P2: Techniques and Process to Create Noises

    Techniques and Process to Create Noises

Foley artists create sounds using objects and repurpose them to be a sound for something else. For example, they can use celery for the crunch sound of bones breaking, they will record footsteps on different surfaces for the film or media product. There are lots of different types of sounds, so in this presentation I will be researching how foley sounds can create different sound types, what equipment is used to create these foley sounds, the techniques used, what sound formats are used, storage and compression.

 There are several microphones that can be used to record sound. Condenser microphones can record any sound, even high frequencies.

Lavalier microphones (also called as a lapel mic) are small microphones that can be clipped to a person's shirt. They are usually used to record speech or dialogue.

 Handy microphone recorders can be used to record foley sounds. They are usually battery powered and easy to carry with you.

 

Cardioid microphones only records sounds in front of it. This means background sound is less likely to be recorded. This is great especially for singers, live peformers, radio, podcasts etc.

                                            

 

                                              Voiceovers

 

Here you can see the voice acting/voiceover recording sessions from Hotel Trasylvania 2. The celebrities and actors are talking alongside the characters and the voiceovers that are put in the film so we can see how they recorded this. The role of these voice actors are to create the talking dialogue for the characters. As you can see, they are in a soundproof room so the microphone only picks up their voice. They use a script so they know what to say and how, a microphone with an arm and shockmount. The microphone will be high quality so they get the best quality voice audio possible, this is very important for big movies. The microphone arm is a technique because it helps the voice actor move the microphone based on how quiet, loud, near or far the character is. It also helps the voice actor feel comfortable and to make sure they have the best placing for the microphone so the audio is the best quality. They might also use headphones so they can hear the environment in the media product, the other characters' voiceovers and their own voice.

  This voiceover is going to be diegetic sound in the movie. The file formats would be either WAV or AAC as these are audio formats. They use lossy compression for AAC and lossless compression for WAV. A lossy audio file is when the data is compressed (file size is small) but the audio wouldn't be high quality. However, loseless compression has a larger file size, but the audio quality will be high. The best way to store high quality audio files would be a USB external hard drive, solid state drive (computer storage) or you can upload them to the cloud. Voiceovers are usually a key element to the media product, therefore the files size might be less than other types of audio, but there will be more of them and they still need to be high quality. An external USB hard drive can hold from 500GB to 16TB of storage, so the USB hard drives with more space would be able to store the voiceover audio. USB sticks only have extremely little storage space so it might be difficult to store lots of high quality voiceover audio files but maybe a few. The USB external hard drives are the most useful since they are portable. The files will take a lot of space for a solid state drive so the computer would need a lot of space (depending on how many voiceover files you have). The files would take forever to upload to the cloud or another alternative to online storage. Downward compression reduces the decibles of the sound when it hits a set target while upward compression increases volume when it goes over a set target. For these voiceover audio they use upwards compression to make sure the quieter sounds can be heard.

 

  

                   Theme music, film score or character's music

In movies and media products they use theme music, film scores and music created for an individual character. In the video below, you can see how they made the film score for the Disney Frozen movie.

In the Frozen theme music video, we can see that the orchestra plays lots of instruments such as violins, flutes, trombones, a harp and so on and the composer shows them what notes to play and who needs to play those notes. They also use microphones (probably boom mics) and headphones to report the music audio in the room and to hear the singing so they can sync the music to the singing. They place lots of microphones on stands that can reach over the musicians playing their instruments to help record the sounds from the instruments. The role of the theme music is to create emotions and feelings for the audience watching the Frozen movie. After the audio is recorded, they edit this using a sound mixer in post production to make sure the audio is good enough and to make any changes (audio levels for example) before it is placed in the Frozen movie. This would be non-diegetic sound because the characters won't be able to hear the film score.

I believe that the losseless FLAC audio files are better for capturing theme music. FLAC can compress the file size without loosing or affecting the audio quality making it perfect for theme ,usic which will possibly be edited. Where to store the theme music really depends how long the music is and the file size. USB hard drives are still the best option since they can save a lot of audio and they are portable. They might possibly use downwards compression since they are putting audio over the theme music and they also don't want the instruments and audio to sound too loud and distorted.

                                          

                                           Foley Effects

Foley sounds are very important when it comes to movies and games in paticular, they help to bring the environment in the media product to life. In the video above, you can see how SkyWalker sound creates their foley sounds. SkyWalker sound is a company created by George Lucas originally for the Star Wars movie. They specialise in creating foley sounds for different blockbuster movies as well as Star Wars such as Doctor Strange, Moana and much more that are mentioned in the YouTube video. To recap, foley sounds are created for media products to create sounds that you would hear in the environment of the product. Some examples are footsteps, a screech from an alien, the rain, pretty much anything you can think of to match the actions or environment in the media product. They use everyday objects as props and repurpose the sounds for different things. They use microphones in the ceiling and a mic that is closer to the source of the sound and they will have specialised rooms that are created for sound specifically. They also use everyday objects and use them in a certain way to create the sound they need. For example foley artists (those that create foley sounds) might hit heavy rocks against leaves to simulate a heavy animal walking in a forest. They can also use props so when the character interacts with an object we can hear this. The foley team would also consist of a mixer who would use a mixer, computer and professional software such as Adobe Audition or other mixing software. The audio is mixed together and the audio levels are changed to get the foley sound perfectly alligned with what you see in the media product. The also might record ambient sound depending on where the characters are.

Foley sounds are going to be a much smaller file sizes compared to theme music for example, however they still need to be high quality. They don't need to be compressed so FLAC or ALAC are still the best audio formats since these foley sounds are also going to be edited together. Once again depending on how many foley sounds you have depends on what storage you can use. Since foley sounds usually have small file sizes, you vould potentially use a USB stick, USB hard drive, computer storage or maybe even the cloud (internet storage). Upwards compression would be ideal for foley sounds because we need to be able to hear quieter foley sounds in the media product and loud foley sounds such as someone slamming their hand on the table can sound more crisp and dramatic. 

                             

                        Signature tune, incidental music

Incidental music is used to create some sort of emotion (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust...) from the audience. In the YouTube video below, you can see how Marvel uses incidental music in their movies and how it is created.

 In this video, you can hear the incidental music that is used in the Mavel movies Ironman, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy and more. The music tells us what is happening in the scene and how the character feels, this would be non-diegetic sound. To make the incidental music, they have used nstruments such as violins. The music is then edited in post production using a computer, mixer and professional software so it can be placed into the movie scene. This process is very sililar to the music score process. They will use lots of microhphones to record the sounds the instruments make. There will also be a screen where the film is being played so they can match the instruements audio to what is happening in the scene.

Incidental music won't take up much space so any type of storage (cloud, solid state, USB hard drives and USB sticks) would be appropriate. Just like the other types of audio (voiceovers, music scores and foley sounds), incidental music must match up to the amazing quality of the media product. Therefore using loseless file formats like loseless WAV. This file format doesn't compress the file storage, therefore the sound quality is at its best and isn't effected. I think downwards compession might be used for incidental music if there is going to be voiceovers or talking over it. It really depends on the purpose of the incidental music, if the incidental music shows anger, they might use upwards compression but if the incidental music shows someone is scared or sad, they might use downwards compression.