Sound editing (unit 24)

What are the reasons you might edit sound?

The reason why sound editing is an important part of the editing process is because,
hearing is one of the two senses used when watching films (sight and hearing). If the
sound matches to the footage, the audience will be more easily drawn in. During
sound editing, certain sounds can be enchanted.

-Foley sounds
-add depth
-increasing pitch/volume

 To compress and summaries a sound recording to fit a

specific space
(e.g. sound builds to add breaks)

For example, during a football match, just before the commercial break, the audio
slightly changes in order to build up this change, so it doesn’t feel like it’s being
plainly cut from the football game. The voice overs stop and let the ambient noise go
on for a little bit before fading away into the add break.
In all TV series before the ‘Netflix’ era, this was very commonly found, as
commercial adverts would interrupt TV series mid-episode. The audio cuts off
usually after the end of a sentence, rather than mid-sentence, as this would confuse
the audience. The video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUe7BVeE7Ak

 To eliminate flawed, repetitive, uninteresting or irrelevant

material from a recorded clip
(e.g. cutting original audio of a footage to place voiceover)
For example, during an interview, different footage can be shown as additional clips
to the interview itself.

 To enable recorded speech to remain legal

(e.g. Having sound broadcasted at a specific volume so it’s not too quiet or too loud
or after 9pm violent content)

 To ensure any in decent or inappropriate language is edited

out
(e.g. bleeping out swear words)

 To change the chronological or logical order of a series of

sounds or speech
(e.g. when you cut up speech to change things that are said around. Usually used in
interviews or interviews to remove speech which someone may not want to be aired
for whatever reason)

 To create impact by adding sound effects and/or music

between pieces of recorded speech.
(e.g. Done to create meaning, build tension and add to credibility. As well as sound
effects to edit fictional sounds such as dinosaur or monster sounds)

Editing fictional sound

 Applying creative editing skills to produce dramatic sound

that is acceptable to the director
(e.g. the western music to foreshadow the shootout or standoff, using
conventions to give us an idea, music shows the pacing and to create tension
and effect, music isn’t too quiet its quiet for a specific reason)
KICK ASS (2010) hit girl’s final battle

 Editing appropriate clips, background sounds to enhance the

dramatic effect on the audience such as in a drama, soap,
play
(e.g. sound of the wire/rope is exaggerated to bring the audience’s focus to it)
KICK ASS (2010) hit girl’s final battle

 Apply the necessary level of creative storytelling to facilitate

the narrative
(e.g. Choice of music is very intense and therefore makes the scene more
stressful, the music accompanies what happens in the screen. The audio pushes
the footage along. The intensity of the music increases with the action and the
volume of the music is appropriate for the tone.)
The pale man scene

 Retaining ambient background to recordings and editing in

spot effects to match director’s needs
The pale man scene
(e.g. sound of the fire
-fairies sound like rats, calls attention to certain parts. Re-verb in order to reflect
the space or location – stone cave/dinner room (adding credibility)

 Editing relevant sound clips to use in transitions between

scenes
(e.g. police sirens are usually used for this purpose)

 Editing voice actor dialogue for overdubbing

Fictional Film’s sound analysis

Parasite – Cleaning the house scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7JPNXt_oqM

Director Bong Joon-ho, and his sound time ensured there was quality sound editing
to Parasite. This whole film is a great example for sound editing, but in particular this
scene, has a great deal of sound that has been edited in with a purpose of building
up tension, as this scene is very intense and is building up the arrival of the family.

The sound that has been edited into the entire scene is the classical music, the
string orchestra is one of the components of this scene which best helps to build
tension, the pace is very fast and, the volume changes throughout the scene to
indicates the most intense moments in the scene. For example, in the whole first
minute, the music is loud whilst the Kim family rush to clean the house (and the
audience doesn’t know if they will complete this in time). The music volume builds up
the family arriving home and once they do the music decreases in both tempo and
volume (because we think the Kim family managed to clean the house just in time).
The music is quiet as they arrive through the house, but once again the volume
starts gradually increasing pretty quickly as the audience realizes that the only thing
that can give away the Kim family is the woman whom is escaping and running up
the stairs. The tempo of the music is very quick and builds up to the loudest point
which ends with the woman being kicked down the stairs (at 1:40), where the music
finally stops, and the tension is released.

There are many Foley sounds that have been added in for effect into this scene.
Starting with the sound of the clutter being pushed away from the table at the
beginning of the scene, in order to show the number of things in the table. Then the
sound of the running tap (at 00:08) has been edited in so it can be clearly heard
through the shots of that room.

There are also Foley sounds for the sounds of the bare feet of the family as they run
through the house throughout the scene, these are very loud and clear and are there
to highlight the rushed, faced paced atmosphere of the scene through the sound
editing of these steps. The sound of the glass as it is pushed away (at 00:22), is also
edited in as the camera microphone wouldn’t be able to capture the sound in the
same way in which it sounds like in the final edit with the Foley. Lastly, I believe the
most important Foley sound that has been edited in as at the end of the scene (at
1:41), as the sounds of the woman falling down the stairs are loud and clear, as the
whole scene has built up to this moment. The effect of being able to hear clearly the
sound of her head banging on the stairs and finally the wall, is very effective in
making the audience feel uncomfortable watching this. I believe that the sound
editing really adds a sense of realness to the scene, and subconsciously makes the
audience feel more involved, as they can clearly hear the sounds of things such as
chopping, clutter and glass almost as if they were next to them.
Kickass - Hit girl’s final battle
(Minutes 1 to 3:22)

In Matthew Vaughn’s Kickass, there are some scenes with very accurate and
generic yet effective sound editing to match the genre of the film (comedy/action).
The final scene begins with the diagetic speech of the characters and the sound of
the gun as it is flipped. The sound the gun makes couldn’t be possibly be picked up
by a microphone at that distance therefore, it is most likely recorded later on and
added to the scene through sound editing. This sound editing helps draw the
audience’s attention to the gun, suggesting it may be important to the scene. There
is another layer of sound added through sound editing, this time non-diagetic music.
The level of the music increases throughout the scene, as it is building up to the
standoff between the hit girl and the men. Furthermore, this old-western style music
used, is usually associated to old Cowboy movie stand-off gun confrontation, which
foreshadows to the audience what the scene is building up to.

The sound of the gunshots is also later added by the sound editing team in post-
production, once again to increase the dramatic effect of the gunshots. There is a
change of beat in the background song after Hit girl shoots down the men,
suggesting a sense of victory in the ‘stand-off’. After this, there is another change in
music, this time the music transitions into a completely different tone as the shot
transitions onto the next one with the man. The music then becomes suspenseful
and rather sad in order to manipulate the audience into feeling sympathy for the
character, now that the atmosphere has transitioned into a sadder one. There is
another sound layer added of a voice over, voicing the thoughts of the character in
the shot, in order to help the audience, understand what is going through his head in
that scene. As the voice over becomes more hopeful, the music also changes tone
to become more hopeful and epic. This shows how the music is shown to portray
and intensify the feelings of the character and unconsciously trick the audience onto
feeling these too.

Later in the scene, there are great number of good examples of background sound
editing, as there is a lot of attention to sound detail in this film. An example of this is
the sound of the wire/rope which is clearly exaggerated by the sound editing team to
bring the audience’s attention to it, and show it is important in the context of the
scene. This enhances the dramatic effect on the audience and can even be used to
build up tension as the attention to the sound of the rope is building up to an event
which will involve this.
Booksmart – Amy and Molly fight scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QBrLI2UX1M
(0:50 to )

Booksmart was a coming-of-age comedy directed by Olivia Wilde. Due to the nature
of the genre, the atmosphere for most of this film is fun and happy. On the other
hand, this particular scene in which the main two characters fall out, is meant to
achieve the opposite mood to this. The way in which the director decided to re-
enforce the melancholic mood for this scene, is mainly through the sound editing.

At the beginning of the scene there is no digetic ambient sound of the party, there is
only sad piano music playing. The fact that you can’t hear any of the background
noise, can suggest that the character we are following around is blocking out in her
head all the noise around her. The melancholic reinforces to the audience the mood
of the character and is used to foreshadow that a sad event is about to take place.
Once the character finds her friend, she is brought back to reality, this is shown
through the sound editing as the (non-digetic) music begins to fade out, whilst the
ambient sounds of the party fade in, this is in preparation for the dialogue between
the two characters. At the point in which the music fades away, there is only diagetic
sounds from the scene such as the speech and background ambient sounds and
chattering from the party, although the sound level of the speech from the two girls is
notably higher in order for the audience to hear them clearly.

As the volume and tone of the argument between the two characters intensifies, the
music begins to fade in once again quietly. This can represent, the sadness which is
once again taking over the focus of the scene, rather than the conversation itself.
The music helps intensify the emotions of the audience. music becomes gradually
louder until it’s loud enough and the digetic sounds of the dialogue and ambient
sounds completely disappear, even though the characters are still arguing, similarly
to the beginning of the scene. This sound editing technique can be used to represent
the fact that the main characters have once again blocked out all the sound around
them as they are taken over by sadness and anger represented by the intense sad
piano music playing. The music is used very effectively in this scene to serve
different purposes, one of them being enhancing the emotional impact that this
scene will have upon the audience.
Editing documentary sound

 Ethical editing of factual material to retain the essential intended

meaning of the spoken word
Not interfering through sound editing to misrepresent how someone who is
speaking

 Retaining ambient background noise of original recordings ad paying

attention to differences

 News stories – location reports, studio presenter dialogue

 Documentary – retaining the original intention and resisting the desire to

introduce misrepresentation for the sake o9f continuity and polish

Documentary sound analysis

Grey Gardens

Directed by David and Albert Maysles, Grey Gardens is an American documentary

released in the mid-seventies. It follows the day-to-day lives of a mother and
daughter in a Mansion in New York. Grey Garden’s approach to filming as well as
editing and sound editing, are considered to be a key changing point in the
documentary production’s style of that era.

In this section of the documentary, there clearly isn’t many layers of sound, meaning
most of the audio, if not all, has all been recorded at once whilst filming the scene,
and therefore there isn’t too much sound editing. This creates a very organic feel
which makes the audience feel like this documentary is quite authentic in nature.
This type of cinema is inspired by Cinema Verité, which is a French style of film
which aims to feel as truthful as possible. After the introduction of portable as well as
cheaper cameras introduced near this time, facilitated direct-cinema and this
particular style of documentary.

Furthermore, the fact that the sound isn’t tempered with throughout this
documentary, meaning they are not doings things such as changing the
chronological order of a series of speech to change around the meaning, or editing in
sound effect for dramatic purposes, adds to idea of ethical sound editing in non-
fictional productions. This level of authenticity feels relevant as the narrative of this
documentary follows around the day-to-day lives of two real women and their real
opinions and views on life. The same way in which it would be unethical to tell the
women in the documentary what they should say in interviews, it would also be
unethical to edit the sound and cut it or rephrase it to shift the meaning of what it is
they say. In Grey Gardens there isn’t any sounds edited in which weren’t recorded at
the scene at the time of filming. The use of ethical sound editing in Grey Gardens
was revolutionary in the documentary production movement of the time.

It is also notable from the woman’s speech, that the audience can get a clear sense
of the person she is, as her speech and tone in relation to the scene have a very
natural and organic feel. The way in which she speaks in this interview is soothing
and relaxing, and this enriched by all the natural sounds from her surroundings
creating background. The volume of the different sounds hasn’t been tempered with
as they are all recorded at once by the same microphone, therefore the audience
feels as if they are placed in the spot where the microphone is, and can hear all the
sounds (such as speech and nature background sounds) at the candid volume they
would be in in that spot. This adds to the realistic and sincere nature of Grey
Gardens. There is clearly not too much sound editing in this scene as this
documentary’s tone aims to create a representation of reality. The overall volume
level is rather on the quieter side, no sound is ever never too loud or obnoxious, this
creates a better nature of sound for factual content. The sound to this documentary
plays one of the biggest, (if not the biggest), factor to making the audience feel
tranquility as they take in the information from the documentary in a very peculiar yet
effective way.

Life that Glows

https://youtu.be/K_E4Pn3D4M8

Life that Glows is a British nature documentary directed by Joe Loncraine and
narrated by David Attenborough, who is a worldwide fan favourite nature
documentary presenter. Due to this BBC documentary having a large budget, there
is a lot of thought to every aspect and detail of the documentary, specially in sound
editing, as it is a key feature of the documentary, which accompanies the visual
aspect to create this style of documentary; an energetic and powerful one.

Throughout the introduction section to the documentary, there are various sound
layers, all edited at different times and at different levels and achieve different
purposes. The first sound layer is the music introduced is the music, which is edited
to fade in slow and smooth way which isn’t disruptive to the audience. The tone of
the music is curious meandering, which helps subconsciously convey these
emotions upon the audience, who will feel engaged with the documentary almost
immediately. On top of this sound layer, there is another formed of the diagetic
sounds of the natural environment shown in the shots. This helps establish the
setting through sound and almost ‘place’ the audience in that setting. The clean bird
sounds as well as the owl hoots, were clearly added in post-production as they
weren’t recorded alongside the footage. It is most likely that the editors bought the
rights to some of these sounds in order to have high-quality pre-recorded sounds.
This is possible for this documentary, due to the budget. These natural sounds are
the loudest sound layer at the very beginning, as they are being used to set the
scene as well as the documentary as a whole, therefore the music is used to
accompany the diagetic sounds of the birds to intensify the scene. But as the music
gradually increases in volume up to second 0:06, it becomes the central focus point
of the sound.

Then a third layer of sound is introduced – this is the narration by David

Attenborough. This voice over plays in a J-cut through the nature shots before we
are introduced to Attenborough on screen. As soon as the voice-over is introduced,
the sound layers of the natural ambient sounds and the music decrease in volume,
allowing his voice to be the main focus, as well as allowing the audience to clearly
listen to every word he is saying. His powerful voice and narration further intensifies
this breath taking journey that the audience goes through alongside Attenborough
through this documentary. Once he is introduced in the shot, there is a change in
tone of the music, becoming more intriguing and intense, suggesting that what is
being revealed to the audience through the speech is key information. This change
of tone gives the sensation of building up to something extraordinary. All these
feelings are mostly shifted in the audience through the sound editing.

Towards the end of the narration section (around 0:30), the music begins to increase
in volume, as the audience watches these very fast-paced shots, the sound has
been edited create a build up to an intense and loud music section in which
everything seems ‘deeply extraordinary and intense’, as the music plays a major role
in really building up to the rest of the documentary, and it builds up the most for the
titles. In fact, it almost seems as if every time David Attenborough is silent, the music
seems to almost speak for him and portray the same powerful messages.
Furthermore, on top of the music, there is another sound layer of sound effects,
probably also purchased from a sound effect company, to accompany the music as
well as the movements of the screen, further adding to the deep and energetic
atmosphere of the scene.

In conclusion, the sound editing for this introduction, gives a very powerful start to
the documentary and really grabs the audience’s attention and excitement for the
rest of the documentary. This is a great example of how sound editing can be used
in documentary to add emotion.
Tiger King (Liger attacks Joe Exotic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj609-E9ALc

In this peculiar true crime documentary directed by Eric Goode and Rebecca
Chaiklin, there is very good sound editing. Most of the footage they use are from
found existing videos, like in the beginning of this scene, and the fact that they don’t
do any editing to that already existing audio from the video, makes the audience feel
the authenticity of the video, once again linking to Cinema Verité, in which the audio
helps the footage seem real and not interfered with or fictional in a way. The fact the
audio is kept the same from that old video, makes the audience realized these
events in the documentary did in fact take place.

Just a few seconds into this video, there is a voice over edited in into a second
sound layer, of a short section of a phone call in which Joe Exotic says what he
believes was the reason for the liger attacking his shoe in the video shown. The
sound of the original video fades into a quieter volume in order for this voice over to
be heard properly. This piece of sound editing allows the audience, to listen to Joe
Exotic’s personal thoughts on the situation as the video plays. The fact that they
chose a section of a real phone call with Joe, reinforces the fact that this is a real
insight opinion coming from himself, and therefore it seems more real and
believable, once again portraying elements of Cinema Verité.

The volume of the footage playing stays at the same low level as shortly after the
first voice over, there is J-cut into a new voice over coming in from an interview, and
furthermore the speech from the original video playing at this point in time isn’t
relevant to this scene in the documentary. There are two layers of sound at this point
in time; the loud one, in which someone in an interview is providing relevant
information. There is then an l-cut in which the audio from the interview that was
playing carries on top of that original Joe Exotic video. This time, the effect in which
the voice over from the interview gives, is narration, from the way the audio has been
edited. For example, when the voice over says “This cat kept sniffing in his shoes,
sniffing in his shoes”, just as the part of the video plays in which the liger begins to
really sniff his shoe. This sound editing, then makes the audience get a very clear
understanding of the situation, from various points of view. The voice from the
interview in the L-cut ends, the volume from the original video increases again, so
the audience’s attention return back to what Joe Exotic was saying at this point in
time in the video.

Music plays a very important part of the sound editing for this scene, as it is
introduced as soon as the big cat attacks Joe’s foot. This is the moment that has
been built up to this whole scene, and as soon as it arrives, the music is cleverly
introduced to make this moment seem more impactful and intense. This type of old-
western music is usually played in old west movies during stand-off confrontations
between cowboys. These cowboy confrontational scenes as usually very intense,
and it feels like all the everything before has been building up to that moment. This is
exactly what this scene in the documentary is trying to achieve with the music;
building up to an intense moment of confrontation between the liger and Joe.

Features of sound
 Dialogue including ADR (automatic dialogue replacement, done when a
sound recording on set is not satisfactory)
 Music
 Sound effects
 You can get special awareness through diegetic sound too
 DIGETIC SOUND = Inside of the ‘world’
 NON-DIGETIC = Outside of the ‘world ‘

Types of film sound

 Vocal: Vocal sound in film is referred to as dialogue, and it can be edited in

order to match different story-telling techniques whether the characters are
offscreen, narrating for example, or visible onscreen, therefore the dialogue
matches their actions as they speak. There are several editing techniques
related to audio, such as dialogue-based sound bridges, in which the
character’s dialogue from one scene carries onto the next scene (in which
point the dialogue turns into offscreen dialogue), and therefore formulating a
bridge. Vocal sound in film is usually one of the key components of a film’s
sound as it majorly contributes to the plot development, although in some
cases it is not essential (such as in silent films).

 Environmental: Environmental sound, also referred to as ambient sound,

includes all types of diegetic sound (sound which is meant to actually take
part of the world of the film). This can include many types of sound, whether
they are recorded during the filming or created and edited in in post-
production. Some examples are dialogue, ambient city or countryside sounds,
music (diegetic one only), and even sound effects. Some of these
environmental sounds are created (sometimes with different objects and
materials) in post-production, these are called Foley sounds.
 Both sound effects and Foley sounds are used to enhance some for these
diegetic sounds to make sure they are clear, in a way and quality level that
couldn’t be done during filming, or to create sounds which aren’t possible to
be done in filming (such as alien or monster sounds). The combination of all
the diegetic sounds in a scene, massively helps create the mood and draw
the audience into the scene.

 Music: Music can be both diegetic or diegetic sound, either way, it helps
convey emotion and draw the audience into the film. Depending on the type of
music or tone or tempo of the song, it can create a lot of different effects to a
scene. Adding completely different music to the same scene, can almost
change the whole meaning of the scene, making music a very critical part to
sound editing.

 Silence: Silence is a very critical type of sound to use for a scene and is
probably more deliberate than most sounds. Silence creates tension at key
moments (sometimes more so than music) and leaves an empty space for the
audience to process something.

Uses of film sound

Sound in both fictional and non-fictional productions can achieve many things. For
example; it can introduce conflict, define a cinematic space, when edited effectively it
can thwart the audience’s expectations, add characterization, often via usage of
leitmotif, link shots together - through an L or J cut, add or shift the
atmosphere/mood to a scene and even emphasize any action in scene - punctuation
a joke or an act of violence or a violent joke just as easily.