DIRECTIONS: SOUND DESIGN

What is sound design?
Sound design in film and television essentially describes the process of capturing layering and mixing of individual sound elements to create one single soundtrack for the project. Just as you shoot and edit the image part of the project, you also shots and edit the sound part too. Sound design occurs at all stages of a  production, but it is essential a post-production phase, this process is also called the Sound Edit.

The Sound Designer
Originally, all the sound editing of a film was completed by a sound editor or a team of sound editor. These were technicians who had little creative input into the project., this new supervising sound editor position became known as the sound designer. The first film to credit someone as the sound designer, was Apocalypse now by Francis Ford Coppola.

Sound Layers
The job of the sound designer is to assemble a number o flayers or tracks of sound, which are then mixed together to form one whole. On some production there might be 50 tracks of sound, however most commonly there will be between 5 and 20 tracks of sound. There are 7 different types of tracks that can be used
- Dialogue; this is all the recorded dialogue from the actual shoot. Voice over would be a separate track.
-Sync; this is recorded sound from the shoot that ISN'T dialogue, IE someone walking across a room or getting into a car
-ADR; automatic dialogue replacement, this is all of the dialogue re-recorded or dubbed after the shot. Nearly all Hollywood films use ADR for the whole film.
-FX; Certain sound effects for elements such as a car engine, a computer, or an explosion. These will be recorded specifically for the production or more commonly they will come from a sound FX library.
-Foley; any sound that is created for the purpose to replace sound within a film
-Atmos; all the sound elements that make up an atmosphere for a particular location. This could mean weather elements like rain,
-Music; this is all the music in the film, diabetic music on a radio or someone playing an instrument within a scene, and non diegetic which is all the composed music places over the film, also know as the score. 

The Sound Edit
Thought the sound edit phase, the sound designer and the team will compile all the tracks, editing the various sounds to the picture, making creative decisions all the time. The sound is cut just like the picture and can be done in PP, but most commonly done using specialised sound editing software.
The Mix - once the the tracks have all been compiled and edited to the locked picture, the will be edited all together to form the one final track to be used in the entire film, this is known as the mix. The mix enables all the sounds to be balanced with each other and the picture to create the perfect soundscape.

The Art of Sound Design
The art of sound design is to add depth, feeling and emotions to the picture, its about making it feel right, so the audience believe in what they are seeing. Even if the story is set on an alien world, it should sound RIGHT. Great sound design can add details the audience can't actually see. A clock ticking in a room, a bird high up a tree etc.