Editing Day 2 - Adding Audio

Hey there Cambridge!

As you may recall, I have already edited my shots together (check out Editing Day 1 - Shots). Now that I created my foley sounds and downloaded my background music, it is time to add in the audio.

Music:

SoundA - The Carrion by Rachel Sandy

SoundB - Warning Signal by Max Anson

My first obstacle occurred the second I started adding in audio. I was uploading SoundA and it would not let me since it was a wav file. A YouTube video I found online (linked here) gave me an easy solution to convert both audio files to mp3 format easily and in a few seconds. After I downloaded my new mp3 files, I was able to upload them to Adobe Express.

With SoundA, I was debating over whether the audience should hear the music or sweeping first. The music will set the tone of my film opening immediately, but the sweeping will bring more mystery as the audience hears the audio play before they can see the first shot (the first few seconds is my production company's logo followed by the first shot). I went with starting with the sweeping sound.

After I settled where SoundA will begin, I uploaded SoundB. It begins when the janitor is about to grab the magazine. This sound requires me to do more editing. There are random bolts of beats, and I am adjusting the length of my shots to appear at each beat. Check out a video of me doing that below:

Adjusting my shots to start at the beats was super difficult, if I messed that up with a single beat somewhere in the beginning of the audio, I would need to re-adjust every shot following it all over again. Unfortunately, I had to redo it many times.

Foley:

Sweeping

Grabbing magazine

My foley sounds were much easier to work with. I recorded the sweeping sound in one audio file for multiple shots, so I just had to find where exactly the recording is supposed to start in my film opening and then the rest worked itself out. The magazine sound was super, super short, and I simply had to find where the janitor grabs the magazine, and the audio fit right in.

Reflection:

Adding in audio was not too bad. Adjusting the shots to match the music definitely was the most annoying part. The audio switching from SoundA to SoundB is pretty choppy and I am still trying to think of a way to fix that. In the end, I had enough time to add in the beginning of the next scene in the janitor's house, when he is calling the life preservation company. I uploaded a sound of a phone ringing over the shot by recording the ringing from my phone as I called my actor. Similar to the beginning of my film opening, this sound is heard before you can actually see the shot (ringing fades in during the black screen presenting my title).

Yours Truly, 

Macie 💗