Sound design:
I carefully watched the clip ‘Lifted’ multiple times to decide which section I wanted to focus on in my studio session for this Foley exercise.
Once decided, I began to map out what things I would record to fit the scene and where to put them. I took a range of different objects into the studio with me, for example, tinsel (tree rustling), empty glass bottles (abduction noise) and spaghetti (branch cracks).
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I also recorded different ambient noises that would fit the two different settings of the short movie. To capture the inside of a large spacious UFO, I placed my microphone next to an air vent in the studio, and for the outdoor nighttime stetting I placed my microphone outside of my university house and recorded the sound of the night.
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Challenges:
The challenges I faced when completing this exercise began with deciding what objects I could record to create a sound effect for something unrealistic.
e.g. Swivel chair being pushed across a solid floor - It was completely unrealistic to record the sound of a chair with wheels rolling across a solid flooring, as there would be no space large enough with the right sound quality along with enough sound proofing to provide a professional recording. Overcoming this, I rolled a glass cup along a wooden table which emulated the sound of the chair rolling across the floor instead.
I also struggled at making the recordings cohesive, and work together well due to the frequent cut scenes to different perspectives throughout the clip.
The recordings initially sounded jumpy, and randomly thrown together and this took some time in the mixing stage to fix, through many crossfades and edits. I also made this problem easier by recording different sounds in the studio from different distances from the microphone, to capture different tonal qualities and to vary the volume, pre-production.
