Sound – Hunted – Editing

Today I got all the atmosphere sound finished up and started placing in the dialogue. I’m using a separate track in the project for each element e.g. an atmosphere track, a music track, a track for each characters lines, and a few foley tracks.

I started laying in the dialogue for the character I played; Friend, working from the start of the film to the end. I would cue up the exact frame a line began with the time indicator by watching the mouth movement on the characters and basically lip reading. I then open the recording, set the in and out point so that I was selecting the line I wanted to add, and then drag it down to the timeline.

When recording I did multiple takes at different paces and with different inflections. This worked well when I began editing, for most of the lines at least one of the takes fit fine.

The one line I had a lot of problem with was; “I really think you shouldn’t mess with this.” In the film you can see I visibly drag out the “really” for a couple of beats, whereas on all three of my takes I just delivered it at the same pace as the rest of the words. Because of this none of the takes where fitting. My answer to this was to take me saying a drawn out “really” from another line and chop it into this one. Whilst this has sort of solved the timing issue it leaves the audio very choppy and I’m not very happy with the result. I thought it best to move on and not use up time on just that one line but I hope to go back to it and think of a better solution.

The lines sounded a bit quiet and I thought they should probably be the loudest thing in the film so I went in and changed every audio clips level to 5.

The atmosphere was pretty basic to do. I used markers to mark where the scene changed from flashback to present and just placed the appropriate recording under the right point in the film. For the flashback it was wild track we recorded whilst in the classroom, and for the outdoors I used a combination of a creepy forest sound from free sound and a wild track we recorded from the location. The reason I used a combination was that the free sound one was more atmospheric and creepy, with crows in the background etc., where as ours was more subtle and featured the occasional car passing. The free sound track would have been a bit too much if I had just used that; crows constantly shrieking and flapping, so I mainly used the one we recorded but faded to the free sound one on moments of drama like the stalkers reveal.

I tried to create a transition effect between the flashbacks and the present by overlapping the different atmosphere tracks slightly. I also sometimes used a specific effect to take us out of one location and bring us back to the other, like a crow calling or the class room clock ticking.

I also put in a bit of the foley sound, mainly all the stuff relating to walking; Vince’s bag moving, his footsteps on the different terrain etc. I key framed the audio level on the clips to match how close Vince was to the screen e.g. if he started out close and walked away from camera I would start the footsteps loud and fade them out.

Next to complete is the dialogue for Vince, the rest of the foley and the music.

Sound – Hunted – Indoor Foley + Dialogue

      

Today we completed the indoors Foley with an empty classroom as our location to match the scenes in the film. Along with the Foley we recorded the dialogue and voice over  For the dialogue we had the original film on the laptop to use as reference. By watch the line in the film before re-recording we could mimic the original delivery in speed and tone. We read the dialogue from a new script I had typed up rather than the original script for the project.

Foley sounds were footsteps in the room as well as many chair sounds; pulling out the chairs, sitting on them, throwing them back. We also recorded a wild track of the room’s atmosphere without any dialogue or sound effects to be placed over all the flashbacks to plug any moments of silence between effects or dialogue. The room had a clock on the wall and so I came up with the idea of recording the sound of it ticking. This could be placed in the background of the scenes but I think it might work as a sort of audio transition e.g. the ticking will fade in on the last shot of the stalking scene and transition into the flashback location

Sound – Hunted – Outside Foley

The foley for the film comes in two types, outdoors and indoors. Today we completed all the outdoors Foley; footsteps on grass, running on dry leaves etc. We recorded with a wind guard over the microphone to reduce wind distortion on the recordings.

When recording walking or running sounds we found it walked best for the microphone holder to record his own footsteps. If we tried to record each other the microphone picked up the microphone holders footsteps as they followed the subject, resulting in two sets of footsteps in the recording.

Most of the sounds we recorded where running and walking at different speeds and on different surfaces. We had stone paving, grass, soil, and dry leaves.

We also recorded twigs breaking so that we could play them just before the stalker appears as a subtle indication of his approach. This is mainly for the shot with Vince on the fence when he finally senses the Stalker. In the footage we shot it’s unclear what tips Vince off to the Stalkers presence, so I saw this sound dub as an opportunity to add a sound that alerts Vince to a figure behind him. The snap of a twig and the rustle of leaves should do the trick.

Another addition was Vince’s breathing and gasps. For the POV shot I always thought it played weird without any sort of noise from Vince; a yelp as he trips up or a gasp as he thinks he sees the Stalker. We recorded these sounds to be added in in editing.

When recording I took out a checklist where I noted down the sounds we needed to get and I ticked them off as we recorded them.

Sound – Hunted – Recording clothing rustles

One sound I really want to get in the film is all the rustling of coats and clothing. I tried to do a bit of it in my Wire re-dub and I though it really made the scene sound more realistic. I think it would work to great effect in the hunted film, given that a lot of the film has no dialogue and is just Vince walking around. The more realistic it sounds the creepier it becomes. I might even not play any music and turn up the sound effects, almost making the audience hyper-sensitive.

I got the actual shirt I wore when playing Friend and moved it about, recording the sound of rolling up the sleeves etc. I also got the coat I used for the stalker and swished it around. This was mainly for the shot where he grabs Vince; I wanted him to really whoosh forward. But I also thought that a flap of the coat could play just before the Stalker appears on screen, as if that’s him appearing at super speed.