Recreating sound of a creative horror Short Film ✨:
In November 2023, I arrived at my final project of the first part of my specialization and I have to confess that it was a lot fun and exciting. Because of this, I was tasked to recreate the sound design of the brilliant short film OVERTIME directed by Craig D. Foster released in 2016. The project only features a few scenes from the short film totaling 3 minutes and half of screen time.
I'm a big fan of horror films with comedic undertones so it was really fun to design all the sounds with my own version and perspective of the film. So here I am to share a little of this journey! Spoiler: It was a hard work! 😅
Before We continue 🎧🌂:
First things first, if you just want watch the video without reading all the process and with better video quality, follow the link ahead: OVERTIME [Short Film] - Sound Redesign ⏯.
Now if you want know all the process, see a version without song, and highlights of how I did to got this result, lets get into to OVERTIME universe and meet everything about this personal project. 🐺
Artistic Vision and Timeline 🎨:
Before starting the production, I analyzed the silent short and the original version several times to understand the entire feeling and objective that the director and his team wanted to pass. The short film brings several scenes that highlight a bunch of things that make sound, from a staple remover to a werewolf's roar. With that, the idea here was to produce all these sounds in the most realistic way possible so that the viewer feels immersed in the film.
The objective of all the sounds produced was to guide the viewer along with the film's narrative towards the climactic moment, which is the end.
Time, Production and Timeline Real-time 🕒💻:
For this project I spent about 1-2 weeks with several hours of sound curation and editing to achieve the desired result. And just like my previous (and possibly future) personal projects I created everything using only free sound effects taken from various sound libraries such as: Freesound from SounQ, Zapsplat, Pond5, Mixkit, 99Sounds, My own Library, among others.
Furthermore, the soundtrack is the only thing that I didn't produce but just edited. The sounds were produced by the film composers themselves, who made them available to the teachers and they respectively made them available to us for use in the tasks.
Final Result 🎉🎬:
You can check the final result below in two versions: The first one is the version with music and the second one is the version with only sfx.
P.S: If you want, I recommend watching the original Short Film before watching the videos below. Just follow the link: OVERTIME | Short Horror Film | Official Selection | Red Tower ⏯.
1. OVERTIME - Short Film - w/ Soundtrack 🎬🎶:
2. OVERTIME - Short Film - Only SFX's 🎬🔊:
Post-Credits (or Behind the Scenes?) 🧐🔍:
As usual I have to share my favorite moments and sounds created during this process.
The biggest challenge was creating so many sounds for different moments that are very specific. At first we are creating textures from a paper shredding machine and at a second moment we are making bones breaking. This was really fun and a different level of experience so far. Writer's note: I confess that moving clothes is not my favorite part haha.
So, below I will highlight two videos where I only show the effects created and when they appear! 🎬
1. Ralph's Transformation 👱🏼♂️🐺:
Creating the sound design for the protagonist's transformation was the most fun part of the entire project. This is because when we think about a werewolf transformation, it comes to mind how painful it can be, bringing different textures of breaking bones, blood, gore, among others. As a reference, the first thing that comes to mind when the topic is werewolves is the film Van Helsing (2004), which has aged like wine and brings great textures of a painful transformation of the main character: Van Helsing (2004) Movie Clip - Werewolf Transformation ⏯.
The intention here was to bring more textures than the original version to make the transformation more terrifying than it already is. With this, it is possible to notice the sound of a beating heart, muffled voices and other things.
To create all of this, I used multiple layers of breaking bones, splashing blood, blood making gooey noises, and strong bass frequencies along with a beating heart to help immerse Ralph's "loss of senses". Furthermore, to give it a slight boost, there are voices whispering in the background in Ralph's head to give the character a sense of desperation.
Finally, after putting everything together, I added some Chorus to the bones, removed the high frequencies from the voices, removed some low frequencies, added more Chorus and Pitch Shift to Ralph's breathing to make it heavier, added the necessary reverbs and voilà.
2. Werewolf's Roar 🐺💀:
Now I've always been a big fan of the X-Men franchise and although the first trilogy of films isn't that great after watching it as an adult, it brings back nostalgic feelings for my childhood (I even had a Wolverine action figure). So as soon as I saw that I would have to create a roar for Ralph in his final phase of transformation, I instantly thought of Sabretooth fighting Logan. His roar was incredible and always brought an grandeur when he appeared on the scene. So, as a reference, I used the scene where Logan and Victor are in a big confrontation: Wolverine vs Sabretooth | X-Men (2000) Movie Clip ⏯.
To create the loud roar, I first looked for a good free sound of a tiger roaring. After finding and fitting it correctly into the scene, I removed a few low frequencies, removed the few noises that were present, adjusted the volume, added Chorus to give the sensation of amplitude, added Pitch Shift to make the sound with even more low frequencies, applied the necessary reverbs and here we are!
It was a super simple sound but it makes all the difference in the overall composition, context and concept of the scene. I'm very proud of the final result!
THANKS WORDS 😊
I hope that those of you who read to the end or saw part of the artistic creation process enjoyed the result as much as I loved creating something new from scratch from a Short Film that I really ejoyed. The journey was really awsome!
You can also check out my other projects in the "related" section below.
I also want give a special thanks to my great teachers Mateus Polati and Fernando Pepe who have guided me excellently to this point through their classes. And also to my tutor Bruno Marques who always gave me the best tips, help and feedback!
Finally, a special thank you to the incredible Sound Designers team and others at OVERTIME short film for bring a incredible experience!
See you next time! and hope the transformed Ralph doesn't find us 💀
