I'd suggest putting the project down for a little while, coming back to it with fresh eyes in a little while and still see if you have the same perspective.

Will happily take on board a whole host of audio ideas e.g. audio cues are a great idea (really like that), levels are all over the place, explore contrast rather than silence, balance being out, dialogue needing work (all the way through), pans not in place (yet), all the hierachy issues, contrast vs silence, need to go hyper real in a few places and it's crude etc... Sure I get it - I have a list and now I will work on it.

I will also have to 'get over' the idea that my experience of boxing etc... means that hyper real within the boxing element sounds like utter nonsense to me but hey, that's fine.

As a note, just stick in some criticisms while you're at it. Happy to have a look but this is pretty much the way we want it to look with the available footage aside from 5 - 6 additional visual edits and rotoey elements we are going with plus need to think about a couple of flash frames etc...

For the classical musicians in here, it was written in Rondo form with the opening credits / sequence tacked on as an afterthought.

 

[gorillaonabike]

Part of the problem is that there is a sound design "language" of "clichés" that an audience expects.





Precisely. I would bet that 99% of your audience doesn't play rugby or other violent sports, or have been in the Special Forces, so has never experienced this affect. The big, meaty, beefy hit is a part of the sound design language; it's expected by the audience and puts across the violence.



Actually, you have not; your senses were focused in other directions, most probably the sense of feel/touch. You only have two senses to play with when doing a film - sight and sound. During the D-Day scene in "Saving Private Ryan" Capt. Miller experiences the shock of a very close explosion, and we experience the disorientation and aural disconnect with him; sound becomes very quiet and muted, but does not disappear completely. This may not be reality, but is required by the demands of the audience that there be no total absence of sound, which is interpreted as technical problem, not an artistic choice.


Both Greg (APE) and I have given our opinions on how we, as working audio post professionals, would approach your project, but you have obviously already made your decisions, so further discussion is obviously fruitless.


Good Luck!!!!!!

Have happily taken on board a whole host of audio ideas e.g. audio cues are a great idea (really like that), levels are all over the place, explore contrast rather than silence, balance being out, dialogue needing work (all the way through), pans not in place (yet), all the hierachy issues, contrast vs silence, need to go hyper real in a few places and it's crude etc... Sure I get it - I have a list and now I will work on it plus a little bit of psycoacoustics to add.

And silence may not work (sure, need to think about silence vs contrast), but hell - I'm happy to take certain risks, break rules and be as stubborn as a gorilla. Frankly, the short would never have been shot without these characteristics.

My thoughts are maybe to add a tiny bit of sound (squeaky chair, group leader saying 'hi John, are you OK?'). Maybe have him respond by saying - 'it's been terrible' almost inaudibly and then to silence out room tone etc... after that. To end with silence and a touch of music just feels right. With the pullaway shot, that should be silent with music.

Need to take my time over this.

 

[gorillaonabike]

Yes you did write that, so I'll try again, even though you frequently contradict this statement in the name of creative direction/artistic intention. The thing about being creative in film is that your audience have to realise you are trying to be creative, rather than interpreting your creativity as mistakes, and have at least some inkling of what it is you are trying to create!



I very much doubt that you have ever experienced a true lack of sound, few have. Almost certainly what you experienced was NOT a lack of sound but a lack of being consciously aware of sound. This may seem like a fairly semantic difference to most people but not for a filmmaker and certainly not for a filmmaker basing artistic decisions on it! I have experienced real silence (a complete absence of sound) because I've been in an incredibly expensive and difficult to construct environment designed for this purpose, an anechoic chamber. It's a really very surprising experience; the human brain, never having experienced silence from the moment it first developed the capability to process audio signals as a fetus, simply cannot accept the existence of absolute silence and starts doing some very weird things to compensate. One of which is to completely ignore the information coming from the ear, which unfortunately also includes balance information from the inner ear. Most people, on their first visit to a real anechoic chamber experience audio hallucinations and/or a removal of the usual aural masking mechanisms but usually have to leave after a minute or two because they become disorientated and nauseous. On my first visit I noticed a bucket strategically placed just outside the door! Is this really the effect you are after or do you think it more likely that you do not understand the true nature of absolute silence and are basing your creative decision on a fallacy which cannot work? The vast majority of the time, when people use the word "silence" they do not really mean a complete absence of sound because they don't know what "no sound" actually sounds like (it's quite loud by the way!), instead what they really mean is relatively quiet, indecipherable sound. As a filmmaker who has to deal with these matters and create aural perceptions, you need to have a better understanding of silence than an average member of the public. In practice, this is all academic because unless you are going to screen your film in an anechoic chamber to one audience member at a time, you cannot achieve an absence of sound! As Alcove pointed out, just putting no sound in parts of your film is most likely to be interpreted as a technical fault/film making error and even if it isn't interpreted as a fault/error it still will not accomplish your creative intentions because as I said, instead of silence, the audience will just become more aware of the ambient sounds of the environment in which they are watching the film, say the cinema or their home and/or be taken out of your film. I don't believe that any of the potential outcomes (actually experiencing true silence, thinking it's a fault and/or being taken out of your film) is what your "creative decisions" were designed to achieve, in which case, the ONLY solution is to change your "creative decisions".



And Randy Thom, Gary Rydstrom and indeed every experienced professional sound designer on the planet, as well as pretty much every commercial film director, regardless of the genre or style of the movie they are making!

As I said, this silence issue is just one example of a number sound design issues in your short, caused by you not understanding (or mis-understanding) principles of sound design and therefore applying sound design inappropriately. As with all film making crafts there are principles/rules to sound design which it is sometimes OK to break but you'd better know what those rules are and when and how it's OK to break them, if you don't, you just end up with a mess which only the filmmaker can appreciate. I'm sure you've seen this exact same thing many times here on IT with different film making crafts, such as cinematography and picture editing?

To compound the problem you are apparently trying to achieve something with sound design which is quite sophisticated and would be difficult for even an experienced professional sound designer because your visual images frequently do not support very well what you are trying to achieve with the sound design (a point I specifically raised more than once in the principles of sound design thread).

G

Yes, I agree on the semantics and my choice words was careful. I have experienced a total inability to process sound, sight (presumably smell but this didn't really register) at the moment of impact. It is just 'feel' and an incredible sensation with nothing to compare it to.

I think a compromise on the silence at the end. I can 'feel' the silence with a little music but maybe a little sound when he comes in - the squeak of a chair, a couple of words from the group leader when she meets with him and then an audio fade of room tone to silence as the camera pulls back with music.

If the rest of the audio gets into a good place (no guarantee) then I can 'feel' that would work.

As a note about the structure... it is supposed to be:

- Intro credits:
- Mainly production sound: quiet (House)
- Mainly foley: noisy (gym)
- Mainly production sound: quiet (yellow)
- Mainly foley: noisy motorbike & horse
- Mainly production sound: quiet: walking to bridge (threw a train in there and some background foley)
- Mainly foley: noisy: Bridge / mother / final corridor
- Mainly Production sound (fade to silence): Final room.

Quiet - noisy - quiet - noisy etc...
No action - animated - no action - animated etc...

For the musicians out there, it is a rondo.