Post Production Log #2

📆 Date: 20.02.2024 - 25.02.2024

📍 Location: Home

💻 Device: ASUS VivoBook 15

💾 Software: DaVinci Resolve

Day 1: Tuesday, February 20

After the continuity was done, I started with the sound design for my film opening. This process took a lot longer than I expected as whenever I think that the sound is done, there will always be a certain part where I wanted to add in a sound or change its volume and speed. The source of sound effects that I used during the process is Freesound.org and I find it extremely useful for my film opening sequence.

This is the very first look of the process and in the picture, you can see that I'm editing the breaking news sound. I knew right away after the continuity editing that the breaking news would cause me a lot of stress because of how not in sync it is with the footage. 

My initial idea was to have the breaking news playing in the background when I was filming all the scenes in the living room to create the realistic effect that the breaking news was currently playing at the time that the event happened (You could refer to my Production Day 3Production Day 3 blog to see my attempt at playing the breaking news while filming at the same time in the behind the scenes vlog).

Since I filmed almost all the footage that is set at my house was filmed with background music of the breaking news, therefore there is a limit to each footage and I didn't film it to be a bit longer than needed, which leads to another challenge that is to work with the footage that I'm able to film.

Regarding the atmospheric sound, I have looked for a long rain sound effect to apply to the whole beginning of the film's opening sequence. For the thunderstorms, I attempted to use a wide range of thunderstorms to make it more realistic. For sounds that are too 'fake' or don't match my film, I have adjusted the pitch of the sound to make it fit better with the overall film opening. 

At the end of Day 1 of Sound Design, I was only able to try and fix the breaking news sound and make it as smooth as I could, as well as match the news at the exact time when my character turns her head and gets surprised by the news. Not a lot of work could be done on the first day but I decided to spend more time to work the news part another day. Nevertheless, I did try and attempt to use the initial background music of the breaking news and let it play for the whole section filmed at my house, and then added the layers of news on top, which doesn't work so well and changes will need to be made.

Day 2: Thursday, February 22

On the second day, I spend a lot more time working on the breaking news part. I also decided to cut the breaking news into different layers to adjust the volume accordingly. As a POV shot is shown, the breaking news will be smaller compared to a wide shot where the camera is set closer to the source of the sound, which is the TV. However, even though I have found a better idea to work with the breaking news, there are still cuts in between the shots and it doesn't match with my character's action. 

After a lot of work and hours later, I could finally settle the breaking news and move on to other sound effects. I also decided to rename the different layers of sound to have it more organized as in the end, I have around 20 layers of sounds so renaming the layers really does help a lot when I want to come back to a specific sound and edit it. 

Besides the breaking news, there are also a few sounds that I call 'additional sound' (which is either sound that I forgot to record during the filming process, is too small to be heard in the footage, or there is a background sound that can't be removed). There are additional sounds such as screams, which I could take from an online source and adjust the pitch to match my actor's voice, but there are very specific sounds such as opening the letter where it need to be recorded separately. Since I was alone editing my film, I just decided to record all the additional sound by myself. 

Furthermore, I try to care about the very small details in each of the shots to add in the sound which may help it sound and look more realistic. Sound such as blood dripping, footsteps, or door opening are all added to help the film opening be more realistic and have more depth to it. 

On the right is a video of me watching and monitoring the footage, as well as trying my best to imitate and replicate the action to record the sound of opening the letter and I think it turned out better than expected. The picture on the left is just how the timeline of my sound design looked when I was editing the opening of the letter footage.  

Heavy breathing was also an additional sound that I needed to add because it is a bit hard to hear and I also repeated the same process that I did to the opening letter scene, the only difference is that I recorded the sound and did not film me doing it because I just want the sound to be a bit clearer and fewer background noises are heard.

Day 3: Sunday, February 25

Constant improvements and additions were made to the sound during the week that I have been doing sound design in the end, I have a list of sounds that I have used and collected from the website, Freesound.org which is exceptionally helpful for this project, especially during the stage of sound design.

I think that I have done better than what I imagined the sound design would be. Despite so, there is still a lot of room for improvement and as I mentioned above, I still come back to edit my sound here and there after rough cut #2, and the final outcome sound effect does have a significant difference from the initial sound design that I have done. 

Result: Rough Cut #2

Please refer to Rough Cut #2 to view the evaluation.

Or please refer to Post Production Log #3 for the continuation of the post-production process.