Notes on a test shoot
Sound Direction
As no sound needs to be recorded live and it has higher quality if it is added afterwards, all the sound was Foley. For the ambiance i wanted to create the sounds of a cafe. This to me consists of cutlery, a radio, crockery, and a door and bell. The door and bell help produce thoughts of a cafe rather than a kitchen in a house. To create an effective radio sound i played some instrumental music as a patch in the NN-XT synthesizer. I added some tape fuzz with the Scream 4 Distortion unit to make it sound like it was played over a small radio. I then created a room sound using the advanced reverb unit that fitted the room shown on camera. Then using a C1000 i recorded crockery, cutlery and a kettle. After Equalization in Audacity i imported these each into another NN-XT and added the same room sound. As i did not have a shop door with a bell i used a free ready made Foley sound. I will record my own very soon when creating the actual ambiance i am planning to use.
For the handwriting I recorded a fountain pen with the C1000. The fountain pen sounds scratchy compared to most pens so is desirable to fill the void of vocals as this creates a focal point of the sound. I recorded the sound of an entire alphabet and imported it into an NN-XT of it’s own I EQ’d it using the Graphic equalizer in Reason. I experimented with pitch shifting Sam’s pen higher than Lawrence’s pen to reflect the difference between the pitches of male and female vocals. This worked well. Given more time i would like to perfect any on screen pen movements as i feel some of the sounds do not perfectly match the movements of the pens.
The sound of the mug on the table was a pitch shifted mug.
The Scrapbook ‘send’ sound was the sound of a trumpet and trombone mute being nocked together with added flange. I recorded it from two angles and synced it together to make a fuller sound. I would like to experiment with post flap sounds and things associated with analogue mail such as sealing envelopes. Ripping paper didn’t sound very good.
Further to this, which i will add in future will be a waitresses footsteps in the background. As this is an intimate scene i would like to add more of the close sounds like body movements.
The sound of Sam drinking through a mask was strange. I don’t think we should imply the avatars have mouths at all. We have decided to leave this out in future to stop sounds conflicting the narrative.
Most of my inspiration has been from Tekkonkinkreet and studio ghibli films. They are well produced and have no live sound as they are animated. A keen ear can detect sources of sound as well.
