Audio

Hey Cambridge!! In today's blog we will be tracing back to week 4 and focus with deeper meaning on audio we are planning to use as well as foley sounds. In a film audio everything from what you hear from talking to background music and diegetic sounds. It makes films feel more realistic and tend to add emotion to films. Today I will be applying audio to my film opening and will develop my foley sounds.

Background Music

 Background music can be a very important aspect when setting tone. It can create emotion such as make a scene feel tense or even more down and dark. Using the right music can tell a story and make it feel more powerful. We started by researching different types of music to reach the tone we would like to set which we narrowed it down to a more bumping beat rather than slow and mellow. We knew we had set with sticking to copyright free music since it can still reach that tone we are wanting to reach. We originally had our minds set on Elephant by Tame Impala though then our idea was quickly shut down once we realized it would be copyrighted. However, this did help us narrow down our options and know what we were searching for. We were constantly searching up "pumping beat copyright free music" but nothing convinced us. That was until we found Background Music. We felt as if the song reaches that powerful tone we are looking for since it will be used for her training which is where she is concentrated and putting lots of strength to what she is doing due to the pain in her knee. Though for the rest of the film opening we feel as if it would be inappropriate to keep such a hyper song for the later peaceful setting of her room. Now it came down to researching the opposite, "soft mellow copyright free music". We were pleasantly surprised with the speed we found the soft chill song since the first background music did take us a few days to finalize our choice. We broke down our choices and ended up picking Background Music #2. This will be able to play in the background without taking away from the setting and what the character is doing.

Foley

Foley sounds are sounds added to a film to make scenes feel more realistic. These sounds are usually done for specific little details such as bed creaking, door opening, bed sheets moving etc. Even though during movies foley sounds aren't stood out and you aren't able to distinguish them, they make actions feel more believable and are necessary to create a good film. In our film we have decided to do 7 different sounds that tend to be more specific. We chose knocking on door, grips moving, bag being dropped, feet landing on gymnastics floor, squeaking of shoes, footsteps, and scrolling through TikTok. These sounds are necessary to keep the film feeling realistic however struggle on finding ones that fit how we want them to sound. For this reason, we've recreated this sounds by, hitting an iPad against its box, moving around a few rings, slamming an iPad against bed sheets, dropping a pillow on bed, walking around in circles with really noisy shoes and just keep smashing the tip of the shoe to the floor, and lastly search up gymnastics TikTok's, use the ones without copyright music, and start scrolling. We have now filmed the foley sounds and they will then later be added when editing. Some sounds did come out louder then wanted but it's nothing some editing and volume changes can't fix. We also tested out many different ways to recreate these sounds such as using water filled bags and bracelets but weren't satisfied with the results, we had received. 

Diegetic

Diegetic sounds are sounds that are in the film's world. This means that not only can the audience hear them but so can the character. Unlike a background song which isn't actually playing in the characters world. Many times, diegetic sounds tend to be things like footsteps or the sound of a car. This can make movies feel more connected to the character and their actions. They are key to making a film since they help the audience understand the story's world and what they are experiencing. Diegetic sounds can also add to setting a mood of a scene. For example, the sound of rain tapping on a window gives a films more sad, gloomy mood rather than the sound of celebrating that sets an exciting, happy mood. We have created a list of the diegetic sounds we needed to research and find: heavy breathing, small gasps, chatter, ac ventilation, zipping, Velcro, writing on paper, paper scrambling, notification, car sound, car door closing, car door being locked, car door opening, locker opening and closing, marker writing, walking upstairs, opening front door, sitting down on bed, pulling out chair, sigh, sitting on chair, clicking of pen, gasp, and footsteps on gymnastics mat. We split up the work and have found all the diegetic sounds we need.