Friday, February 8, 2019


Assignment 1 Sound editing:

To compress and summarise a sound recording to fit a specific space:
Film trailers are a perfect example of compressing sound down in order to fit a certain time frame. This is because the average trailer is roughly 2.5 minutes long so they will not be able to use the full audio file on the trailer as the sound file is probably about 2.5 hours long! As the sole purpose of a trailer is to entice the audience and persuade them to go and see the film, the editors would only pick the exciting parts of the audio from the best parts of the film. If there is a scene in the film which is a 3-minute-long conversation, they will not include this because it will never persuade the audience to go and watch the full film. The sole purpose of condensing audio for this purpose is to capture the audience for a short amount of time, so the best parts of the audio need to be selected. Due to the clever selection that the editor does, it has an effect on the audience that the full film does not, it increases the pace of the short clip which adds to the excitement which also helps with the promotion of the clip.

To eliminate flawed, repetitive, superfluous, uninteresting, irrelevant material from a recorded clip:
One clever example of removing certain repetitive or inappropriate language is in UFC press conferences. Companies will often need to remove inappropriate language if they are wanting to post a highlight reel of an event or just post the entire event itself. This is because it is not appropriate for the younger audience and if there is consistent swearing, a lot of adults don’t appreciate this language therefore the company risks losing some of their audience. As fighting is already of an aggressive nature, there is guaranteed to be some element of profanity however if they limit this down then it will be better for the audience to watch. Using the same example of a Fight Press Conference, they are often almost an hour long and usually contain a boring patch which is extremely uninteresting for the audience to watch. This is one of the main reasons for the company to release a shorter version because it contains all of the best bits, meaning the audience don’t have to sit through the boring parts as they get to watch the best bits. This entices the audience much more because they are not losing interest, meaning they will retain all of their viewers. Overall, the main purpose for removing foul language and uninteresting element is to keep the audience watching and interested and to also remain professional by removing the profanity.

To enable recorded speech to remain legal:
An example of where editing is required for recorded speech to remain legal is maybe in an interview where there is music in the background. If there is a popular song in the background of an interview it may have to be removed because the song would be copyrighted. This means you may get in serious trouble for using this music without the artist’s permission and may risk getting your production taken down. Keeping the audio in the clip means it will become illegal and is not allowed to be used.

To ensure indecent or inappropriate language is edited out:
This situation is often seen in sport and especially football. This is because there is a lot of tension in the sport and the players get excited when they score and tend to swear. This is picked up by the camera when they go up to it on the side-lines and the microphone can hear them swearing. If this is heard, it often leads to serious consequences for the players. To solve this, the broadcast is often displayed as ‘live’ however there is usually a 30 second delay for the sound editors to remove the foul language before it is actually broadcasted.
Another example of this is in music. If there is a popular song in the charts that contains indecent language, there will have to be a ‘Radio Edit’ made which is where the swearing is removed from the first version of the song. This is done because the radio show would not be able to air the song as there may be younger people listening, therefore there has to be a clean version made in order for it to be aired.

To change the chronological or logical order of a series of sounds or speech:
An example of where editing is used to change the chronological or media is in a film trailer. They use editing to change the order of the clip in order to make it more interesting for the audience. They will often include the ending of the film in the trailer without spoiling anything, as this is the part of the film which will capture the audience the most as it usually has the most action and suspense for the audience to catch onto. You will find that in a movie trailer there is a lot of action, however the full film will not be like this. This means that the editors have taken parts of the film clips, along with the sound and put them in a different order for them to intrigue the audience.

To create impact by adding sound effects and/or music between pieces of recorded speech:
In interviews where someone is there to present their film, they would often insert a piece of the films clip (along with audio) in between two questions to show the audience what the film looks like. This is used to create the effect of persuasion and make the audience want to watch the film they are presenting. This is a very clever method of doing this because it makes the audience interested in what the film is about, while still listening to the person promote the film. A lot of the time, they would greatly reduce the volume levels of the film clip so the audience can still hear the questions and answers, however it is still at a noticeable level for the audience to clock on to.
Another example of this is in the opening scene of Baby Driver, there is a sound effect of a police siren. This sound effects volume has been greatly heightened and this has been used to foreshadow that negative things are about to happen. This sound would not have occurred when they were actually filming so they needed to add this in during the editing stage, this then allowed them to change the impact that it had on the audience, by heightening the volume levels.

No comments:

Post a Comment