Monday 19th January

This lesson was quite different to our other lessons because we got to learn all about soundtrack pro and adding music onto a film and the effects it has. We started off with a Casino Royale exercise, by watching the trailer and carrying out a sequence of tasks. There were three sections that we had to look at they were, sound layers, soundscapes and sound sequences. I learnt that there are three different areas to sound layers, there's dialogue, music and effects. We had to work our way through the three sections reading carefully what was there and also listening to advice of professionals.
The first task was in sound layers. We were given a sequence from the film and we had to control the sound by turning on and off different tracks and seeing what effect they have on the final outcome. What I found very effective was being able to hear the footsteps of the woman as she was walking. When I switched off this effect it didn't sound right at all, as though something was missing. Also the background noise of the tropical setting with the sounds of birds ect, needed to be there, when taken away you almost question where the setting is. It doesn't seem real.
The second task was to create our own soundscape from some of the still images provided from the film. It was a good exercise because it got you to think about what sounds are really necessary and where they should be placed. This task did get a bit confusing because as you were putting down one sound you could still hear the previous one so trying to get the volume just right was a bit tricky.
The third and final task was to create our own soundtrack for one of the sequences provided for us from Casino Royale. I think this was probably the most trickiest out of all three tasks because there was so much going on so you had to really pay attention. I found this hard because the scene I chose, the stairwell fight, is quite quick so knowing when to put things in was confusing because everything was so fast. I did enjoy it however and felt a great sense of achievement once i had finished it.
These exercises made you realize just how important music is in any film and how much effect the music can create on an audience.
Once we had completed the Casino Royale exercise we then went onto adding music and effects onto the short practice film that we had all done. This bit was really fun because we got to use soundtrack pro and there was such a variety of music and effects. The short film that we had done was actually extremely short and didn't look very good. However as i began adding effects to it, such as a door knock, the handle moving, footsteps and a heart beat, it immediately made it look miles better.