Sound Design

Long time no update, I know. December involved a lot of urgent commission work, semi-forced socialising and bloody puppy surveillance, so I haven't been able to get a lot done over the holiday. However, I'm pushing it in this final stretch of a week. Serves me bloody right for being too ambitious and going with 'super awesome student film shiznite' instead of simple TV stings and stuff. Hey, how was I supposed to know we'd be doing two of these specialist study things? >=U

Here's my current progress. That's another 3 and a half scenes to do in under a week. Eep!

Given the time restraints, I'm mostly going with flat shading, except for times where lighting is required, such as in the cinema.

Animation wise, I've gotten in the habit of converting my motion tweens into twos, so that it doesn't clash as much with the frame by frame animation, also done in twos. I do this by setting up the motion tween and applying the desired tween effect. I then highlight all the relevant frames and select 'convert to keyframes', since doing them individually can mess up the easing. Whilst they are still selected, I right click and select 'Remove Tween', removing the motion tween, and then I start removing every second keyframe. Et voila, twos.

One aspect I've been focusing on is the sound, a vital aspect for any silent protagonist film.

As far as setting the ambience goes, I've looked at sites like SoundDogs for relevant files, such as crowds and bus noise. I've also looked at Freeplaymusic.com for some royalty free music tracks to use.

For the background music in particular, to get a good acoustic effect, I edited the music files in a program called Goldwave. By using the Bandpass/Stop tool and selecting the 'Voice Hum and Hiss Filter', it helps give that low quality feel you get from stereo speakers and the like. I also used this for the movie dialogue. Why is Jeff Goldblum there, you ask? Well, why wouldn't there be Jeff Goldblum? There's a giant dooflip destroying the world, of course he'd be there.

My family watches a lot of Independance Day okay?

Of course, when it came to those sound effects I just can't find on the internet, I've had to record those myself using my recently purchased Samson C01U microphone. As a guy restricted to the groove his posterior has made in front of the laptop most of the time, I don't particularly have the luxury of going outside to get relevant things, so I've had to improvise. For example, the popcorn noises came from me scoffing a packet of Skips I had conveniently brought upstairs for my late lunch. I used a lil scrap of paper I had at arm's reach to perform the slight noises you get from the note rustling. When it came to the flowers bit, I was a bit stumped as there were very few things I could use to replicate dropping a bunch of flowers without buying a fresh pair and messing up the floor with them. Conveniently, Mum had this rather twiggy decoration dooflip downstairs that gave a satisfactory rattle, which made do quite well.


I tell you, once this is all done. I'm gonna kick back and settle down with hot british nannies wielding guns on their feet.