Today, we learnt about the basics of sound design. It was quite interesting. Broadly speaking, we learnt about the 2 categories of sound design: diagetic and non-diagetic sound, and about the three types of sound in film: dialoge, sound effects and music. I guess that sound design only became a serious art in film until after the silent era, but that wasn't discussed in class, so I don't really know.
We also learnt about how music was chosen to highlight important moments in the film, and to enhance mood. Most improtantly, we learnt how to create sound effects, including how to use foley. One can either record sounds (Car tyres as car tyres, etc.), or, if the sound doesn't exist or is hard to record, such as a building on fire - nobody would light a building on fire, then record the sound - one can use foley. Foley is where one records one sound that sounds like another. Such as hands making mushy sounds in mud may sound like mudddy footsteps.
We had a shot at recording sounds, such as water, joy, time, etc. For some sounds, we tried to create the actual sounds. For others, especially for the more abstract concepts, we tried to record what we remember as the 'common film interpretation' of that sound. So, for example, with time, we went into a quiet room, and tapped a wooden board at a regular rate or about 1 tap per second, to mimic the sound of a clock.
Some were not so good. 'Joy' was people laughing, but I don't think that worked too well. And we wasted a lot of time trying to record water, because of random fits of laughter that ruined the recordings.
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I'm glad you mentioned the history of sound design -- that is certainly an important point that is not to be missed... Watch out for some film history coming up later on in the semester!
ReplyDeleteI like your reflection on specific recordings that you did, but always remember to give suggestions for how you can improve on things that didn't work out how you planned them.