Palsy - Part 2/2 (Sound Design)
3-6 minutes read//listen time
Palsy’s Nuendo Session Edit View
Top to Bottom (1. Yellow - Dialog, 2. Purple - FX, 3. Green - Backgrounds, 4. Red - Music)
This is Part 2 of my audio journal of Palsy. Read up Part 1 to find out the challenges I had recording on-set.
In part 1, I’ve covered how I was testing out and introducing new gear to my rig to see how it can improve my workflow. In this case, it is mostly new miniature microphones and a new wireless package. Now picture lock is given and we’re ready to move into audio post! Let’s dive in!
Audio post-production
Building upon the phone conversation, the backup recording came in clutch when the second caller came into the picture. The second caller was significantly softer and it was hard to create a consistent air for it so I swapped the original recording and used the backup. The first caller was fine as the overlaps was necessary to create a sense of interruption as an incoming call was present.
As for the sound design, there were a lot of references to the clock to signify the passing (or non-passing) of time, so I took the liberty to wire up my house clock. This time I used Deity’s micro lav and compared it to the DPA 4061. I’ve set the up through my sony transmitters so that they have an equal playing field,* and recorded them.
*I have the option of hard wire for the DPA but not for the microlav.
The cool thing about the clock recording is that I was able to hear audible differences that separates each microphone, based on their sonic characteristics and placement of the microphones. The DPA were well more sensitive to the highs and lows while the MicroLav lacks the top end. Give or take the position of it as the DPA was placed outside the body of the clock while the Microlav was inserted into the hole that was meant as a mounting option. Pan them left and right and you get a nice stereo effect.
Deity WLav.Micro
DPA4061
They look pretty similar don’t they? But you can hear the audible difference between them. Let’s move on.
The toughest part of the film was the music. We haven’t got a composer on board but we needed the music to pull the film together. One element that made it hard to cut music was the rhythm of the video cuts.
The initial reference was Yumeji’s theme and I didn’t feel like it matched the vibe as it was more medieval than modern/artsy. So I sat down with the Farihin (the director) to spot music for it. I used Epidemic Sound for music spotting and editorial as the workflow of it is streamlined. You can input keywords like mood, genre or descriptive words and music is populated. If you know you’re close, you can use the similar tracks feature and it’ll show you the closest sounding tracks. The best part about this was that I can share the track as a link and the director could listen to what I am listening. From there we just weeded out which tracks worked and which didn’t. And thank goodness the comments from on the music was spot on.
Notes from the music spotting session.
For sound design, as we are moving in and out of his dream state to show his sleep paralysis, I had to make a distinct sonic difference between the two. I’ve added reverb to signify the dream state and automated back the wetness when we are in reality. You can mostly hear the effect at the end of the film where the phone alarm goes off when he’s still in the dream (unaware that he is stuck) and the shot cuts to him still sleeping in real life.
ABOVE SHOWS THE NUENDO SESSION OF THE TRANSITION OF DREAM STATE TO REALITY.
**Phone recording (in purple) and the birds chirping (in green)
And that’s pretty much it! Thanks to Farihin and the FEISK production crew for the opportunity to work on sound for this short.
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This is Part 2 of my audio journal of Palsy. Read up Part 1 to find out the challenges I had recording on-set.
More audio journal entries: