Sound And Music For The Moving Image

Sound Cue

Is just an instance of sound, a lump of sound.  Also referred to as an asset

Music

Title Music

Kinetic

means that the sound evokes motion

Watch under the skin, Grant says that it is a very weird and interesting film.  We were analysing its soundtrack by Mica Levi

Underscoring

Music “underneath” the dialogue, informing the mood of the scene.  It is normally non-diegetic, ie, the characters can’t hear it.

 

When making music for my animation, try to keep underscoring in mind, because it can make a scene way more powerful, especially when it does not fit the action on screen, like the Jaws song being played under a scene of a happy beach.

 

Temp Tracks

They are pieces of music that film directors pick as a reference guide for how they want their own specially produced music to sound like, which they then give to the composers.  But this can mean that the music that is produced is very similar to the original piece of music.

 

Spot Effects

Spot effects have one point of synchronisation.  One point that editors need to line up with the video because it is a very short effect.  An example of this would be a gunshot, you only need to line up the sound to the moment when the trigger is pulled, and Bob’s your uncle.

Are sound effects that have not necessarily been made for the film, so could have been from sound libraries.  These are mostly sounds that can’t be made easily in the real world, like gunshots and laser guns.

 

Foley Effects

Foley effects tend to be much longer than Spot effects, with much more synchronisation points to line up in time with the video.

Are sounds that are made in post-production, by Foley artists, who watch the film sequence and make the sounds in real time.  Foley sounds are all the sounds that you would expect to hear.  In some cases, these are more effective than Spot Effects, because Foley artists make sure that the timing of the sounds is on spot exactly, so an editor would just have to line up the first sound to the right place in the film, and all of the other sounds would be in the right place.

Atmospheres (Ambience)

The atmosphere is the sound underneath all the other sounds.

When thinking about sound design in relation to an animation or what not, if you have a blank bit, where nothing much seems to be happening, really try to think creatively about what sounds could exist in that space

 

Silence