Sound journal for our A2 media project

1. Sound Journal
Kiren Anandji

2. Role of Sound
Sound is vital in a film, especially in a drama.
Although a message can be conveyed through
imagery we saw the use of sound as a great was
to express emotion. This would be through
dialogue and non-diegetic scores. This added
with the use of imagery would help create a
strong message.

3. Roles
• Me and Sara divided the roles equally and
decided to both work on both aspects
together. meaning we would both work on
the levels for the diegetic and the scores
together. The reason behind this was to
have two different opinions configure an
idea together meaning it would suit a wider
variety of people.

4. Voicemail Recording
The voicemail recording was filmed in the recording studio. Michael Douglas who plays
Michael was voice actor to go with his performance in the film.
To create believable message we worked with Michael when creating his lines. This
created ownership on this section of dialogue for him which allowed his to deliver his
lines to the best of his ability. We recorded multiple takes and inserted various
attempts in to the production on premiere pro to see the emphasises each recording
creates. I found various recordings had different elements that we believed are
important. After this I cut the segments up and pieced together the bests bits.
The recording sounded very clean which was good however it did not sound like a phone
call. To get round this is used a EQ effect on premiere pro to create the phone call
sounding element. The effect has various options which allowed me to create the a
believable world in terms of the voicemail answer phone

5. Sound Levels
While filming to help post production we used a wind shield to cover the mic.
This filtered the wind and ambient sounds with the dialogue meaning it
sounded crisp with a faint natural sound of the surrounding keeping
authentic.
When editing in post Production each sound level depending on how close the
mic was to the actors varied. To get around this premiere pro has specific
features which allowed me to extensively. Using the sound level bar while
Sara would listen for inconsistency's we went through shot by shot, after
this I added the voicemail recording in and matched that up. The sound bar
was helpful as it has a sensitivity section, if the bar hit red it would be a
warning which would mean a rendered copy would sound distorted and will
not be nice to listen to. After levelling all the dialogue together we added
the score in which then be tailored to levels of the dialogue and then
adjusted further to not over power the dialogue.

6. Score/Background Music
Captain Phillips (2013) Soundtrack Score Composed by: Henry Jackman
"Cold" - Jorge Méndez (Sad Piano & Violin Instrumental)
We used two scores in our film and found using multiple tracks very useful as i was able
to fuse various elements that each track had and house them under the same roof
to help make our product a success. We decided on using musical scores in our film
as it normally conventional in a film aiming to use emotion. We also found using
music adds a unique dynamic to a film and can be a very power tool to use.
Finding the right music was a long hard process due the nature of the task. Various
tracks were tried and tested but we found it did not work seamlessly meaning it
could change the dynamic of the film which would change the vision. We also did
not want tracks that overpowers the film which would again effect the films
performance. We wanted music that could hold the emotion in the film and after
various hours of searching we found these two tracks and found ‘Cold’ was prefect
for the beginning of the film and would transition well to ‘Captain Phillips’ in the
second half of the film

7. Sound Effects
There was not a lot of sound effects needed for the film how
ever the few used where key in the realism created in the film.
One important sound effect that was used was the gun shot.
The danger of using this sound effect was that if it was out of
sync or of poor quality it would affect an import scene in the
film which would affect the success of film.
Another sound effect that was used which help create a
believable world was the answer phone beep which was a
mirror detail. The little details like this help contribute to the
success of the film

8. Overall
Overall there was know real problem in terms of
sound. This was due the precautions we took
when filming. Also the experience that was
gained from the last project which helped
improve the efficiency of this project.
I found sound to be one of the a key component
in delivering a film and that a large amount of
time is needed for this to maximise the potential.