Sound Editing

  When it came to the sound edit, I knew that it was going to be a challenge for Jacob, especially seeing as he wasn't taking sound as a specific skill this year. Because he did not sync much of the sound when filming, this also meant that a lot had to be re-recorded and used as foley in the piece. I went through all the sounds that had already been recorded and what was still needed with Jacob to make sure he was comfortable and made sure that he knew what was still to be recorded. Below is a copy of a table I created for/with him:

When I first listened to what he had spent a whole day editing, I was quite disappointed as there were many elements of the shot that did not have a sound. For example, Lola would walk up towards the door and there would be silence, yet the sound of the door opening was present. I spoke to Jacob and wrote a list of the sounds I felt he needed in order to make it a more textured and realistic sound design. I also listened to all of the sounds he had independently recorded and they were brilliant - In particular the animal noises he had recorded at a farm (planned to be overlaid in the stylised sequence in the underpass).

  The second time I met with Jacob to listen to the sound it was a lot better. He had listened to most of my input and completed what I thought was a rough draft of the piece. However, I soon came to realise that he could not think of anything else to add to it and this made me worried. There were simple things such as footsteps that weren't synced that concerned me. I found myself writing numerous lists of sounds that still needed to be added and after speaking to Jen, who also help Jacob at one point with the sound, she made me aware that she had also written a list very similar to mine prior to the days editing. I think that a lot of time could have been saved if the improvements Jen had were listened to from the beginning.

13th December 2012
  When it came to adding the final picture edit to the sound once Hannah had added the titles, Myself, Hannah and Jen met early to do this as Jacob was not available. When he arrived, I asked him if he was happy for us to just finish this section because I didn't want him to become stressed watching us and think that we were 'taking over'. Jacob agreed and stated that 'his work was done' and left.

  We began by syncing the picture to the sound, which became a little more complicated when I realised that a section of the picture had been taken out. Every time I tried to save what I had done, the computer would crash, meaning I had to re-start it.

  Soon, Hannah B and Jen had to go, leaving me to finish it alone. I was in the edit room from 12 - 7.30pm trying to finish this to the best of my ability. I kept trying to sync the sound and other elements such as the footsteps and alter the levels, however, after the computer crashing countless times every time I saved it, it came to a point where I had to do the best I could and burn it.

  To complicate things even more, Jacob had put each sound into a new layer on soundtrack pro, making it incredibly hard to edit as you would have to scroll up and down about 40 tracks to find what you wanted. I understand that he isn't doing sound as a skill but I would have been happy to help him and I know that Neil also offered to help to which Jacob said everything was fine.

The complex set-up on soundtrack pro I had to use to edit.

  Overall, I synced the footage to the picture and altered some of the footsteps as well as changing the position of a piece of music I created. Because I did not want the computer to crash once again, I had to leave what I had done like that and burn the result.

  Ultimately, this wasn't my job and I would have liked some help from my peers, although I'm sure they tried their best.

  As well as helping to edit the sound design, I also created the 'pirate' track using a midi keyboard and garage band. I also edited this track using soundtrack pro:

A screen-grab of the work I did on Garageband.