Sound Design for Low & No Budget Films

Patrick Winters

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317557920
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Media & Performing Arts
• Categoría: Film & Video

Don't let your indie film be sabotaged by bad sound! One of the weakest technical aspects of a low or no budget short or feature film is usually the sound, and in Sound Design for Low and No Budget Films, author Patrick Winters explains what filmmakers need to do to fix that. Learn how to improve the sound quality of your low budget film with specific tools and practices for achieving a better sound track, including detailed, step-by-step explanations of how to edit your production track, create a sound design, record and edit ADR, Foley and sound effects, music, and much more. Focusing on the essential details indie filmmakers need to know, Winters teaches you how to turn a thin and distracting sound track into one that makes your film shine.

This practical guide offers:

• In-depth focus on hands-on, step-by-step instruction for achieving great sound in post-production, including recording and editing sound effects, ADR and Foley—even without expensive equipment and software.

• Techniques specifically designed for low and no budget projects, perfect for both students and aspiring indie filmmakers.

• A simple and direct style that any aspiring filmmaker or student can understand without already knowing the industry jargon.

Chapter 1
Introduction

1. a. Purpose
2. b. Sound Definition
3. c. Sound's Abilities
4. d. Sound Supervisor
5. e. Contracts, Agreements and Licenses

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

George Lucas

Purpose

The idea behind this book is to give low and no budget filmmakers a guide to creating effective sound designs for their films. Sound design includes the dialogue, sound effects and music combined together to create an experience for the audience. Every film is different and has different needs, so although this book can’t possibly address every situation, it does give filmmakers useful information that can be applied to nearly every film.

Many of the concepts and approaches in this book will vary according to the software, facility and the personnel. Sound design and mixing are creative endeavors that utilize technology, so there are many opinions on what is the best way to approach each. This book does not attempt to be comprehensive and cover every approach, but it is intended to act as a guide for you to do your sound design for your film.

The reason a filmmaker needs to concentrate on getting the best sound possible is because it will lift up the production value of your film. There’s nothing that turns off an audience faster than bad sound. An image can be a bit soft in focus or a bit shaky and the audience is accepting, but when the sound is bad, they’re often intolerant. So, in filmmaking, it is said that the eye forgives and the ear does not. This means that even if the image is perfect, if the sound is off just a bit, it will pull your audience out of the story.

Sound design can be done on a personal computer, so long as it has enough power, storage and the proper software. With the right equipment, a no or low budget filmmaker can do much of the work at home without having to pay for a studio.

Throughout the book I refer to DAWs and NLEs. I define a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) as a NLE (Non-Linear Editing) in that you can edit in a non-linear manner. In order to differentiate between a NLE system that is primarily designed for audio and one that is primarily designed for picture, I refer to the audio editor as a DAW and the picture editor as a NLE.

This book is laid out in a way that allows you to work from the first page to the end and you’ll have the consecutive steps for creating your soundtrack. During the course of the book, you’ll be doing spotting, cueing, recording, editing, processing and mixing for some variation of the following steps:

• Dialogue
• ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement)
• Group/Walla
• Special effects
• Backgrounds
• Foley
• Sound design
• Music
• Premix
• Stems
• Master
• M&E (Music and Effects)

The software that I use for the examples in the book is Pro Tools; however, the principles will apply to whatever NLE or DAW you choose to use for your sound design.

As you create your sound design, you’ll use dialogue and possibly narration to provide information; you’ll use sound effects to help make each scene seem real; you’ll use music to emotionally affect the audience; and you’ll mix all of the sounds together to create a stream of continuity that supports the story.

Sound design is more than creating monster sounds or spaceship sounds; it’s about making all of the different aspects of a soundtrack work together to help tell your story. It’s telling your story from the audio perspective.

Sound Definition

There are so many different definitions of the word sound. One common definition states that sound is something that can be heard. That’s pretty straightforward. Another definition says that sound is vibrations that are heard. Both of these definitions bring up the old question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer is that a falling tree sound will exist with or without a listener. The definition that I like the most is: Sound is vibrations that travel thorough a medium such as air or water to a receiver.

There are many laws, rules, theorems, principles and properties of physics and psychoacoustic phenomena that affect the recording, editing and mixing of sounds. Such laws as the Nyquist Sampling Theorem, the 3 to 1 Rule, Proximity Effect, Doppler Effect, Inverse Square Law, Equal Loudness Principle, masking, Haas Effect, harmonics and resonance, to name a few. This book is not about the scientific study of sound, but the creative use of it. However, many of these terms are used within the book and the meanings are included in the glossary.

Sound's Abilities

• Sound in the form of dialogue is great at conveying information and emotions.
• Sound can be used to establish a geographic location.
• Sound is often used to place the story in a historical period.
• Sound, along with picture editing, can be used to set the pace of a story.
• Sound is a great tool to create hyperrealism or simplify realism.
• Sound can be used to draw attention to some detail, person, situation or object.
• Sound is often used to help the audience make connections.
• Sound can be used to emphasize or smooth out a transition.
• Sound can be used to give meaning to the story or to define a character.
• Sound is commonly used to enhance and define a story or plot.

Sound Supervisor

There needs to be one person who is in charge of the soundtrack. They need to know who is doing what and make sure there is little overlap and that all sounds are created, acquired and edited into the tracks. The sound supervisor does this in addition to overseeing the mixing process as well as the budget and schedule. Some supervisors will create designed sound effects too. All of these responsibilities allow them to guide and maintain oversight of the film’s entire sound design.

As a low or no budget filmmaker, you may not have the funds to hire a sound supervisor, but if you can, they’ll help you keep organized while overseeing the process of post-sound production. If you can’t afford a sound supervisor, then be as organized as you can be.

Contracts, Agreements and Licenses

I am not a lawyer, but I’ve had experience with contracts, rights and permissions. Because contracts can be tricky, I suggest that you work with an entertainment lawyer should you have any questions or concerns.

I have discovered over many contracts that if you don’t have it in writing, it’s not valid and you have no recourse.

Some of the types of agreements you might be dealing with are:

• Work for Hire Agreements
• Composer Agreement
• Talent Release
• Deal Memo
• Picture Lock Agreement
• Distribution Agreement
• Deliverables
• Film Synchronization Rights
• Mechanical Rights
• Royalty Free (Full or Limited)
• Music Rights

One of the most common issues I’ve encountered with no and low budget productions, especially student films, is that of not getting all of the rights necessary to legally use an existing song in a film. The bottom line is that if you are having any kind of public screening of your film and you have music in it, you need to attain all of the appropriate rights first.

There’s a lot of music available to filmmakers on CDs and as downloads. The owners of these songs or score cues usually require some form of payment or if offered for free, then acknowledgment in your film credits. Always check out the requirements.

Another common mistake is thinking that a song is in the public domain, but not doing the research to find out if that’s true. Sometimes the sheet music is in the public domain, but not the recording. Just because a song was written before January 1, 1923 doesn’t mean that the recording made after that date is in the public domain. Since 1923 there have been several changes to the copyrights laws and you’ll need to make sure you don’t violate any of them.

Now, get on with creating the best sound design you can for your film.

Chapter 2
Location Sound

How Was That for Sound?

1. a. Common Mistakes
2. b. Single System
3. c. Double System
4. d. Timecode
5. e. Slate
6. f. Smart Slate
7. g. Boom and Lavaliere
8. h. Wired and Wireless
9. i. Wide Shots and Close-Ups
10. j. Two-Plus Camera Set-Up
11. k. Exercise
12. l. Sample Sound Report Form

Common Mistakes

Recording sound without headphones. I always say that you wouldn’t shoot picture without looking through the viewfinder, so why would you record sound without listening through headphones? Headphones not only tell you if you are picking up a good dialogue signal, but they also tell you if there are any sounds in the background that are unwanted.

Positioning the microphone too far away from the speaker or sound source. The farther away from the sound source, the poorer the recording level and the greater the noise floor. The noise floor is the sound you hear in a room or outside on location that is outside of your control. It is the wind or distant traffic, air conditioning or machinery. Ideally, the level of the sound source or voice is at least 16dB above the noise floor. The closer to a 30dB difference the better. That’s not always possible to achieve, but it’s a good goal. If you can achieve at the very least the 16dB difference, then you’ll have an easier time editing your dialogue.

Another issue with improper microphone placement is that of excessive reverberation. It’s better to have to add a bit of reverberation in post-production than to have to do ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) because the dialogue sounds like it’s been recorded in a bathroom.

Not recording any room tone or ambience. This makes it harder for the dialogue editor to smooth out the changes in ambience or room tone between each shot in a scene. It also makes it harder to have a long clean background or room tone to edit under any ADR lines.

Using the wrong microphone for the situation. A hyper-cardioid microphone will usually do a great job of recording dialogue on an exterior location, but if you then use it on an interior, especially in a reverberant room, then it will not be the best choice. You’ll want to use a cardioid on your boom for the interior. The hyper-cardioid will have a difficult time with all of the reverberations.

Mixing all of the microphones onto one track. If all microphones are recorded onto one track it will bring up the level of the noise floor, because the noise floor from all microphones will be added together. It will also make it very difficult to edit the dialogue since you can’t easily separate out what’s been recorded together. It’s best to keep all tr...