Using sound to convey lack of attention

zcream

zcream

Well-known member
Here is the situation. An actor is not paying attention to the person talking in front of them. But phasing out and remembering a conversation that occurred earlier.
How do I convey this on the soundtrack ?
I tried to just overlay the audio from other conversation - but it has a different ambience and sounds strange..
 
There is no "Answer" to that question, it all depends on the film and how the "world of the film" works.

There are a bunch of ways that it might work. You could fade out the "present" and fade in the "past". You could use the sound you designed and always comes in when the character spaces out. You could do a hard cut. You could do any number of "designs" for the moment. But what will work depends on the film and the "world" of the film.
 
zcream said:
But phasing out and remembering a conversation that occurred earlier. How do I convey this on the soundtrack ?
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Rather cliché, but use a low pass to start muting and perhaps add some reverb, then, as Noiz said, fade out the dialog to near silence; then fade up the remembered dialog. If the character is not paying attention s/he is lost in their own head, so the BG/ambience, Foley and sound FX will fade out as well. You can play around with phasing and/or flanging as well.

Do as much NR on the "remembered" conversation as you can get away with.


Don't be afraid to experiment, you can make as many mistakes as you want. Nothing matters until you mix.
 
I think that may be a facetious answer, as harp strumming runs and a "swirly screen" effect truly are a cliche designation for "a guy remembering something/flashback" scene. But I also think that the suggestion to have the "current," foreground dialogue to slowly fade to a very low volume, while having the new "memory" dialogue fade in with a touch of reverb and a slight "telephone EQ" (exaggerate the mids while pulling back on the highs and lows) is a really good one. While it may be a bit of an over-used cliche, it may also have moved beyond cliche to more of a meme, meaning, if done well, your audience will immediately "get it;" you can be assured that they will understand what's happenning in the scene just from the soundtrack/dialogue treatment alone (without the cheesey music and swirly effect). In other words, that type of sound treatment is synonymous with "memory" in most audience-member's minds.

GJ
 
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I just realized that its easier to reshoot the scene with the changeover in mind.

Maybe I could pan to the non-attentive actor as the other one is speaking and then pan back.
This way I could fade in the sound when the non-attentive actor comes into the pan and fade out when it pans back to the other one.

I could also use reverb and the different ambience on the external sound.
 
Well if your going to reshoot/ reedit then you can do the other not so cliche move of fading down while on the talker.
 
If there was music playing in the background during the "old" conversation (someone playing a guitar, or an ice cream truck going by, or ammusement park music), you could start a slow cross-fade from the voice of the "current" conversation to that music. During the cross-fade, be slowly creeping in to a tight CU of the listener. When the cross-fade is complete, hold music at full for a couple seconds, then quickly fade down the music just a little and start (at full volume) the voice of the remembered conversation. After half a second, cut to a MCU of the person from the remembered conversation, as he continues talking.

Come to think of it, the bridging sound wouldn't need to be music, it could be any environment sound from the remembered conversation.

-- Ken
 
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My idea is to start the remembering with fragments, single key words from the previous conversation. The words can shoot out, and maybe pan to interrupt the current conversation. As it fades out, the words from the past become more coherent and recognizable. It's a trippier take, but more like how memory works.

If you're going to reshoot -- you can have the current conversation trigger keywords from the past with well thought out associations. If you really want to get elaborate.
 
but yes... you can not put the sound of an elephant on a dog barking....
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Who says you cant! There was a fad awhile back with putting animal sounds in everything, explosions, cars zipping by, etc..

BTW I was joking. Well not exactly. Anything will not work, usually, but I was paraphrasing all is great till it isn't.

Somethings just work and everybody's happy. Somethings don't, or you think they do but the director doesn't.
 
things that everyone knows it doesn't work but only one stubborn, obstinate, headstrong guy says it does...

it's called: commercials.... and the guy is a commercial-agency-guy or a "creative director"...
 
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