2. The Role of Sound in Film
• Sound is one of the most overlooked aspects of film
production.
• Money and time could be spared if more care were given
to it in the production phase
• Sound has to be considered in the pre-production /
production / post-production phases of a project
• For those of you who have done production:
• What has your experience with sound been like?
• What is the typical experience like?
4. Pre-production and Production Sound
• Before a film begins production, the sound mixer will often
go on a location scout to ensure the ability to capture
quality audio on set
• They identify any sound problems such as bad acoustics or
uncontrollable noise
• The problem with Food Boy
• Once on the set, it is the Sound department’s
responsibility to capture the best quality dialogue possible
• The sound department may capture other unique sounds that are
found on sets, but most sound effects will be added during post-
production
5. Production Sound Team
• Team consists of:
• Production Sound Mixer
• Boom Operator
• Cable Utility
• Job is to gather the best quality production
audio possible through many sources
• Boom: A shotgun mic is the preferred method for
capturing sound, boom operator hovers microphone
over the actors to capture their dialogue
• Wireless Lavaliers: Wireless microphones are placed
on actors bodies. Useful for wider shots and shots
when there is a lot of movement from the actors.
Does not have as good as quality as boom
microphone
6. Production Sound Team (cont.)
• Often shooting circumstances make a
production incapable of using the
dialogue that is recorded on set. In
these situations, the sound mixer’s job
is to get dialogue that will be used as
reference in ADR
• Complete ADR:
• Running scene from Pride and Prejudice
• A good example of production dialogue:
• Moving McAllister, basement scene
7. Post-Production Sound
• Post-production sound is the editing and mixing
of sounds after the editing is finished and before
the film is mastered to the output medium
• There are three main areas of focus within post-
production sound:
• Dialogue and ADR
• Sound Effects and Foley
• Music
8. Dialogue Editing and ADR
• The dialogue editor will find, edit, and sweeten
the best dialogue taken from set for each
scene.
• If any of the dialogue tracks are unusable, the
dialogue editor will perform ADR (Automated
Dialogue Replacement aka “Looping”) to
replace the unusable audio
• ADR is less desirable to do because it is hard for
actors to recreate their performance when they
are away from set
• Some fantasy films, such as Lord of the Rings,
which used extensive special effects contains
mostly ADR because of the noisiness of the
shooting conditions
• Poorly done ADR is noticed easily (example: Low
budget Kung Fu movies)
9. Sound Effects Editing and Foley
• It is the sound supervisor’s job to
determine what sounds will be created
by the effects editor and what will be
created by the Foley artist
• The Sound Effects editor’s job is to create
sound effects that can be used in the final
sequence. These effects come from a
wide variety of sources. Often they are
manipulated stock sound effects, or
original effects recorded by the effects
editor
• Foley is the recreation of any manmade or
natural sound, such as footsteps, rustling
or other special easily made effects such
as fire crackling.
10. Music
• A composer is sometimes hired to
create original music for a film. They
look at a cut of the film and write
music to go along with specific
moments in the film
• Music supervisors works with the
composer to create original material
with a film, as well as license pre-
existing music to be used in a film
11. The Final Mix
• Once a film has all of the sound effects, dialogue and
music recorded and edited, it is the job of the re-recording
mixers (aka dubbing mixers) to take the separate parts
and bring it together into the final mix
12. Sound Theory Terms
• Diegetic vs. Non-diegetic sound
• Diegetic: Sound coming from within the world of the film
• Non-diegetic: Outside the world of the film
• Voice Over and Off-Screen sounds
• Sound/Camera Perspective
• Do we hear things as the camera would hear them? Or are the
voices closer?
13. Directions in Sound and Music
• Like other aspects of filmmaking, directors can take a
more realistic or more formalistic approach to sound in
their films
– Films with realistic sound embrace louder ambient noises,
background noises (such as traffic and airplanes) and have lower
quality dialogue
– Films that are more formalistic in their approach will recreate all of
the sounds. Often manipulating sounds from how they would
sound in the real world (example: the sound of someone punching
someone in the face varies from real life to the screen)
• Overall the goal of sound is to be invisible. If it is good,
then people will hardly notice it and will instead be
involved in the story.
