Happy Memories
I created a soundtrack for the short film 'Happy Memories', which combines dialogue, sound effects, and music. The Music section collaborated with Jean Hooker.
For editing, I was more critically looking at parts of a whole and constructing elements, no matter the ADR, ambiance sound, foley and etc. I broke down the elements to build each stream of sound with as much breadth and depth as possible. The result was an overly full sound session, potentially 300% too much sound and to leave it all in would be a mistake. But then, turned to the mixing stage, I analytically looked at all the parts of the soundtrack and made decisions on how to blend and balance all these elements into a final soundtrack.
For editing, I was more critically looking at parts of a whole and constructing elements, no matter the ADR, ambiance sound, foley and etc. I broke down the elements to build each stream of sound with as much breadth and depth as possible. The result was an overly full sound session, potentially 300% too much sound and to leave it all in would be a mistake. But then, turned to the mixing stage, I analytically looked at all the parts of the soundtrack and made decisions on how to blend and balance all these elements into a final soundtrack.
Editting
For dialogue editing, because in the whole film, most of the dialogues are basically the daily conversation and most of the time when the actors have conversations, they are relatively calm and peaceful, at least not to the point of fighting, I edited them with smoothly fade-in and fade-out, removed high-pitch tone for some clips and balanced the volume in a consistent level so that most of the dialogue won’t build the sense of angry or horror. For the ambiance, I always used Rx Ambiance Match to create the specified ambiance sound for each scene. And used that ambiance to fill the gap between dialogue in one clip and the beginning and the end of the clip. I created different ambiances for each scene when the location changes so that the audience can hear the location has changed through the sound, not just the frame.
For FX edit, same as DX, I didn’t use those strong and horror ambiance and spots to the film, such as the strong storm and the sound of crows(close). Most of the ambiances I chose is quite soft. In addition, I don’t think all the door in the film have creaking sound when they are opened, so I always just add the open and close door sound, but others may think it is a bit boring and do not have enough layers.
For FX edit, same as DX, I didn’t use those strong and horror ambiance and spots to the film, such as the strong storm and the sound of crows(close). Most of the ambiances I chose is quite soft. In addition, I don’t think all the door in the film have creaking sound when they are opened, so I always just add the open and close door sound, but others may think it is a bit boring and do not have enough layers.
Mixing
Turned to the mixing stage, making all the things sound natural and not dramatic is my aim for the entire soundtrack. To achieve this, after importing and organizing all the elements I need, I started to pick the best-matched clips and mute those useless clips to avoid making them sound heavy and messy. In the scene that Drea was lying on the bed and finding the picture from the box, it used to have a lot of sound effects which are from my Fx and other classmate’s Fx and foley. I muted most of them and just keeping the basic action sound effect so that they may be a bit flat but more clear than before so audiences can legibly realize what exactly the character does. The same method is used for the key sound in the door opening scene at the beginning.
I also turned down the volume of the fx group because it is in the evening and I want the audience to pay more attention to music, which contributes to the emotion. I find this approach helpful in directing audiences to the details and emotions I want them to focus on. I decreased the volume of the music group when characters are talking in the study and smoothly increased it when Drea walked out of the room.
I also turned down the volume of the fx group because it is in the evening and I want the audience to pay more attention to music, which contributes to the emotion. I find this approach helpful in directing audiences to the details and emotions I want them to focus on. I decreased the volume of the music group when characters are talking in the study and smoothly increased it when Drea walked out of the room.
