The document analyzes the sound design of the Fallout 3 teaser trailer. It describes how the sounds establish a post-apocalyptic setting by using an old, damaged radio playing a song from the early 20th century that cuts in and out. It then transitions to a grand but empty musical piece with added sounds of dust and breathing to build tension. Finally, a tired voice flatly delivers the game's tagline to convey a sense of emptiness. The document analyzes how specific production techniques were likely used to achieve these sounds and establish the lonely, empty mood fitting for a post-apocalyptic genre.

1. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
Game Title
Fallout 3 teaser trailer / opening cut scene - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPt08UYmyMo
Provide detailed descriptions from chosen examples that establish…
Setting
Clearly state what production technique(s) you think have
been used to create specific soundtrack elements
The sound opens up with what sounds like a radio that is either damaged in some
way or very old sparking to life. The song that play’s has an oldies feel to it and you
can easily tell it was almost certainly written in the earlier half of the 20th century.
The fact that the song jitters a lot and often seems to be close to cutting out
altogether further emphasizes that this is probably a very old form of music player
which tells the listener that, although the music may be from the early 20th century,
there is a good chance that the game is set a while after that time. The music slowly
fades out giving you the idea that the focus is getting further and further from the
source and as it fades out a piece of music that has sounds far grander and larger
than the first piece fades in and there are also some sounds of dust in the wind. This
gives the feel of a very large but lifeless environment. In the last few seconds of the
piece of music it gets louder and more instruments/sounds are clearly added making
it feel as though its building up to something. Then, just as reaches its loudest point
it suddenly cuts off and a deep voice of a man who sounds as if he has seen far too
much and is very tired ruggedly says “war, war never changes” the tag line for the
series. This further adds to the idea of the environment being an old and empty
place because the only human voice that you hear during the entire trailer,
presumably one of its inhabitants, sounds old and empty himself.
I think they’ll have gotten/made a recording of
this song and then manipulated it to make it
sound old and worn. This could fairly easily be
done by just lowering the quality of the audio
when rendering it and possibly adding a slight
fuzzing sound in the background although
lowering the audio quality may do this of its own
volition. The two pieces of music clearly fade into
each other and overlap slightly to make the
transition between the two a very steady but slow
one. The second piece of music start off simply
enough with just one or two sounds recorded
from instruments or possibly synthesized.
However the piece of music rapidly begins to have
more instruments added to it along with the
sound of dust in the wind and of heavy, almost
mechanical, breathing both of which are sounds
that should have been fairly easy to record and
probably didn’t require much manipulation other
than changing the sound levels to make sure they
didn’t overshadow the music. All of the sounds
then cut off more or less the same time. Chances
are not much was done to the recording of the
voice that plays at the end of the trailer. The only
thing that may have been done is it was deepened
artificially a little in order to give it the intended
effect but there’s a good chance the voice actor

2. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
did this his himself.
The first piece of music has a very eerie feel to it .It doesn’t quite sound right on its
own almost like its missing something. In this case I believe it is the lack of an
audience a song such as this which is clearly being played on a music device (in this
case a radio although you couldn’t tell that from the sound alone) should have an
audience but there is no sound of someone singing or humming along not even the
sound of someone so much as breathing. This technique is often used in horror
movies to similar effect in order to unnerve an audience. The man is singing about
not wanting to set the world on fire with his passion but he has no passion in his
voice and it gives the feel that he is either failing to do this or has given up and is
trying to justify his actions to the person he was trying to court with them. As a
result the song and the way it is sang just feels lonely and broken. It also has a sense
of foreboding since if he’s trying to justify his actions he’s probably done something
wrong hence there will be consequences.Just listening to the piece of music with
the dust in the wind on its own for the few seconds after the first piece of music has
faded out makes you feel almost lonely because despite the music feeling grand it
feels somehow empty or hollow. The build-up to and use of the voice also creates a
feeling of emptiness as the man who talks does so in a fairly monotonous way and
the only emotions he really conveys are maybe a tinge of sadness and regret but
they are very slight. Like a man with nothing to lose who has accepted that fact and
pushes on regardless.
Game genre
The sound used in this trailer beautifully complements the post-apocalyptic genre.
As I have mentioned it makes the listener feel lonely and the environment feel
empty which makes a lot of sense in this genre as most of the world has been wiped
out.
Narrative
The trailer doesn’t give many hints to the narrative. It does give hints to the main
characters to some extent by having a lonely feel to it since the main character of
the game is known as the lone wanderer and throughout the main story the idea of
him being alone is reiterated rather often but it doesn’t really give any major hints.
All in all I feel as though the use of sound in this trailer was very subtle and probably didn’t take a lot of manipulation to pull off but it was definitely used
effectively. It got the setting, mood and genre of the game across effectively and while it may have only hinted at the narrative that is somewhat expected
as it was merely a teaser trailer.
Mood