Editing, Charting & Synching

Sound Design 2

Developed for RMIT Media Arts

SOUND & IMAGE FUSION

All too often, the soundtrack is perceived as `post-production' - something to be dealt with once the video has been shot. But if video is the fusion of sound and image, you may benefit from considering the possible effects sound has upon the narrative/non-narrative aspects of your project. This can be related to two areas:

1. Technical

• What sounds will you need which should be recorded at the event/situation/location of the shoot?
• What sounds might you find useable or applicable later on, even though they don't appear important during the shoot?
• How will you go about recording these sounds?
• Who will be doing the recording in the various situations?
• Depending on the roles these sounds will play, what medium should they be recorded on?
• In mono or stereo?

2. Conceptual

• Are there areas in the concept of the project which could be better effected by sounds rather than images, spoken/written words, editing, camera movement, etc?
• Have you thought of exactly what effects your idea of the soundtrack will have on the images?
• Should they work with one another, against one another, or vacillate between the two?
• Is there a particular level of the film/video process which you think should take priorityat certain points (eg. the acting, the photography, the montage, etc.)?

Suffice to say if you and/or the director haven't considered the above (i) while formulating the project and (ii) prior to shooting it, you - as a sound designer - are not fully considering or realizing the full potential to be obtained from fusing image with sound.

METHODS

Prior consideration of the soundtrack can work with just about any method of conceptualizing and shooting a project. To give the two extremes of these methods:

1. If the project you will be working on is story-boarded, with fairly precise details as to the visuals (on-screen movement and camera movement), text (be it scripted, improvised or the result of capturing your subject), and editing (blockage, montage and conceptual sequence), then you should also notate in similar form what you would like to happen with the soundtrack (music, speech and SFX).

2. If the project you will be working on is based on what happens as material is collated during the shooting process (with decisions made both as the shoot develops as well as once the editing starts), you could deal with the soundtrack in the same way, ie. record sounds as you go, document the aural/acoustic aspects of whatever the shooting subject is during the shoot, or at least in the same production session.

As these two extremes of working illustrate, considerations for the soundtrack should not really interfere with your production process. All you have to do is allow for it in the scheduling.

EDITING

Most people will find that their video will start to come together and take shape during the editing. Editing, of course, is not something that is purely visual. Whenever one makes a cut, one should be at least vaguely aware of what effect the concurrent soundtrack will have on the cut at that point. Consider:

1. Rhythm - how you construct the visual rhythms (within the frame); the montage rhythms across the shots; the aural rhythms (in the mix).

2. Beat - how all those rhythms interact with each other; cancelling, fusing, harmonising, decaying, overloading, complementing each other.

3. Time - how you space things out (events, actions, gestures, etc); and how you determine their duration (articulating when things commence and when they end); and how you convey the desired effect of temporality (how quick, fast, long, short, isolated or repetitive you want them to appear).

4. Synchronization - how you fuse image with sound in order to construct a particular formation of the temporal/spatial experience of a physical reality. Do you want the soundtrack to be in lip-synch? Do you want it have a disorienting effect of asynchronism? Do you want to have a sound-image relationship that does not depend on synchronism for its comprehension and effect? Do you want it to be a mixture of all these - and if so which way and where?

TECHNICAL PROCESSES

There are many ways in which you can technically start constructing your soundtrack:

1. Totally mix the soundtrack first (like a finished radio play or sound piece) and edit all your images and scenes to the soundtrack. You could then master the finished soundtrack, lay it down in Final Cut Pro or the AVID, the edit the visuals to the sound. Or you could edit the whole project together while playing the mixed soundtrack (to give you its feel) and then play back the sound on CD in a non-synchronous way (such as in a gallery installation). This option would allow you large screen projection of film combined with a full frequency range playback through stereo speakers - however it most suited to a video which has no major on-screen synch events.

2. Extending the above option further, why not record everything onto a portable multi-track recorder, or onto a multi-track audio programme on a laptop or computer, and then play back a live mix of the soundtrack? A suggestion for the more adventurous sound designer.

3. Totally edit the visuals together (on video or in as an animation sequence) and then - either as a whole or in segments - project the video/animation from the control room of the Recording Studio into the studio area, and record dialogue and/or FX in 'Foley' style (ie. post-dubbing). You could work on precise synchronization (realistic) or generalized synchronization (stylized). For either, though, you would need someone operating the video projector, someone mixing the sounds in the control room (presumably a number of microphones would go into a mixer and then onto multi-tracks) and a pile of people to do the dubbing. This approach would capitalize on the 'live performative' aspects of the sounds made by a group of people in real time.

4. Post-produce the soundtrack as per the methods and process covered in the Sound Design 1 lecture.

SOUND DESIGN BREAK-DOWN

When working with a fine-cut to establish conceptually what you want to do with the Sound Design, go through each shot of the video and assign it the following fields:

1. Scene No. – based on what defines a ‘section’ of the video’s action
2. Shot No. – within the overall work
3. Location – give a name to the depicted environment
4. Type – specify whether this environment is interior (INT) or exterior (EXT)
5. Time – specify whether the action takes place at DAY or NIGHT
6. Action – summarize the visible action succinctly

Then start listing all the sounds that you would normally here in each shot, breaking them down into the following categories:

1. Dialogue (if there is any)
2. Atmospheres
3. Sound Effects (SFX)

(See Sound Design 1 notes for detailed discussion on what defines these categories).

CHARTING

There are numerous ways in which you can chart a film - because each film would require a certain emphasis in certain areas of its production. Some films might be totally based on naturalistic improvised performances by the actors, not requiring any post-produced elements of sound. Such a chart would be very minimal. However if your film (a) entails aspects of sound and music which are integral to the focus, tone, style and effect you are intent on conveying, and/or (b) those aspects are best handled in the soundtrack post-production, then a chart becomes very important.

The main reason for having a drafted chart is so that you can work effectively and efficiently in the soundtrack studio, not wasting your time or that of the crew you will assemble for working on the soundtrack. However, a sound chart - like a script and a storyboard - is also handy as a means of making more concrete the ideas, structure and effects you are intending to convey through your film.

Basically, a professional chart would contain the following:

1. A breakdown of tracks (between 16 to 24 depending on which workstation environment you are using)

2. An assignment of key group elements for each track which would consist of any combination of the following:

(a) synch dialogue
(b) post-synced dialogue
(c) voice-over narration
(d) additional off-screen speech/dialogue/text
(e) mono tape sfx
(f) stereo tape sfx
(g) Foley sfx
(h) atmospheres/backgrounds
(i) special sound design elements
(h) music cues

3. A three-column split for each track indicating:

(a) sound element name (or number if you assemble a sound library)
(b) effects processing (for noting in your mixdown)
(c) volume (for noting in your mixdown)

4. If you are drafting this hand-written, make sure that you indicate everything in PENCIL because it will probably change once you get into the studio and start putting the soundtrack together.

5. Of course, you may be able to translate some of the breakdown for your sound chart from your storyboard if you incorporated some sound ideas.

6. Another option is to work with a computer data base to sound chart the film – this can be discussed further in the Sound Design workshop.

TAPE SFX VERSUS FOLEY SFX

It is important to distinguish as early as possible what sounds could be handled as tape sound effects, and what could handled as Foley effects. Things to consider here are:

1. Does the sound need to be perfectly synced as a continuum of sonic events to a series of on-screen actions - eg. footsteps, rustling of clothes, rattling of an object held by an actor (fiddling with car keys in the hand, waving a flag in the air, dropping coins on a table, etc.)? Then these would be FOLEY SFX because something on-screen handles the objects which make the sound. This 'something' is usually a human body, but it also could be wind, some mechanical device, etc.

2. Is breathing and general body movement sounds required to 'naturalize' the presence of a body on-screen? Than the performance of these sounds would be FOLEY SFX. Such details are important particularly if you are post-syncing dialogue, as the mix of body movement (clothes rustling, breathing, chin-scratching, etc.) with the post-synch dialogue will more likely create the feeling that the whole event was recorded when the film was shot.

3. Is the sound a single 'percussive' event where the key on-screen synch-point is either the beginning of the sound or the end of it (ie. a door slamming shut, a bottle smashing, a ball rolling and stopping when it hits a wall, etc.)? Than a TAPE SFX will do the job, as you will only have to synch either the beginning or the end of the sound to an on-screen point.

4. Is the sound a background atmosphere, which contains no visible synchronous points (ie. factory noises, general traffic rumble, people chattering in a restaurant, etc.)? Then this would be a TAPE SFX.