Voiceacting.co.uk

 Clym Angus of Isotopeaudio kindly guides us through a series of tips in mind when editing and writing audio.

There is no magic bullet, no golden tablet of rules that will produce good audio productions infallibly time, after time, after time. The lists of items below are simply things that you may wish to keep in mind when you’re writing and editing. If all the points below are followed to the letter it will not guarantee great content, gripping plot or standing ovations.

At best it can help you tell a bloody good story. At worst cause endless hand wringing over every little effect and voice in your production. I think what I’m asking for is to please keep this list in context and exercise your common sense.

One small note on terminology, I’ve tried to make this as easy reading as possible. That said (invariably) technical jargon creeps in. As it pops up I’ve tried to deal with it quickly and painlessly. Element is used a fair bit; in this context it means a sound sample, audio clip or audio file.

Physical Microphone
The microphone is your camera. It’s the point at which the audience interface with the world you’re trying to create. As such it can direct your audience and put them where you need them to be. They can be given an eagle eye view of every event, or bear witness to your characters’ inner thoughts. This all hinges on where you place your ‘camera’.

1) Where is the microphone in relation to the players?

2) Does it move during a scene?

3) If the microphone is hearing internal thoughts, how will the audience know? Make a clear distinction between the real world and sharing conscious thought.

4) The way the microphone records sound can be used to ground the audience, distorting the sound e.g. telephone speaker, underwater Doppler effect etc.

Mise en scene
This word originally comes from the French Theatre more recently it has been used extensively in semiotics and image theory. Its literal translation is “placed in the scene” it has come to mean “the material organisation of the way something is represented, within a dramatic context”. In other words, it is the choice of decoration, locality or place, the movements and the interplay of the actors. In this instance it’s taken as meaning setting.

The environment in which the scene takes place is extremely important to add depth to a production. Within that environment, objects that can make sound can be utilised to help flesh out the soundscape and drive plot.

1) Is the location of the scene affecting the sound in anyway? Acoustics of the space itself; Echo? Reverb? Is there noise from other locations affecting it? E.g. In a car next to a busy building site.

2) What else is in the scene that’s making noise? E.g. ticking clocks. Does it need reacting to? E.g. Telephones?

3) How are the characters interacting with the space? E.g. if the characters are walking, what are they walking on (I.E. a carpet, a wooden floor, gravel, etc?) Are doors open or shut? What sounds are they letting in or blocking out?

4) Items actively used in the scene that make noise. E.g. what are the characters wearing on their feet? Reading (the sound of pages turning). How can the items used help tell your story?

5) Ambient sound mostly an outside principle. There isn’t usually total silence anywhere. E.g. roads, birdsong. What are the constituent parts of this scene’s cacophony of silence?

Physical Actor
The human voice can be used in many different ways to give a myriad of meanings to the same set of words. It’s not just a case of what is being said, it’s how it’s being said. What reaction is the character trying to instigate?

1) Ethnic Accent, where do they come from? Local dialects and word usage.

2) Idiosyncrasies in speech; impediments, mannerisms, breathing difficulties.

3) Deception; Are they putting on a voice? Trying to sound like someone or something else?

4) Tone & Inflection; what is the character’s normal tone? Are they asking a question? Volume? Whispering? Shouting? Or normal conversation level? Is the line directed at someone or is it general? If it’s directed how will they stop other people eavesdropping? (Mise en scene and emotion will also affect the tonal qualities of the character’s voice).

5) Physical Alteration; is the character eating? Speaking through gritted teeth? Muttering? Out of breath?

Emotion
How is the line being delivered? What is the character feeling and would it affect the delivery of that line. Good direction of the cast is imperative to a good performance. In order to get the best performance your cast has to know where the characters are emotionally grounded.

1) How is the character’s emotional state at the time? Angry? Sad? Contented? Concerned? Several different factors can affect this;

A) What have they just done?
B) What are they about to do?
C) What was the last thing said to them and how was it meant? More importantly how did they understand it?
D) Conversely is the character expecting a reaction from the line they’re about to give? Are they ready for that response? (Are they reading ahead?)

2) Predisposition; Does the character have a certain way of reacting in certain situations? Get nervous in times of conflict? Manically depressed? Are they generally optimistic?

Music
Music affects mood. For example just listen to the sound score for the film “Jaws”. Good use of music can heighten the drama in a production; bad use of music can wreck it. Music frames an audio production, and decisions on what, where and how it’s used are fairly important.
1) Diegetic Music - Sound that is part of the scene. The characters can hear it and it can be interacted with. Radio, Orchestra.

2) Non-Diegetic Music - For the benefit of the audience, Narrator’s commentary, non-realistic sound effects, mood music.

SFX
From the simple heartbeat to recent experiments in sound to produce a sense of time dilation (Matrix bullet time), SFX provide a useful tool for manipulating the reality of an audio production. They save time, effort, money, complement the cast’s performance and make the impossible possible. On a more simplistic level they supply the sound of the Mise en scene (discussed earlier) that populates your world.

1) Time effects; slowing the action down to add drama

2) Internalisation; Breathing Heartbeat (see also Physical Microphone)

Quality issues
Something that tends to be over looked in a fair number of audio productions is relative quality. Although not strictly part of the production, a sudden drop in quality in one element of that production can jar the audience. It “shows the seams” of a production, highlighting it’s constructed nature. There are several different ways this can creep into a production

1) Multiple compression. When dealing with compressed format elements (mp3) the recompression of those elements in the final production can introduce distorted stepping in the audio signal.

2) Relative Bit rate; between elements can be noticed. (128 is good)

3) Relative Sample rate; more often than not causes technical problems during editing. (CD Quality = 44100Hz)

4) Dirty Tracks; if one element has hiss, volume clipping or distortion and the other tracks don’t, the aberrant sound will fade in or cut with the useful part of the element. Very noticeable for the audience.

To Conclude

Exercising your ability to hear
The human brain is extremely good at filtering out repetitive or unimportant noise, but a world without that background sound can seem somewhat two-dimensional. Try hearing the world around you instead of listening to it. Try and list all the separate and distinctive sounds you hear in a setting. Then think about how that sound reached you. Direct from source? Reflected sound? Distance travelled? Muffled? Distorted?

IN A NUTSHELL. An article of this size can never hope to do this subject matter proper justice. There are hundreds of ways of beneficially tweaking the audio soundscape. Inversely a lot of time can be spent making minor alterations that are ultimately lost “in the mix”. Discerning between the two takes time, knowledge and experience. That said it’s impossible to effect change if you’re unaware of what you can do.

Talking is only part of the action. Use the place as a character, the microphone as a character. Your cast can’t just float through your story like driftwood - they have to interact with the world around them and the world has to interact with them.

Further reading: http://filmsound.org/