Critical Evaluation

When I was handed the clips to choose from: Delicatessen, Solaris 2, Oblivion, There will be blood, and The Road, I chose to do Oblivion. My reasoning behind this was that I have always been curious about science fiction sound, and how it works. I figured I could be more creative with Oblivion, where as the others you were tied down by rules, and creative freedom would be limited.

Having chosen oblivion, I set about researching how science fiction sounds done, and the only real advice that was consistent, was to get fan sounds, or anything with a certain hum, to help guide the piece through. Besides that, everything else I improvised. Certain sounds including a treadmill and a gun being locked and loaded were challenging, as I did not have access to these.

This realization, lead to a technique that all sound guys use, cheating the sound. I was determined not to use a single piece of copyrighted footage, or sound bites from the Internet, and I am proud to say that I myself originally create everything in the finished piece. To cheat the sound, you basically have to look at an image, and then try to recreate the sound it would make using something completely different. The most widely know example of this, is snapping a stick of celery to create the sound of a bone being broken.

I also got to use a keyboard in pro tools for the first time. This is not down to being unable to use it; it is purely down to the fact I have not had a reason to use it before. I wish I had, as they keyboard within pro tools was a simple thing to use, yet opened up a wide variety of options. The vastness of different instruments you could use within pro tools from this small keyboard amazed me, and it is definitely something I will aim to use in future projects.

The new microphones, the NT4 and 416, were particularly useful. I loved using the 416 as it picked out specific things, and made sounds a lot easier to EQ in post. The original sound bites in comparison to the sound in the final piece contrasts greatly. On my third recording session their was a fuzz in every single clip, but thanks to the wednt audio mixer and 416, it picked out the frequency the sound was at, and muted the fuzz on that particular frequency, meaning that changing the frequency’s did no major damage to the core sound.  My tutors simple teaching methods, helped me to grasp the concept of new hardware tools and new, unfamiliar concepts of software, with little issue. I would say it has definitely been a project I have been able to relax and enjoy letting my minds ideas flow.

Now to analyze the final project, I highly doubt it will be an overwhelming success. There are faults, but I believe the pros will out weigh the cons in this scenario.

To start of with, I will look at the pros, or at least what I believe are the strong points of the piece. To start with, I will go right to the end. I made the decision early to have the piece end on sound track. This meant for a lot of the editing process, from where Cruises character is stood at the foot of the stairs the piece was silent. I wanted the closing shot to have a nice build up with a fairly dramatic sound track, as it is the first time you see this weird structure in the film. I have not actually watched the film, so this is pure speculation, but I deliberately avoided watching the film, not due to laziness, but to leave my options open for designing the project, and not be influence by a previous viewing.  In my mind I was the sound designer and Foley artist for this film.

By the end of the process, instead of a big sound build up, I decided to have a simple space of music on one track, which is a soft string symphony sound, which evokes a mixed feeling of peace and sadness when looking at the film over the top of it. I believe this simple sound track, make the ending fade tie in nicely, and leaves the clip ending on a high note.

Another positive is the beginning, which I really like for the way I use the flicker sound to both introduce and single the end of the opening scene. The way I make the public fade out just as the drone kicks in, really builds up tension in the piece early on, which drags the viewer right in. The big echoing thud I put in when it cuts to black, in my mind represents the catastrophe that ends the world and also singles Tom cruises subconscious shutting down, allowing him to wake up in the next scene.

Another aspect of the film that I feel is a double-edged sword, both positive and negatively, is the thin layer of sounds. From the start, I never intended to over load the sound design, because to much sound makes some sounds become redundant and over powered by other sounds that may impact the surface of the visuals but fail to add depth with the drowned out sound provides. The thin layer of sounds throughout the piece, works well on one hand, because it shows that science fiction does not have to be a mesh of sound and visuals, to be compelling, but on the other hand, the thin layer, which has a maximum of three sounds coinciding at once, makes it so that the individual sounds have to do more. The piece sort of relies on the fact that the sound, which at certain points stands alone, can carry the piece and tell the story of what is going on visually.

Another double-edged sword within the piece is the few seconds of total silence for the space shot. I refuse to put sound on any space shot unless it’s an astronaut communicating on a radio, as the rules of space state that there is no sound in space, so I deliberately had that sound blank. I faded out the sounds on the shot preceding it in order to brace the audience, and even begin to fade in the sound for the next shot, in order to make the total silence less jarring, but it is down to the viewer if it works or not. I think it works as a transition between two moods, as the shot directly follows a montage of foreboding atmospheric shots and sounds. It acts as a transition between the negative first half and the more ‘look on the bright side’ style sound of the second half.

One negative I will say is the lack of sound during the touch pad shots. I didn’t believe that they would have audio with the security footage, so I avoided doing sound for that, but then that just left the shots with the following sounds: atmospheric, footsteps, crunch, beeping buttons.  In short it leaves a basic skeleton, making it the definite week point, within the piece.

Ways of improvement, I would say to definitely add another layer of sound, and maybe play around with they keyboard a little more, as it is definitely something

I would love to use a lot more and experiment with.  I would also do more with the touch pad scene, as at some points the piece feels a little empty.

Looking at the piece as a whole, I am happy with how its turned out; at one point I was worried I wouldn’t get the sounds recorded on time, that I wouldn’t have enough, that I wouldn’t get it finished. I look at the finished piece, and I have grown to appreciate how crucial it is to sound edit and replace much of what’s in the film, as the software allows things to open up more and more options get made available. Without sound the visuals on screen would be nothing, and I have grown to enjoy sound design a lot.

I think my sound design does it job of taking the audience through a dark period before coming out with a more positive outlook on a positive situation. The way I have cheated some of the sounds and created a well structured science fiction soundtrack without having to resort to getting sounds of the internet, has really boost my confidence in the sound editing department, should I ever need to do it again.

Is it the best I could do? I don’t think so, as I believe there is always room for improvement , and there are several things I would have liked to do had I prioritized my time better, but for the purpose of this project, I am pleased, I am just disappointed that the levels make the piece very quiet on speakers during playback.