Workshop: Sound Effects - David

This workshop involved the task of taking a film clip of our choice and then adding in found sound effects. To do this I had to first decide what film clip I would use, my decision to use a scene from Kill Bill was based upon the fact that as it is an action film it would allow me to add various sound effects compared to a romance film for example. I specifically chose this clip as it left me with a lot of ways to add sound effects, but at the same time it wasn't too complex so where the sound effects could have came across as fake and as me blatantly adding them in.

After downloading the clip I brought it into an audio editing programme called Garage Band, from here I could mute the original sound from the clip and add in and edit my own sound effects. I gathered the sound effects for this workshop from a website called Free Sound which is a website where people can upload their made sound effects for other people to use free of charge. When deciding what sound effects I wanted and needed, I did this by watching a part of the film clip at a time and thinking what you should hear -for example the scene starts with a few characters walking into the scene, therefore I downloaded a footsteps sound effect. From here I had to not only sync up the effect to make sure it stars and ends when I want it to, but I had to also adjust the volume of the effect so that it would be suitable to the scene. By this I mean that as the characters were quite far away, the footsteps shouldn't be overly loud, yet still noticeable. I continued this process for the rest of the clip, adding in realistic (diegetic) sound effects (like footsteps and breathing), but also unrealistic (non-diegetic) sound effects (such as a dramatic sound when a camera zooms into a character).

Overall, this task wasn't as difficult as I initially thought I may have been, but instead it simply required attention to detail. I think that my finished product is decent in the fact that the sound effects I added where synched up well, and fit the scene quite well - but I think to improve the scene I could've added more layers of sound effects as at times it felt somewhat empty. But this empty feeling may be due to the fact there was no music or dialogue within the scene, however I could easily add a layer of music but this wasn't part of the task at hand. Therefore, overall I am happy with my end product as I allowed me to understand how to add sound effects, and pick up valuable skills for when I create my final project.