Importance of audio demonstration...

KREEDMAN

KREEDMAN

Active member
Hi guys,

I am setting up a presentation for friends. I want to emphesize how important audio is.

So I thought I might get a great movie scene with good sound and ruin the sound somehow. And make them watch it with bad sound and origional sound.

Then, I can ruin picture and keep sound intact. With the hope that they see how bad sound cannot be tolorated.

1- What do you think of the idea? Suggestions?
2- Any movie scene you recommend?
3- How should I make the audio sound bad? what about video?


Please advice,

THANKS!
 
What exactly are you trying to demo? Importance of production or post? My experience is that the only thing that really sinks in is when they have their film and see directly how much better it can be with a decent sound track. But it starts with good production sound and there isn't much you can do to demo that the way your talking. Actually I would say you can't really demo much at all by "ruining" a "good" track. If you want to demo something then you need to show the real deal and the improved version. There are a couple demo clips on my site that sort of do what your looking for. I'm not making any claims at great sound but they do show what can be done at the low budget end of filmmaking with a little work. Both are post demos, don't know how you demo production other than making them listen to just about any low budget film and then playing a similar clip from a high budget film.

if it's not in my profile the site is askinc.net
 
Easiest technique to show how important post is is to use something you have done showing the rough cut and then the final mix of a scene.

If you want to show how bad sound makes a video unwatchable then you can blowout and just generally mess up any movie soundtrack. Pick your favorite movie. It won't simulate crappy bare production sound but can reiterate what everyone already, at least unconsciously, knows; bad audio means unwatchable. Throw the sync off a couple frames to show how poor sync (often found in bad ADR) completely takes you out of a scene.

Apocolypse Now has some great BTS stuff showing the sound design of that groundbreaking soundtrack. For sound geeks it is pretty fun watching the master (Murch) at work. A lot of the stuff they did helped invent modern sound design.

There is an fun DVD BTS on LOTR-The Two Towers that allows you to layer on various sound FX and music within a scene.

There also was a BTS on the Jaws laserdisc that demonstrates how the John Williams music creates the tension in an otherwise dull scene. I don't know if you can find it on DVD version but it might be worth investigating.

Good luck
 
Actually the Hong Kong action flicks are pretty much exclusively shot MOS so you could take say an early Jackie Chan film and show it with out sound and with. It's a bit extreme since very few films are shot that way, though I think most if not all of Falini's and a bunch of the spaghetti westerns were also.
 
This is pretty much how we opened up our Sound for Film & Television DVD. We show a scene with just awful audio, to show how the bad audio ruined it, then we show the same scene with proper audio... I think it's an effective technique.
 
Just an idea, but if you want to show how important it is to have good audio, why not show how no audio is like? I'd just mute it. People will realize how important the audio part is in a movie. From realizing audio is important, its just a small and obvious step to good sound is better than bad sound.
 
It sort of goes back to what it is your trying to demonstrate, the importance of sound or the importance of good sound. Something along the lines below could be interesting. Take a scene and play it with picture only and then sound only. Depends on the scene a bit but you will often get a better picture of the story etc from the sound track. But do it with the lights off or everyone will be so visually distracted that it won't be effective. Or you could just use that scene in the coffin from Kill Bill 2.

My big catch with this kind of stuff is that intellectually understanding something isn't the same as emotionally understanding it. And when push comes to shove people go with there emotions every time. So if they don't emotionally know they NEED good sound and time or the budget gets tight they will rationalize away their intellectual feelings about sound because the "know" miracles can be done in post. If they emotionally understand they will do another take.



raphb said:
Just an idea, but if you want to show how important it is to have good audio, why not show how no audio is like? I'd just mute it. People will realize how important the audio part is in a movie. From realizing audio is important, its just a small and obvious step to good sound is better than bad sound.
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