I’m Famous. Seriously, scroll down and see

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261409/fullcredits#cast

Video Tutorial

Here’s another video tutorial on sound for film.

Editing Techniques

There was a great deal of editing to the effects that I captured. Generally, I’d spend one day recording, uusally a Monday, and then another day editing, usually Wednesday. Or vice versa depending on schedule and what I wanted to do for that day. The editing process was very detailed, and varied from effect to effect. Some sounds had very little editing, such as the Thunderstorm piece and water drip (aside from just some basic trimming for time). Trimming/cropping was probably the #1, as this sets the length of the effect, and removes unwanted material. After that, I tried to follow the same steps as I would for mixing music, using Trim and Pan first, EQ’ing using the 7-band on Pro-Tools, and then onto plug-ins. Reverb, Delays, Compression, Filters, Noise Reduction, Chorus’, Flangers, Pitch Shifting, Reversing/inverting, Fades………it all just depended on what effect I was working on as to what sounds were edited what way.  I also edited on multiple DAW’s, using both Pro-Tools and Adobe Audition. For simple effects, I like Audition since it has an easy interface and operates a bit quicker for simple tasks like adding reverb or just cut/copy. I used Pro-Tools when I wanted to get detailed with a sound, such as some of the Crouton crunches that I came up with. The 7-band EQ played a huge part in opening up some sounds, and then took off from there with plug-ins. I sometimes think I’m looney for spending 2 hours playing with and editing a sound that lasts all of 3 seconds.

Making the tutorial videos

I posted a couple of tutorial videos on this page, and wanted to take a moment to explain how I did it. I first had to grab some screen capture software. I decided to go with Debut. It’s freeware, and has a very easy to use interface. For the Cellephane/fire tutorial, I simply loaded up my initial video in Windows Media player, opened a session of Movie Maker and loaded in the same video, and also had the rough cut of my sound effect loaded in Adobe Audition. I brought up Debut, and then recorded my video. The Metal Scraping sound effect was almost the same way, with my sound already brought up in a session of Pro-Tools. I didn’t plan it out ahead of time, I just kind of played around with a few plug ins to make the sound different from the original.

Garage Recordings

Many of the recordings took place in the garage that was shown in the video a few months back. This is where my foley box and other noise makers were located. The mic technique here was pretty straightforward. I used the MXL Shotgun mic and got as close to the sound source for capture as possible. All of the power tools, some metal clanking sounds, and footsteps were recorded this way. I captured all audio on the Tascam DR-40 in mono mode. On a few occasions, I used the mics on the Tascam to get a different source to blend in during editing, but this was only done sparingly.

Thunderstorm recording

The thunderstorm is probably the best recording that I captured for this project. I actually recorded two, but the first one came during the day, and there’s is alot of excess noise going on. Cars driving by, my neighbors talking, there were some good parts, but alot of excess sounds. The second one I scored on. I was able to record at night, and there wasn’t anything else to be heard except the storm and the rain. I used a 3 mic setup for capture. I had my MXL pencil condensers in a spaced AB, and a shotgun mic center. I ran all 3 into a Mackie ProFX8 board, panning the MXL’s hard left and right, and the shotgun center. I took the main outs from the Mackie directly into my Mbox and into Pro-Tools. Awesomeness. Here’s a few pics of the setup.

The restaurant recordings

I got a large chunk of my effects from a recording session I did at the restaurant I work at. Obviously, there’s lots of stuff that makes noise, and I was able to get some really great sounds. Some of the stuff I got can be used as background ambience for a movie scene, others I manipulated to make all new effects. All of these sounds were recorded using my Tascam DR-40, and edited in either Pro-Tools or Adobe Audition. Here’s a few pics of some of the things that were recorded.