Sound Story and its Creation

General Creation

Throughout the creation of this Sound Story, we had several experiences with this being our first time as a group to record and edit a short film. From recording our sounds to editing the sounds and the general creation of our film. 

Creation of the Sounds

The creation of our sounds was very different throughout our recording, during our recording we had gone through trial and error to become aware of what equipment would sound the best and who would sound the best. 

First Sound: Walking

In the creation of this sound, we had the most trial and error to discover which would sound the best or fit the sound we were looking to achieve. During this recording, we had recorded the same action with Abdullah walking 3 different times, but we had used a different phone to compare the microphone quality as well as the quality of the walking.

After this initial recording of Abdullah, we had asked different people to compare or chose which microphone would fit the atmosphere that the project was aiming for. When we had begun surveying people many people as well as ourselves had noticed some background noise in one of our tests but had chosen this phone as the quality was very high and it would allow us to emulate the atmosphere we required for our film.

The survey had given us some form of criticism that we were required to improve our film as it allowed us to find what an audience member may have preferred.

During our filming after the survey, we had multiple takes to create the best sound we had envisioned for the film. During our first take, we had not begun the recording but had gone through the motions of it had not realized my mistake. After that, I had begun or recorded too early allowing it to pick up background noise that was not needed or not what we were looking for, and then I had begun the recording too late causing myself to misstep and not record properly. After I had more practice in maintaining a good pace with Abdullah. 

After the various takes we had and the practice I had to maintain my pace and minimize the background sounds from taking center in the audio, we had our final take. 

The video below is the recording of our final take, after watching back the video I had noticed my posture was very strange but the reason behind was to allow myself to primarily record the audio of Abdullah walking.  

After this final recording, we had all felt that this audio was perfect in our emulation of the atmosphere and fit the purposes of our situation in the film.

Second Sound: Speed Walking

After the creation of our first sound, we had decided on what equipment to use and what person would be reacting to what portion of the film. In this portion we had Arturo do the walking due to the shoes he was wearing that day because it had a much heavier sound when compared to my shoe or Abdullah's shoes.

We had various takes when recording this portion of the film due to us having decided in which pattern Arturo should walk to emulate the sound we had needed correctly and to make it sound more authentic to the film. 

After we decided on the path we had to practice on our pace and level of strength Arturo had to place in each step to allow for more proper emulation of the sound we had been looking for in our film, I also had to practice to minimize my footsteps from popping up in the recording due to the fact we had to move much faster when compared to the recording for Abdullah.

To remedy this issue in our recording I had removed my shoes when I was recording Arturo and this had allowed for our sound to sound more realistic as it had prevented from it sounding like multiple people. 

After we had finished our final practice take we had noticed that there were lots of wind sounds that may interfere with the film we were going for, but in our opinion, we had felt that the wind sound had created a greater sensation of realism in the film as when a person is running or going faster they tend to have wind sound because a person is piercing or feeling the resistance of air.

We then had our final recording, shown below.

Third Sound: Driving

The creation of this sound was fairly simple this sound was done by myself and my sister who was recording meanwhile I was the one driving.

However, we had multiple takes as we had interruptions in our recording since I was driving down my neighborhood street. Some of the interruptions we had were people and animals crossing the road, causing us to stop to prevent any injury from occurring.

As well as another set of interruptions were both myself and my sister forgetting or hitting record too late causing us to have to retake our film.

But in total the creation of the sound took about 20 minutes to create due to the constant retakes and practice we both had to go through. 

Fourth Sound: Driving Away

This sound was also a sound created by myself, this sound in my opinion this sound was by far the most simple to create. This had taken at most 3 takes to emulate the sound that I was attempting to achieve. The practice that was needed in this sound creation was just teaching my sister how to use the Gas Pedal of the car and how I wanted her to stage the acceleration.

Miscellaneous Sounds

Most of the other sounds that were used in this film were primarily found by Abdullah such as the sound effects used that were not recorded by us and some of the voice lines.

During the recording of my voice lines, I had to take multiple attempts as I had wanted to emulate a more intimidating character so I had to deepen my voice to reach the level I was able to achieve.

Creation/Editing of the Film

Most if not all of the editing was done by Abdullah as he was more experienced with audio software and editing. However, throughout the editing process, I was offering ideas on how to layer and mix the audio as well the speeds and pitch of the audio we had recorded and the audio he had found. However, when he was doing edits I was able to learn some techniques and offer some minor assistance in the process to potentially have created an outside perspective from someone not familiar with the editing process. Abdullah has also asked people in his other classes what they felt the audio was attempting to show or the story that the audio was simulating.