Sound Elements

A part of my editing process was adding sound. As I mentioned in the previous post, I had to switch to iMovie as my editing software. Due to this, the audio layering capabilities that I was expecting to have access to on Adobe Premiere were no longer possible as audio layering on  iMovie is slightly more confusing/restricted. 

I ended up going with my plan to use the app “Acapella from PicPlayPost” to record Sophia’s voice and layer it over each other. I recorded two different videos, one with two layers of Sophia speaking and the second with six. I had her read excerpts from the travel magazines to make it seem as if her character were reading the same magazines in their head. 

Here are the videos:

     

Then, I went onto iMovie and separated the audio from these videos. I moved the audio to the clips where she is “thinking to herself” and then deleted their original videos. I was able to do this even with iMovie’s limited audio layering range because it allows for about 2-3 tracks (apart from the videos’ original audio of course) before it gets kind of confusing. The first track (Sophia reading) was set to the foreground and the second track (the background music) was set to the background. The third track I reserved for sound effects/foley. 

Sound effects/foley:

1. TYPING: I wanted to include typing sounds for the background of the first few shots so I recorded myself typing in the one room of my house where the air conditioning was not super loud (the bathroom). I just separated the audio from the video and added it where I wanted it. 

2. PHONE RING: I just screen-recorded the ringer that my phone uses and added it to the clip where it belonged. Even though the phone is meant to keep ringing I added a fade towards the end so that it appears to “fade” out of the character’s attention. 

3. YELL: There is a yell of frustration that I recorded from Sophia but it came out pretty bad. I will have to ask her to redo it when I see her today. 

The last sound element in my opening (apart from the shots’ original audio) is the background music. I removed it at the part of the opening that is the character’s moment of realization as I wanted this moment to be as noticeable to the viewer as it is to the character. However, it returned soon after to continue establishing a lighter/sillier mood. The song is copyright free and called “Itsudemo”.