Video and Sound Production | Project 1: Audio Editing Exercises

 25.09.25 - 13.11.25 / week 1 - week 8

Subhana Salim / 0375936 

Video and Sound Production/ Bachelor's of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University 

Project 1: Audio Editing Exercises 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Lectures

2. Classroom Activities

3. Instructions  

4. Project 1: Audio Editing Exercises

5. Reflection


LECTURES

Week 1: Time Base Project
1. Pre-Production:- Idea development, story, storyboard, visual references, location/props.
2. Production:- Lighting, costume, principal shooting.
3. Post- production:- Offline editing, online editing, audio editing.

Week 2: Framing & Storyboard

1. Earliest Cinema:- 

   Arrival of Train at La Ciotat, was revolutionary by creating the illusion of motion by placing images in close proximity of time.

   L'Arroseur Arrose is a silent comedy film from 1895, produced by the Lumiere brothers.

   Initially the effort to play a film limited its storytelling ability to converting a 3Dimensional space into a flat image. This was combatted by breaking up the action into shots and sequences.

2. Cinematography:- 

   It is the art of placing the camera in the best position for that particular moment in the narrative

3. Shot Size:-

   Extreme wide shot: Shows a broad view of the surroundings around the character to convey scale, distance and the geographical location of the character.

   Wide shotEstablishing shot. Includes entire subject and important objects in the immediate surroundings.

   Medium wide shot: Includes the body of the subject from waist up.

   Medium shot: Includes the body of the subject from midway between waist and shoulders to above the head.

   Over the shoulder shot: Shows the subject from behind the shoulder of another person

   Medium close-up shot

   Close-up shot: A close up shot isolates the most important part of the subject such as the head.

   Extreme close-up shot: An extreme close-up single out a portion of the face magnifies a detail.

   Medium wide shot: A medium wide shot shows a character usually cut off across the legs above or below the knees. 

  

4. Camera Angle:-

   Rule of Thirds: divides the frame into both horizontally and vertically

   Composition: facial modelling is best when subject is turned 45 degree

   Eye-level angle: camera films from the eye-level of an observer of average height 

   Low angle shot: Low angle shot can make a character look bigger, stronger, or more noble

   Higher angle shot: is where the camera is tilted downward to view the subject

  

5. Screen Direction:-

   Dynamic Screen Direction: Constant screen travel depicts subject motion in one direction. eg:- car driving

   Static Screen Direction: Shots where the screen is static

   180 Degree Rule: claims that the camera stay on the horizontal axis and not cross sections so that it will disorient the viewer. The horizontal axis is called "Line of action"

Week 3: Understanding Storytelling
The three-act story structure is a popular narrative framework used in storytelling, particularly in film and literature. It divides a story into three distinct parts: the setup, the confrontation, and the resolution.
1. Act One: The Set-Up, the first act establishes the protagonist, their world and situation they find themselves in. This act typically ends with an inciting incident, which sets the story in motion and creates a problem that the protagonist must solve.
2. Act Two: The Confrontation, the second act is the longest act where the protagonist faces a series of obstacles as they work towards their goal. The act is divided into 2 parts: 1. where they have to encounter obstacles and 2. where they reach a major turning point.
3. Act Three: The Resolution, the third art where the story reaches its climax and resolution. The climax is the most intense and dramatic part of the story.

Week 4: Storyboard
   Storyboard in filmmaking is made up of series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing in motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. 
   It includes details such as camera angles, character movements, dialogue, and even notes about special effects or sound.

Week 5: Audio
    There are three important sound elements in a video : Speech, Sound effects and Music
 1. Types of Sound effects:- Sound effects have 2 types:
    Hard sound effects: Specific sounds that are added to a film to enhance a particular action or event, such as a door creaking, glass breaking, or a gunshot.
   Ambient effects: Background noise in a film, such as traffic, wind, or crowd noise, that helps to create a sense of environment and atmosphere.
2. Hertz :
    Unit used to measure the frequency of sound. Human hearing frequency ranges from 20hz to 20,000Hz. There are 7 subset of frequencies to help define the sounds:- Sub-bass, Bass, Lower Midrange, Midrange, Higher Midrange, Mid Treble, High Treble.
3. Decible: 
    Unit used to measure the loudness of sound. The threshold of human hearing ranges from 0db SPL to 130db SPL.
4. Space: There are two types :Mono and Stereo
    Mono sounds are recorded using a single audio channel.
    Stereo sounds are recorded using two audio channels.

Week 6: Colour Correction
Color correction refers to the process where every individual clip of a video footage is altered to match color temperature of multiple shots to a consistent technical standard of appearance. 
It’s about balancing out your colors, making the whites actually appear white, and the blacks actually appear black, and that everything in between is nice and even.



CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

Week 1 - Video Compiling Exercise
For Week 1, we were given basic run-through using Adobe Premier Pro. We compiled several scenes of 2 two ads together.

Video 1:
Figure 1.1 Video Compilation 1

Video 2:
Figure 1.2 Video Compilation 2


Week 2 - Shooting Exercise 1
For week 2, we were asked make groups of 2 or 3 to shoot the following shots of 5 secs each other. 
1. Low angle Wide shot
2. Front Medium Close up shot
3. Front Medium shot
4. Extreme Close up shot
5. Side angle Medium Shot
6. 3/4 angle Medium Close up shot
7. Eye level Medium Wide shot

Figure 1.3 Low angle Wide shot

Figure 1.4 Front Medium Close up shot

Figure 1.5 Front Medium shot

Figure 1.6 Extreme Close up shot

Figure 1.7 Low angle Wide shot

Figure 1.8 Low angle Wide shot

Figure 1.9 Eye level Medium Wide shot


Week 3 - Shooting Exercise 2
For week 3, we are given another set of shots to shoot of each other. These were the shots we had to take:
1. Deep focus foreground shot, Full body background shot
2. Over the shoulder on Medium Shot
3. Over the shoulder on Medium Wide Shot
4. Tight Medium Shot
5. Tight Medium Side angle Shot

Figure 1.10 Deep focus foreground shot, Full body background shot

Figure 1.11 Over the shoulder on Medium Shot

Figure 1.12 Over the shoulder on Medium Wide Shot

Figure 1.13 Tight Medium Shot

Figure 1.14 Tight Medium Side angle Shot



INSTRUCTIONS


Project 1: Audio Editing Exercises
This project is divided into 2 parts:-

1. Audio - Sound for Visual
Choose or record sound clips to be used to create sound effects to bring a video clip to live. The clips will be provided. Students are required to identify the visual components from the video clip that needs sound.
2. Audio - Sound Shaping
Students will be given a choice of scenarios and they have to pick one and create the soundscape for the chosen scenario.



PROJECT 1: AUDIO EDITING EXERCISES

A. Exercise 1 Sound for Visual
The first exercise requires us to use an existing clip from the movie 'Everything everywhere all at once' with no audio. The aim of the assignment is to find existing sound effects for the clip and record your own voice for the submission. The final submission is an MP4 video. 

Process
I began, by recording my own voice for the lines in the clip. 

Figure 1.1 Voice over

Then I imported my files into Premiere Pro. I then created separate folders for voiceovers and sound effects.

Figure 1.2 Assembling files

After which I first started by creating enough audio tracks for both the voice over and sound effects. I created 3 for voice, one for each person. I then began importing the audio files into the composition and trimming them. I also changed the pitch of the voice of the man and the woman, the man making it deeper and the woman making her voice higher. I kept the same voice for the old lady. Then I reduced the loudness of the audio to 6db.
Figure 1.3 Editing Voiceover files

I then began placing in the ambient noise, and reduced the loudness to less than -20db. I used the fluorescent light ambient noise, people talking, and the air conditioner ambient noise. Finally I added in the hard sound effects wherever necessary and adjusted the loundness. 
Figure 1.4 Ambient Noise

FINAL VIDEO FILE
Fig 1.5 Project 1 : Exercise 1

A. Exercise 2 Sound Shaping
existing The second exercise requires us to record a 5-7 second audio of your own voice and change the quality of the audio as if they are from different environments. These are the requirements as below: 
1.Voice of phone call.
2.Voice coming from inside of closet.
3.Voice of toilet/bathroom.
4.Underground cave.
5.Alien/ Orc voice
The final submission is in an MP3 audio file

Process
I first began with recording my voice for 7 seconds and importing it into Audition. My first sound shaping was to recreate the audio as if it is from a phone call. To do this I used a parametric equalizer, to bring down the trebble and the bass and bring up the midrange. 
Fig 2.1 Process Phone call audio

The second sound shaping was to make the audio micmic as if its coming from a closet. To do this the trebble needs to be brought down while the bass stays the same and the mid range needs to be brought up. 

Fig 2.2 Process Closet audio

For the audio coming out of the bathroom, I decided to use the effect reverb. Since the echo effect in the bathroom isn't significant, the distance between the Dry and wet output level isn't strong with the dry output level being slightly higher. I also changed other settings such as the Diffusion and perception to emulate the echoing effect.
Fig 2.3 Process Bathroom audio

In order to emulate the sound coming out of an underground cave, I reused the effect reverb. This time I exaggerated the setting to increase the echo and making the echoes to be louder than the original sound.
Fig 2.4 Process Underground Cave audio


Finally for the alien voice, I decided to combine the effect reverb and parametric equalizer. I use the parametric equalizer settings similar to a muffled sound coupled with the reverb settings to make the audio echo. 
Fig 2.5 Process Alien audio

FINAL AUDIO FILE
Fig 1.2 Audio 1: Alien

Fig 1.3 Audio 2: Bathroom

Fig 1.4 Audio 3: Closet

Fig 1.5 Audio 4: Phone Call

Fig 1.6 Audio 5: Underground Cave



REFLECTIONS

The sound shaping assignments was a good start to this module. It taught me the importance of sound within visual media. I also got a better hand at using Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe Audition after working on the two exercises. I learned immensely on the using of sound effects and voice over to dub over a video and the shaping of the quality of the sound. Overall it opened my eyes on the little details related to audio and the ability to manipulate them to fit the requirements. 



Comments