Sound

I knew from the beginning that I wanted only very minimal sound and emphasise the action on screen through that. Because I've made the decision to keep most of the film very dark and flat, the sound should help focus on where the importance lies in each specific scene.
I was playing with the thought of constructing all of the sounds needing using a book and/or a reading light. I wasn't really sure how that would turn out, so nothing else to do but to try it.

I first started by writing down which sounds I would want for each scene, then making a final list from that:

I deliberately wrote down the actions that cause the sound rather than the sound itself, so that I would know what relation I will be using the sound in. Some of the sounds, like 'lamp moving' would not necessarily make a sound in reality, but it's one of those sounds I wanted to incorporate to solidify the reading light's presence even when not on screen.

So from my list I then went on to compiling a matching list of ways I could produce the sound needed:

• Atmosphere   ->  empty room
• Lamp moving  ->   moving of a mechanical ball joint of my own reading lamp (loud enough to record?)
• Lamp turning on/off (NOT the click)  ->  skipping through a book (only a couple pages)
• turning head on the floor -> dragging book over carpet
• lamp nudging boy -> pages rustling slowly (does it really need a sound?)
• book slamming  -> book slamming shut
• book flying  ->  flapping of a paperback
• book landing  ->  dropping book (low height)
• foot steps  -> tapping book on the floor
• hand moving along the wall  ->  dragging book along the wall
• kneeling down  ->  softly tapping a big book on the floor
• closing book  -> closing a book
• brushing book  ->  brushing a book
• click of the lamp  ->  actual switch on the reading lamp
• lamp being (un)fastened  ->  lightly bending paperback book cover from one way to the other
• sit down  ->  softly tapping a big book on the floor
• setting book down  ->  setting a book down
• setting plastic piece down  ->  setting a small, thing book down
• rustling  ->  moving a book over another book, maybe pages on pages too (does it really need sound?)

After compiling this list, before I even started recording, I questioned myself whether I even wanted some of those sounds. The list is already quite small and won't give much in terms of a sound scape. And while that is the idea, I find myself wanting to cut it even more. Ideally I almost would like there to only be sounds produced when they involve either books or the reading light, which reflects the boy's connection with and between both.

However, I simply went ahead and started recording all the sounds on the list and decided to ask myself the above question later when editing.

I will upload the first draft edit when I've finished that.



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At this point I have recorded individual sounds and have had a bit of a play around with them. Unfortunately I ran into a multitude of problems along the way, which is why there is no way for me to add any proper edit here.

Because sounds produced with books are very quiet, there ended up being a lot of noise on the recordings. I tried adjusting the settings on the Tascam I used, as well as tried different angles of the NTG microphone. When neither worked, I also tried changing rooms for a more ideal sound environment. At the time, I did not have any access to a sound recording studio due to it being closed for the holidays. When I realised that I would be unable to record the sound as clean as I would like, I recorded with the best settings I could manage.

Listening back to the recordings later, the were terrible. Here are a couple of examples:

Sound_raw_1

Sound_raw_2

Sound_raw_3

Because of the short time I had left, the only thing I could do was try to clean them up. Of course, I had about as much luck with that as with the original recording. The problem was that although I could, to some measure, get rid of the noise floor, the remaining sound was then so quiet that I was barely able to hear it. Here are a couple of results (recommended to listen to with headphones on highest level):

Sound_cleanish_1

Sound_cleanish_2

Sound_cleanish_3



As you can see, not a great basis to work with. However, I did try to edit something together. Unfortunately, I struggled with exporting to an audio level that one can actually hear. Unfortunately, I did not manage to put together and export an edit for this for these reasons.

Fortunately, I will be able to use the Sound Studio in the next semester, which will enable me to finish a trial sound scape. Because there is no dialogue and therefore no lip syncing involved, I can almost foley the short film, which is probably what I will end up doing. Foley is a way of putting sound to film by watching the footage and producing the soundscape in time with the footage to be able to make sure everything matches the movement perfectly.
This way, the sound scape will hopefully fit the animation even better than trying to match animation to more 'generic' sound.