Sound for movies

Sound.. whether in the form of a music backing track, ambient or action specific, are all important as getting the correct lighting, or scene angles. One of the many tools a machinimast has in their tool kit, yet for the most part under utilised.

Adding a door creaking, switch, car passing, footsteps, even a cough, can expand the realism. This layer can be underneath say more dramatic tracks such as voiceovers. have a 3rd track with 'weather' conditions, wind blowing through a window crack, rain in the distance, water lapping on the shore or against that boat, and even lightening.
Using these and varying the volumes, can add a greater 3d depth to the movies, switch the phasing between left and right will expand that even more.

Our eyes can perceive 3d from a narrow view (around 15 degrees), yet our ears can discern 3d spacial surrounds, through 360 degrees. Software Game creators soon learnt the power of 3d sound, the rattling of the chains in the 2 o'clock location, followed by that unexpected door slamming at 6 o'clock and a muted laugh at 9 o'clock.

Using sounds, we can expand the 3d perspective from the visual 15 degrees, to the full 360. If your editing programme can handle 5:1, you can perhaps capture that 4th dimension.

Most Media editing programmes can handle more that one sound track, as they can the visual tracks. When I start my editing, I would normally have decided on a music theme, so will load that onto its own track, which also gives me the 'pace' and overall length (which I can change but represents a baseline). Using seperate tracks gives me the control over volume layering. I position the music to suit the intro scenes I create in the visual section. Once I have that position ans have completed the visual elements, I reduce the volume of that track, so it can just be heard. Now I can focus on the ambient sounds.

If your editing programme doesn't allow for multiple tracks, search for a sound editing programme that allows you to mix sound seperately, then you can add the finishing sound in a flattened format.

I use Sony Vegas for editing, the version I have allows for unlimited visual and sound layering. Not everyone needs that kind of range, and indeed using an external programme, you can still acheive some very good results. Vegas also comes with some sound FX's. I can control the individual sound bytes volume, pan left/right, bass boosts, equalising etc etc. After applying each effect, the programme allows me to save each revision so the orginal is untouched. Say using an owl hooting, I can make various versions at different pitches, volumes, echo and frequency ranges, and then layer those, to create a group of owls. Using an external programme, increases the available range of FX's that can be used. The 'group of owls would only be effective if they 'appeared' to be in a group and not from a single source. By adjusting the 'pan' (moving between left and right) of each version, the sound sources can appear to come from anywhere within that 360 degree space (or spacial sounds).

Using the same technique with voice files, you can create a 3d room full of people, switching focus as the camera proceeds through the scene. If you have the ability to edit sounds over a 5:1 spacial range, you can enhance the spacial feeling using more precise sound directions.