Evaluative Presentation

Ben Denny 1510153 Audio Engineering Assignment 2

Planning Stage 1
First I decided which clip I was going to use as the backdrop for my
soundscape.

I chose something with sounds I could reasonably recreate and also give me a
large amount of freedom for adding a lot more sounds

This lead me to choosing a cinematic trailer for World of Warcraft: Legion this
was because despite there being very specific sounds I would need. A lot of
the area is kept off screen which gives me a large amount of freedom which I
desired.

Link to the original clip if you would like to view it.

Planning Stage 2

My first course of action was to watch the section of the trailer I would be
using multiple times in order to generate the sounds that would be required
for me to use. And optional ones I could create and still be relevant to the
scene.
Second I went through my list and began generating Ideas for how I could
generate the relevant Foley for each of the sound effects. This included
research online of how other people obtained similar sounds and there
methodologies.
I then gained as much of the relevant equipment as possible I would need to
make these sound effects.
Asset Creation

For the asset creation process there was two different methods I used. With the
assets which required to be synced with the clip I had the clip in front of me and
attempted to match the tempo and rhythm/tempo of the action on screen this
was especially required for assets such as the quill writing
I was allowed more creativity on the acousmatic sounds as they didnt need to be
synced to as long as they were relevant to the tone they were correct and
promoted immersion.
The Second method was simply recording assets as I went and came up with ideas
out and about from recording animals at the zoo for possible use being the most
unusual.
Some assets where to complex to be made up of one sound so there are many
sounds which had to be combine and or edited in order to assist in creating an
effective sound scape.
Editing and Processing.

An example of how I created the thunder and rain within the clip is by
combining 2 recordings one of my roommate frying bacon which I
remembered from a clip shown on Moodle or in class. The other was a
recommendation from a friend who does sound design which was to get a
sheet of metal then bend and wave it to get a sound of waving / bending
metal and then dropping the pitch and octave extremely low in order to give
it the booming bass effect of an explosion
Another Example is creating wind using the combined sounds of me whistling
and a fan which was combined in order to get the two wind effects seen in
the clip.
Editing 2

The most common form of editing I had to do especially on Ad Hoc recordings

was background noise reduction this typically involved using the pre-sets
available on many different audio editing suites in order to do a Low Pass
filter
This allowed me to filter out the background I didnt desire and also
attenuate the sounds which I needed. However sometimes using these pre-
sets reduced the volume of the asset
This made Loudness an issue and also made some assets innapropriate and
had to be rerecorded which was unfortunate.
Improvements
If Id have had the money the sounds I would have recording ad hoc whilst around
would have been done using a proper microphone instead of my phone this was
because I didnt always intend to get recordings and didnt wish to take a
microphone out with me from the university
Unfortunately the above also caused loudness issues with some of my assets which
meant I had to Add Gain in order to use them and had to balance that to make
sure there wasnt a massive quality loss.
I would have also got more expensive products in order to create more accurate
Foley.
I would also have used a more advanced audio editing software whilst I was
editing at home as I could only use Logic Pro on Thornton. I used Audacity whilst at
home.
I would also have added music to the scene as the original scene is a very
emotional scene of a father sending a letter to his son as he leaves for war and
this emotion is conveyed using the leitmotif of his sons theme song which is the
theme of the entire expansion.
References
Creative Deviants. (2016, September 9). Gary Hecker - Top Foley Artist [Video
File] Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQs0UyK8958
Fratzolas, T [TEDx Talks]. (2016, March 21) The Beautiful Lies of Sound Design
| Tasos Fratzolas | TEDxAthens [Video File] Retrieved From
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDy5j0c6TrU
K.W Audio Productions. (2016, May 22) How to Thunder Foley [Video File]
Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSLiXfnn6Ao