Sound design for the Animatic

Well I had a lot of fun editing my own voice, mainly by adjusting the pitch in Adobe Audition. The idea is that hopefully my characters won't need to speak our language but a high-pitched version of random sounds just to give them a bit of life. Let's hope it works :)

Original sounds (DON'T LAUGH)



Edited sounds (cuuute overload):

Adobe Audition Exercises

We didn't do a lot of exercises for Adobe Audition with Matt, but the software was easy enough to get into without the need of long tutorials. However, I took some screenshots as a proof I actually followed the lessons :)

Applying filters:

 Delay and Echo:

 Fade In and Fade Out in the Multitrack window

 Stretch and Pitch:

 Using envelopes in the Multitrack

Post-produced SFX

Original SFX + Description

Here is the playlist of the original sounds I recorded, the name of every sound file is the actual recorded object or thing so hopefully no need of additional description :)

Soundscape Submission Post

Sonic Concept

"The Creepy Crawlies" (Image 1 on my Sonic concept):




"The Blossom" (Image 2 on my Sonic Concept):



"Inception" (Image 3 on my Sonic Concept):

Editing speech in Adobe Premiere

I realized the speech in my animatic is very clunky, after a bit of research it turns out that a more realistic outcome can be achieved using a slight fade in and out at the beginning and the end of the speech, imitating breathing in and out. I must say it really works :)

FSTS: Editing the sounds for the animatic

Well editing the sounds for the animatic is quicker than I expected. A chunk of the generic sounds are downloaded for free from freesound.org and they include:
-The Camera Click
-The Creepy Organ Loop
-A lion Roar
-A whip Sound
You can hear them (unedited of course) here:



Then my next step was to edit, cut and crop some of them and turn them into sounds that can fit my animatic well. I used Adobe Audition for that and mostly the stretch and pitch tools plus some of the echo effects and the reverse for a little bit more of a variety:


Finally I needed to record myself singing a creepy song (obviously) it needed to be a mix of the "Suspiria" soundtrack and the lullaby in "Pan's Labyrinth" (my favourite film in the whole wide world) but at the end everything sounded a bit too much like either of those two sadly, this is the original (get ready for giggles):


And since that wasn't enough I had to record something that sounds like a Merry Go Round, so that it fits with the idea of a circus setting. Sadly there aren't many of those around in Maidstone so I improvised with on of those manual whisks placed in a big mug. This is the original sound:



And the final background music for the animatic was made using those two sounds + the creepy organ loop. I think it turned out quite well, if I had a little bit more time I would have extended my "lalala" song (all rights reserved) a bit more so it flows better, but we have to chase the deadlines after all :) Here it is:



Now all that's left is get a hold of Julien as his french accent will be perfect for my characters. Update soon to follow :)

David Farmer - Sound Designer Profile

David Farmer