What is a Sound Effect?

Hard Effects:

Hard Effects intend to work for images on screen. Many effects used in this category include car horns, gunshots, and punches. The performance is not an issue, when comparing with Foley the performance is important to make it seem convincing.

Foley Sound Effects:

Foley, name after sound artist Jack Foley is the key process of performing sounds in sync with visual picture. With Foley, the common effects used are footsteps, clothes movement, and impacts which give off this sense of realism.

Background Effects:

This is also known as ambiences or atmos. The sounds intend to fill in the empty space on screen and give the user a sense of location and surroundings within the environment. These include traffic, room tone, and wind. They do not intend to have a relationship with any specific event on screen.

Electronic Sound Effects/Production Elements:

Popular sound effects for science fiction effects in the 60s and 70s. Many production elements are the electric static, zips, and whooshes heard during radio station IDs. Synthesizers and keyboards are an important aspect. Many are then processed or filtered to alter the sound effect.

Sound Design Effects:

These effects can range from a pin drop. Sound designers that have mastered the manipulation of sound waves to create a realistic approach to sound effects.

Creating the mood with Sound Effects

There are quite a few videos that have inspired me for my project and they come from a game called Bioshock Infinite. 

The sounds used to create the mood are fantastic and can be seen right from the very intro of the game with the first sounds of a piano as the camera pans and show it's unique location of the floating city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYpAOY-Cy8s

That 'feel' you get is almost as if you are floating and always capturing various images in your mind. Thinking about the surroundings and how they sound.

Another part of the game you enter an amusements with games and really old types of machines. 

The way in which you interact with characters and the sound effects within this really sets the mood and general feel of the room with the nostalgia type of sounds.

http://youtu.be/84fbOaNXFAI?t=1m55s

You can also hear various different sounds whilst exploring the room which relate to this arcade surrounding.

The Ten Sound Editing Commandments

1. Thou Shalt Name Thy Sound 

2. Thou Shalt Save Often 

3. Thou Shalt Work Non-Destructively 

4. Thou Shalt Copy Thy Media Files from Thy Sessions 

5. Thou Shalt Crop Thy Sound 

6. Thou Shalt Honor the Stereo Field to Keep It Even 

7. Thou Shalt Not Cut Off Thy Sound 

8. Thou Shalt Remove Unholy Clicks and Pops from Thy Sound 

9. Thou Shalt Use Wisdom in Making Thy Cut 

10. Thou Shalt Protect Thy Ears 

Ric Viers, The Sound Bible P.171 The Ten Sound Editing Commandments

Research and Atmos

I found a video on the sound design about the film Life of Pi. I really found this interesting in terms of recording the atmosphere and different techniques they used to create effects that really brings you into the film. 

SoundWorks Collection - The Sound of The Life of Pi from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Mood, Sense of Place

During Easter Holidays I was able to visit Bridlington and record many of my sounds needed for my project.

I captured many sounds such as:

Seagulls

Amusements

Pebbles/Footsteps

Waves/Sea

Atmos

Children playing

Above are some of the images I captured whilst I was there. It was a very cold day however I enjoyed the whole process very much. Now onto editing..