Lesson 3 - Sound Design Terminology

This week you will investigate some sound design terminology.

Task: Investigate these phrases and work out how they apply to sound design: Harmony, Dissonance, On screen, Off screen, Diegetic, Nondiegetic, Active, Passive.

Clue: active and passive are branches of off-screen sound.

Once you have accurate definitions and clear understandings of these terms you should try and find an example on youtube for each of these terms. Write down the video, the web url (i.e. the http://www. address) and the time in the video where the sound design feature can be heard.

To add a slight edge of competition whoever finds the best example of each term will get to show it to the class at the end. 

...and here are those definitions:


Harmony: These sounds are pleasing to our ears. They are often used in sound design to create a sense of relaxation or to demonstrate that everything is in its right place within a scene.
Dissonance: Sounds that don’t please our ears – often described as a clash of sounds. They create a sense of conflict or making us feel uneasy. They show us that something is wrong in the scene.
Diegetic: Any sound that would be heard by the characters in the story.
Nondiegetic: Any sound that would not be heard by the characters in the story. Examples include voice over narration and musical accompaniment.
On screen: Use this term to refer to sound that comes from a source that we can see on screen. E.g. door slams, footsteps.
Off screen: We hear the sound and we know it is ‘in scene’ but we don’t see the source. Examples are traffic background noise, bird song, thunder or even hearing a monster moving around but we can’t yet see it! 
Active: This relates to off-screen sounds. Active off-screen sounds raise questions in the audience such as “What is it?”, “What’s happening?”, “What does that scary monster look like?”.
Passive: This relates to off-screen sounds. Passive off-screen sounds create atmosphere and environment helping to immerse the audience in the situation.

Lesson 2 - Using sound design equipment

This week you will get some practical experience using sound design software running on the Apple Mac computers.

Task:

• Download a video from youtube
• Import this video into Cubase (the software we will use for sound designing)
• Select three pieces of music from youtube; one which you feel fits the mood of the video well, one which strongly goes against the mood of the video, and a final piece that neither strongly suits or does not suit.
• Import these tracks into Cubase and watch the video whilst listening to each of them in turn. Were your initial feelings about the tracks suitability right?
• Take out a sheet of paper, divide it into three columns and head these columns Good, Bad and Other.
• You should now move around the class watching your classmates videos. Write on their sheet which music you think they chose as Good i.e. the one that suits the video, Bad and Other.

Here is a video of how to download video's from youtube and import them into Cubase from where we can compose music and add sound effects.

Sound design in Cubase the basics from colin dodds on Vimeo.

Lesson 1 - An Introduction

This week we'll...

• Look at the SQA document on Sound Design (this is the governments guidlines as to how these classes should be run)
• Consider what you have to produce during these classes as well as when and how you will be assessed.
• Begin exploring what sound design means and what the task entails

What you will do

These classes have two outcomes which you have to pass:

In Outcome 1 (OC1 for short) you will write two reports. Each report will describe how music and sound are used to support of piece of either film, television, radio, computer games, theatre or animation media. For example you might write one report on the sound design of a james bond film and another report on the sound design used in the Call of Duty computer games.

In Outcome 2 you will put this knowledge to use by creating soundtracks to support different types of media. Before doing this you will create a plan in the form of a sound design map.

Hand-in dates are not finalized at this point but they will roughly be around week 9 for OC1 and week 16 for OC2. I'll up date you on these dates soon.

The Shining

Watch these two versions of the Shining (a 1980’s psychological horror film - possibly one of the scariest films of all time!).

Here is the original http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cb3ik6zP2I - listen to how the music is used to build tension. Classic horrow sound design!

Here is an alternative cut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os6raCCmAFk - think carefully about how the sound and music has been used to alter the mood.

You should realize just how important the sound design is to the viewers understanding and feelings when they watch a film.

Task: Look on youtube for some alternate versions of films. Good examples include some of the Ferest Gump altered versions (gangster, horror).

The Shawshank Redemption

To get an idea of the complexity of Sound Design watch the first 7 minutes of the Shawshank Redemption. Tasks:

• Write down all the music and sound you encounter in the film, and note the time it comes in.
• Note down how it makes you feel or what it makes you think.
• Consider why the Sound Designer chose these bits of music and sound.
• Write down if each piece of music and sound is “in the scene” or “outside the scene”.

Next week we'll begin investigating some of the terminology used in sound design.

...and finally consider the t-rex's roar in Jurassic park (example here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwlDW8qFGFA). Has anyone ever heard the sound a t-rex would make? Then a sound designer must have invented it!