Hiccup is another short film I worked on, which revolves around a couple whose marriage is falling apart:
“The reasons Kevin and Mary married were good reasons. They remain to this day, good reasons. However, when one of them focuses on a negative trait and turns it into an obsession, the defining characteristic of their marriage, if you will, well, it can lead to a bad day...a very bad day.”
I feel that the sound has a massive passive part to play in the film, as there is absolutely no dialogue whatsoever in the film, as the only bit of sound coming from the characters are hiccups. So this meant that I had to really help tell the story through the Foley and sound effects, which meant I could really show off in terms of sound.
As soon I received the film I started straight away on recording Foley. I wanted to make the Foley as intricate as possible and so I recorded a sound for almost anything would make a sound in the film, whether it be the husband’s angry breathing right up to the dial tone on the unhooked phone; everything was captured.
Some interesting bits of Foley that I recorded was for the shovel, when the husband is burying his wife. For this I used a bowl of Couscous layered with a bowl of rice to give the effect of digging into dirt. I did this because I found it virtually impossible to find anywhere that it is quiet enough to record, where I had permission to use a massive bag of soil and a spade without causing any mess!
In terms of sound effects, the main use of creative sound design is the phone’s dialling tone in the destroyed bedroom scene. This sound I feel, is crucial for showing how the breakdown in the marriage has hit rock bottom and use of the pitch shifter on the tone shows how the situation has spiralled out of control.
The mixing stage was all about bringing out all the sensitive bits of Foley to highlight the tension and the use of silence in the mix as well is essential for drawing the audience’s attention to whole awkwardness of the couple’s relationship. One main highlights of the mix is the husbands breathing, which can be heard throughout the film. This I think is vital in showing the husbands building resentment and without this, the husband’s frustrations would not fully reach the viewer.
“The reasons Kevin and Mary married were good reasons. They remain to this day, good reasons. However, when one of them focuses on a negative trait and turns it into an obsession, the defining characteristic of their marriage, if you will, well, it can lead to a bad day...a very bad day.”
I feel that the sound has a massive passive part to play in the film, as there is absolutely no dialogue whatsoever in the film, as the only bit of sound coming from the characters are hiccups. So this meant that I had to really help tell the story through the Foley and sound effects, which meant I could really show off in terms of sound.
As soon I received the film I started straight away on recording Foley. I wanted to make the Foley as intricate as possible and so I recorded a sound for almost anything would make a sound in the film, whether it be the husband’s angry breathing right up to the dial tone on the unhooked phone; everything was captured.
Some interesting bits of Foley that I recorded was for the shovel, when the husband is burying his wife. For this I used a bowl of Couscous layered with a bowl of rice to give the effect of digging into dirt. I did this because I found it virtually impossible to find anywhere that it is quiet enough to record, where I had permission to use a massive bag of soil and a spade without causing any mess!
In terms of sound effects, the main use of creative sound design is the phone’s dialling tone in the destroyed bedroom scene. This sound I feel, is crucial for showing how the breakdown in the marriage has hit rock bottom and use of the pitch shifter on the tone shows how the situation has spiralled out of control.
The mixing stage was all about bringing out all the sensitive bits of Foley to highlight the tension and the use of silence in the mix as well is essential for drawing the audience’s attention to whole awkwardness of the couple’s relationship. One main highlights of the mix is the husbands breathing, which can be heard throughout the film. This I think is vital in showing the husbands building resentment and without this, the husband’s frustrations would not fully reach the viewer.
