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Mastering the Sound and Music Score

Lesson 36 from: Guerilla Filmmaking

Ryan Connolly

Mastering the Sound and Music Score

Lesson 36 from: Guerilla Filmmaking

Ryan Connolly

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Lesson Info

36. Mastering the Sound and Music Score

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Writing Your Story

32:10
2

Script Breakdowns and Shooting Schedules

15:33
3

Finding Cast and Crew

21:13
4

VFX in Pre-Production

16:45
5

Filming Gear: Audio

13:32
6

Filming Gear: Camera

21:15
7

Filming Gear: Lenses

23:52

Lesson Info

Mastering the Sound and Music Score

He said on the first day, sounds pretty much the most important thing when it comes to tech stuff. I know we really didn't get into sound sounds not my field at all that's probably one of the things I'm most weak at s o, we're not going to try to teach that stuff when you know I could capture it, but once it gets into post, I have people to do that, and they're amazing at it. Maybe we'll do another one and bring them on, but it really is one of the most important things, and when you're in production, you got to make sure you get them best audio you possibly can for you know, when your production for a post production otherwise you're going to killing yourself a tr is my biggest enemy, I hate it, I had to do it, and I think to projects it never sounds like it's actually there, unless you have people that are top, top, top, and even sometimes in those movies here, like we are so it's really, really difficult, but here's, a really good example of we're going to get the raw sound, and the...

n we're going to switch over to our final sound, which was mixed by rob crackle, who is a jew? Yes, yeah, yeah! And you can see already how I was kind of talking about the end it feels a little off here and there this is the exact same at it nothing's changed whatsoever except for the audio. Yeah, yeah, huge difference. And the only thing that's changed is the audio feeling out filling out that sound thirty seconds of silence came in handy and that one portion or other sound effects back let's do another one. This one that one was purposefully set up to have no music. We knew up front that there was going to know music it was all going to be sound effect, so we really took ah lot of care to make sure we got all the sounds of the environment for our post guys to work with, so they had to fill in as little as possible, but even stuff can you look at this even stuff as muchas uh him just grabbing him there's like those subtle sounds of this happening where in actual production it wasn't happening in the beginning of losses are proximity. He picks up his head to turn to see that it's all bloody and you hear him grabbing, rubbing the hair that wasn't in the original uh footage was all added later through foley and it adds so much without it it feels empty and weird one of the villains in the beginning he puffs a cigarette and then later on he spends their sound for neither and it felt very off we just added this really subtle spitting sound and this puffing sound and it fills it out without it it feels so weird with it you don't even notice and here's this scene does have music will show how much of a difference that makes it's actually full screen it no, no, come up and you can even hear me directing again. That's what the thirty seconds of silence forward to be able to take out my cues because we're talking about so I get there's absolutely no difference whatsoever in this ad it is the exact same cut. The only difference is yeah, leaving in that grabbing for the stick there everything is being thrown in, of course, is from the youngest mud and josh, I just want to point out that the fourteen year old and josh that, uh so let's let's add some some sound. Teo, we'll do this really, really quick. Josh, get jacked up. It actually looks pretty solid. Bill you're a little scary it's a lover's spat. Okay, I would say I'm going to stop playing that soon, but I'm not sponsor time I really want that to be, uh two things okay, you guys pick out which one last one sort of like a beat for a second there. I'm going to start wrapping. Okay, so we're gonna go come here at it in we need the block. I don't have a block sound, but we do have body fall sounds so let's. See if one of you that sound that sounds like a block to may a little hard to hear get a little drunk. Okay, so we'll bring this guy and we'll turn them way down. So it's a subtle sound that doesn't sound really stupid tang josh can take a punch and here's something here's. Something that you could do it if the punch isn't quite landing rights. Not feeling that violent that's actually really saw it. I would just leave it as is. But if it's not feeling that strong, you could always take out of frame and we'll toy around with this to see exactly where the frame would be. Best taken out. Yeah. That's. Good. And now it's feeling a lot more violent to me? One frame and it feels a lot meaner than it did two seconds ago. Okay, let's, move on again. Let's. Do this guy uh, the joys of anything. This is again not how I would usually at it. As far as you you know you would select it up here and then bring it and so it's going to do that for this clip that's feeling really slow to me so let's try to speed it up just a touch let's go one twenty on something I'll dio often is just speed up a piece of it if you speed up the whole thing to like one forty it's gonna look wonky but if we go right in the first bit trim that to take that may be the one forty trim that I is that the hit cancel okay and then we'll add our sound effect no try this guy and I was it's like the right where the sound starts so you can easily place it otherwise you're moving in around trying to find where to put it it could become very frustrating and I would speed that up a bit still yet just a quick question are all these sounds from your action packed that you these are from yeah the fight sound effect pact that we haven't released yet it's coming out in september uh thanks for pro knowing that by try and sort of calm alright I wish we could resume in on me when I get there okay I'm not gonna waste I'm not gonna waste time this is a serious class okay moving on so you guys get the point josh kit just after one more time moving on the guns hears the shot that we were shown before josh being an action here let's just it's to you from this guy okay we got a few gun sounds here okay, so the time is just a touch off but you get the idea you just add that little light there I would probably bring it back just a touch so it blends a little bit more it's a little orange little color correction that maybe maybe add ah wiggle on your frame a little toe add some action with some motion blur plus that sound effects and you have a gun shot you have to do any compositing whatsoever and we come to this guy right here this is from losses this is what stark allowed muzzle flash to later and this is what we're talking about with the gas blowback so that's what you can get out of the gas blowback guns which really helps because now start doesn't have to add any smoke it's in the rial environment it's looking awesome it's backlit so we're really it's really showing up thea the thing is this another one of our sun affects packs uh you have several gun sounds of the same gun firing because gonna have just a slight different character each time if you use the exact same gun son every single time and its rapid fire like that it's going to sound like it and you can hear it sounds like terminator uh and you could hear the different character is a characteristic of each shot, right? Don't uh I'm just here in terminator now, but here's something I do often not with something like proximity, something with proximity I'm trying to get it to feel a lot more realistic something like this I'm trying to take it a step further, so just add a bit more movement in the sound don't on all I here now we just have that one little sound that once the music's in there you're not really fully noticing it's happening, but you're having this extra sound that's adding movement so it's completely ridiculous because that's the sound of you know the slide being rack so you can chamber around he's not doing that, but that sound makes it feel like it's an extra sound of it coming up before the punch of it. I do that a lot, and if you listen to a lot of blockbuster, uh, action films, they actually do that as well. But let's add some music to this actually ah looking for the head here that donna I'm looking for it starts, we're gonna start it right on that and this is just gonna work fine since one quick shot, no production sound whatsoever and that sounded pretty good to me any questions on that so in the sound pack that you're going to release september, you're gonna have like punch hit and gun sounds s o we have gun sounds right now on our store way have like hollywood sounds we have realistic ones the punch the fighting sounds will have everything kicks, weapon hits punches kicks blocks body falls all of it okay, because skittle twenty three said how do I get great fantastic punch and hit sounds because I search for them and all of them were ridiculous yes, which is why we decided to make them because if you're going to get good sound effects it's like it's all crazy in thousands of dollars for some packs like studios will make the packs available and those things are just crazy expensive, eh? So we made our own and we're selling it so people could get it at you know, a reasonable profit just somewhere to go get that trying store dot com will be releasing a probably second week of september the music that I'm using is from a music pack that we're releasing a cz well that'll have all the stems broken out we'll have the full competition like your hearing here that you can edit but it also have all the pieces broken out so just more stuff that's useful for guerrilla filmmakers were turning into a commercial now okay, so temp music when you're editing this's mix to go with the score so it's balancing out with what the music is doing so if there was no music it would be mixed totally different yeah let's add some music to this bad boy okay, so this is nothing like what the score sounded like so let's do something that sounds totally different than the tone we didn't see all right, so what way have a quick kick in which this was always constructed to be something that sound popped us? Ah, it sounds like it could be pretty cool so find where our first frame is bring that over, stretch it out, see what this does for us and a lot of times, oddly enough, the musical kind of work when you find one spot for it to come in that'll work really well and you stretch it out a lot of it will end up working for you, especially when you're just talking about temp ah, wait okay, but I think that would work if it came in later hand oh my god! So I think happening with that actually might be pretty good. Okay, switch over. I don't want that because there's a lot more relaxed then as we owe start ramping up so so we find a point so we're always finding for hits notes were using notes to hide cuts, so if you haven't done dong done, you know, doing that little humming that was a really weird moment. May really that that sort of humming sound that down moment is going to be hard to edit between if there's movement like there is here but if you have that done that you can take and then take from a different spot and slop it in that's a lot easier to try to edit which probably won't work at all now that I said it's going to work well, that worked better than I thought I was going to go on and I haven't even added any transition. Okay, so it's just I believe that as is but I have a problem with this. Ah, first of all, let's just faded in actually click this key frame here, right? Click it and all these ys make it a little smooth I don't like how it's silent when that comes out that's where the logo comes in there's no sound to signify the locust coming in so maybe and you could see in the audio all these spikes are different hits so you could easily just go to them but that's not gonna work because there's a lot of movement happening around I just want some kind of little state happen and usually at the end of most soundtracks of anything like this, you'll find little hits toe end out that piece and it just fade out those air perfect things that they take and kind of used throughout thiss one does have it I'm just going to use this to be the sound for this guy coming in dropping below take it down so it's more subtle this is really subtle but tell me if you guys could be the difference is without it ah and then we're gonna do with a difference super subtle we could take it up we don't want it to be so subtle ah now I feel so much better to me it feels like everything's starting to come together which is a big part of what your music and sound effects is gonna do it's going to start melting everything together it's good give it synergy you guys nice synergy for your piece but now we have this move up to our villains nothing's happening in the music at all tell me that this guy's bad so maybe this'll might not work because of everything that's happening around it I'm just setting in and out points by the way but just hitting I and oh I'm going frame by frame just by narrowing forward and back okay so you hear that little hit right there I could probably use that to hide this guy coming in drop it down a bit so it's not so crazy maybe that actually might work I'm getting something to signify that we're coming up to the villains now and then maybe add another one to make it a little more interesting. Ah ah! Can you hear that? Pop way cut audio there. That's easy fix. Just clicking between the center command tea will add a transition on then we get rid of that pop a lot of times, even in dialogue, you'll get a little bit of pop when the audio cuts just put him together at a transition gone or you could do like we were doing before command clicked at a key frame really simple, but this guy's way too in your face we're gonna bring that down. Uh, you guys get the general idea? Well, listen to this fun way so clearly not the tone I wanted for this piece, but I mean it's working on some level so that's the idea you find the music that actually fits what you're trying to dio and that's, how you will cut it together to create a temp store score. Usually I'm using several songs all at once and I usually mean always the temp score for this actual scene was five songs cut together to make that scene work. Any questions on that before we move on? Yes, I guess I'm just a little confused so you said you had a composer, so what he composed you took a step further and continued to spice it with it to make it fit so this is the temp score while I'm editing because like I was showing like raul we're all footage that it felt weird but it wasn't that it was right is just the sound wasn't there to make it feel right like we're talking about if the sound doesn't work no matter how pretty the pictures are you're never going to forget that all you're going to see all these cuts so a lot of times I've worked with editors I get really discouraged about their peace and ripping it apart and I come in look and I'm like no, your audience just off all over the place tweak that first and I also do that myself my first draft if I don't I'm not fixing the audio as I go along I'm panicking on what is this mess but once you start blending the audio and mixing it so you're getting away from seeing every single little cut feeling off wrong it's going to work a lot better so I always edit to attempt score so all get stuff like proximity was I think a man of steel dark knight rises it was a lot of zimmer stuff clearly in the end so I used a lot of his stuff to you know cut it together to get the tone a little so I'm editing to existing soundtracks so I mean, sometimes my composers don't like adobe inn, the frog and the exact same thing I used the soundtrack from up on draft to be to do my temp score, my composer didn't listen to him because he didn't want to be influenced by it just totally fine. We just talked out what what we wanted from the piece of anyone often did it by other composers, cool with hearing temp sounds, but again, I'm telling him, okay, don't do that they'll throw it out what I want you to dio which my composer is a very hans zimmer style already so it's going that way either way, but it's, you know, throw out that don't do exactly that don't copy it, but you see where the cues are, the fact that I'm hitting that little note when the logo comes in all these little accents that I'm doing to get you ready for what the experience I want to give you to make everything blend together so he can then take that those emotional cues and those little beats that I'm creating and base it off that help it a little bit jon favreau always favre, favre I never get that right it's one of those the guy who made chef, uh he says that he always works on temp scores and that's why he's never thrown out one of his scores, it's, just better to add it to any other questions for you. When you're balancing out all your sound effects and your music and all that kind of stuff, what kind of equipment are you using? Just plain speakers headphones. I have rockets, the five inch it's like one hundred fifty bucks per per monitor speaker who called monitors and that's pretty low cost. They get really expensive, those air really low cost monitors, but they're solid. They sound really, really good that's what I've been mixing on miley and I do a lot of my mixing in premier. Once I'm done mixing in premier, I'll select all that, send it out to audition and do my final mix in there. If you have a lot of noise, all you do is find a spot that doesn't have that noise selected, created noise, print and bring that down. So I do my final mixing in auditions, send that over creating new composition and then put the video in the new audio together.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

1080p Screen Insert
2.40 Aspect Wide Screen Template
Rule of Thirds
Storyboard Template
Storyboard Template
Class Footage - 1
Class Footage - 2
Class Footage - 3
Class Keynotes
Stark Assets
Guerilla Filmmaking Outline
Gear Guide

Ratings and Reviews

Samuel Befekadu
 

I bet this class will be awesome. the course is given by Ryan Connolly!! I have been watching this guy for more that 5 years. I just wasn't serous about film making then. but now since i love film making why not try to be one of them by learning form the best in the field like Rayn. he has been inspiration for a lot of film maker from his YouTube channel Film Riot. his way of teaching so funny and entertaining . I bought this course to learn Ryan Connolly's killer skill. Thanks creative live and Ryan Connolly!

Will Green
 

Great class! It starts at a very simplistic level and covers the full spectrum of filmmaking. I would not necessarily buy this course for advanced film students, however it is an amazing review for beginner students to intermediate students. I would love to see a BTS of a short film from start to finish. I've seen all of Ryan's BTS shorts and I would greatly enjoy a much more intricate play by play of the short. THAT"S SOMETHING I WOULD PAY A LOT TO SEE. An 18 hour compilation of prepro - post of a short would be awesome.

Jonathan Beresford
 

Love Ryan and everyone at Film Riot. Excellent course of the excellent quality I've come to expect from them. I just wIsh he'd act more. So funny.

Student Work

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