My Film Opening Audio

In my last blog post, I talked about mise en scene which is one of the most important elements in film, but another is also very important is audio. There are many different types of audio forms just like there are many different elements in mise en scene but all of them are important when creating a film.

Diegetic Sound

For my film, I will use not many types of audio, except only a few. One main type of audio I will use is digenetic sound. Diagenetic sound can be many things but one that is going to be used a lot in my film is dialogue. That dialogue will be recorded with the use of microphones. I’m not sure which microphone I will use yet, but it will most likely be either LAVS, rode mics, shotgun mics, or the camera microphone. Diagenetic sound also includes ambient noise like birds chirping, or the wind, special effects like footsteps or gunshots, and the music that can be heard by the characters. For my film, I will incorporate ambient noise like birds chirping, special effects, like footsteps, door slamming, and more, and possibly music that can be heard by characters. An idea that I could use for music, heard by characters could be by using a vinyl player. For one of the scenes when Camila is running the next day after their fight, she will have headphones on with music playing. That will be considered a diagenetic sound since it is heard by the characters.

Non-Diegetic Sound

Another type of audio is non-digenetic sound which is sounds that cannot be heard by characters within the film. This includes sound effects, music scores, and narrations. For my film, the only possible non-diagenetic sound that I will use could be music. I feel that putting music during certain scenes will match the mood of the scene and help audiences feel the emotions better. Non-digesting music usually helps a lot in films, especially During scenes, showing sadness, love, hardship, motivation, or heroism. During the scene after the couple has the argument I feel that I could put on some type of music while they’re getting their alone time and reflecting on what just happened. Putting music here will make the scene more expressive, as well as make it not awkward to watch. Imagine watching the scene with no music. It would just be noises of footsteps, crying, and other random noises that just wouldn’t be as enjoyable if there was some sort of music. For this scene, I could also make it go from diagenetic to nongenetic where one of the characters puts on the vinyl to play music and I make a transition from diegetic music to non-diegetic music.

Room Tone and Silence

On the contrary, another type of audio that could work well for the scene that I just described is room tone and silence. Some audiences may feel that having silence during a scene where characters are feeling sad or not in a talkative mood would be best shown while in silence rather than having a song in the background. This awkwardness and silence usually get the feelings/emotions of the character characters shown better. This can also usually establish anticipation. It also makes a scene feel more natural as this would be how it is in real life.

Foley

Lastly, one of the most important types of sound is Foley. Foley is one type of sound that I will definitely incorporate. This type of sound is a bit hard to make at times because this type of sound you must make yourself. Let’s say you wanted to do the scene of someone walking toward another character on a wooden floor. Your camera most likely will either capture that sound or not capture it as well as you would want to so that is why you have Foley. This type of sound allows you to make the noise yourself and at times you can perfect it to where it sounds exactly like it does in real life. Foley is how many movies make noises or even noises that you know are not real. In my film, Foley can be used for all sorts of things like footsteps, doors, slamming, sitting down on certain furniture, and many more things. I have not done much Foley in my life so I’m not sure how it will go. The sounds that I will be making won’t be too hard to replicate, but maybe I’m wrong.

These are all the things I want to do for audio. Hopefully, it turns out well especially for the dialogue because it is the most important. Must figure out the best type of way to capture all these types of audio. I also let’s figure out how I will make certain Foley noises because I have not made many. But only time will tell and by doing trial and error.