Understanding media album (task 2)

Understand how sound elements are produced for media products

There are many different types of sound elements and there are also many ways in which they can be produced. I am going to discuss a few of them here.

Sound effects

There are many different ways sound effects can be recorded. What a sound designer will do is find something that sounds exactly the same as the sound they are trying to create. For example waving a pair of gloves can sound like a bird flapping. This is called Foley
The one I am going to focus on is the lightsaber sound from star wars. That one was designed by recording a sound of a projector, and then interference from a TV signal. These two sounds were then mixed. A contact microphone was used to record them both. A contact microphone is like a regular microphone, except it records the audio vibrations through the object, and not air vibrations.

Atmospheric sound

To record atmospheric sounds, e.g. someone’s footsteps on gravel, the best and easiest way to do this is to use a pair of microphones so the sound captured is in true stereo form. Also, it makes sure that the sound captured is in its best quality, and is as real as possible. Obviously this depends on the microphones being used.

Music

When artists are composing music for a film, they produce a film score which is a combined product of music, usually dialog and sound effects. The composer will compose the score, andthen the dialog and effects will be added and I will be edited for the final cut later on.
A film score includes cues which are timed to enhance the film and these could be for dramatic effect, or to make the scene seems more emotional.

Dialog

Sometimes multiple cameras are used to record dialog so the image is captured from different angles. However, there may just be a static camera recording the actor/actress.