Sound Editing - Assignment 1

Find six videos, that illustrates each reason for sound recording, and analyse why the example is relevant these should be uploaded to your Prezi. Try to find a different example to the one used as an example, however if you are struggling you may use some of the same examples.

You must find videos that illustrate the following these videos must be accompanied by detailed analysis

• To compress and summarise a sound recording to fit a specific space.

• To eliminate flawed, repetitive, superfluous, uninteresting, irrelevant material from a recorded clip

• To enable recorded speech to remain legal.

• To ensure any indecent or inappropriate language is edited out

• To change the chronological or logical order of a series of sounds or speech.

• To create impact by adding sound effects and/or music between pieces of recorded speech.

1. To Compress and Summarise a sound recording, allowing it to fit a specific space

There are many instances in which sound recordings may need to be shortened down or trimmed to fit the allocated time for a piece of film or audio production. Often in media production, a scene from a film may not look quite right with a song in its entirety playing in the background. Similarly, TV Shows, specifically those with musical intros may not look quite right if the intro includes the entire 3 minutes or so of a song. As an example, the Friends theme tune plays before each episode, but only for around a minute whilst we are introduced to the characters, and the actors are credited. Below is the Friends intro sequence, as well as the entire song "I'll be there for you" by The Rembrandts.

The reason that the original song would be cut down for the beginning of each episode is because the episodes only hold a 30 minute time slot, so taking 3 minutes of this for the intro would decrease the time of the episode itself. OFCOM says that 12 minutes of adverts is the maximum per hour, and so in this case the advert breaks would last around 5-7 minutes. This would take 8-10 minutes from the run time of the show, so it is smart that they only used a minute of the song, as to only take 6-8 minutes from the total. The song has been cut down well, as it is easily recognizable to many over the world.

2. To eliminate flawed, repetitive, superfluous, uninteresting or irrelevant material from a recorded clip.

Unwanted parts of a recording will always come to be an issue for a media production. This can greatly alter the message contained within a media production, and so the correct actions must be taken to remove the audio that is not needed in the final cut. Many interviews between celebrities are cut down to remove anything that could be considered controversial, or anything that adds no real meaning to the final piece. For example, a sneeze or cough would need to be edited out of the final piece, accompanying it out would also be the ringing of a phone, or silences in between questions or answers.

The videos seen below are interviews, the first from Daniel Radcliffe, the second a video of all three of the main characters (Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint), who spoke about what it was like filming Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. The interview with Daniel, who played Harry, is uncut, and everything between the questions can be seen, including the thought process of Daniel. In the second video, the interviews from all three have been cut up to include only the relevant quotes, as well as combining this with quotes from the films, which help the create a more intriguing and interesting video of the interviews.

3. To enable recorded speech to remain legal
The legality of a piece of audio come from the rights held by the owners of the selected clip. Most pieces of audio are copyrighted, and so they cannot be used without the rights. If someone doesn't have the rights to the audio, and they find their way into a production, they must be edited out to make sure that the clips remain legal in use. For example, if you were filming a shot and happened to "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi playing in the background, you would need to mute and dub the audio track, or mute the song and re shoot the action. This is the same for any song which is held by copyright, as well as other forms of audio such as MLK's "I have a dream" speech.

Copyrighted footage or audio usually has a line of text, something similar to "Music video by Luis Fonsi performing Despacito. (C) 2017 Universal Music Latino" to state that the video or audio belongs to them

4.To ensure any indecent or inappropriate language is edited out
Any indecent or offensive language must be removed if within samples of audio, and a big part of this is ensuring the censorship during broadcasts and other productions. This is often seen within live broadcasts of sport, where a player is at the side of the pitch, close to a camera. The cameras microphone picks up the audio from the player, and often leads to harsh consequences for the players. In the first clip, Wayne Rooney is unhappy with how the cameraman is getting incredibly close to his celebrations and so swears at him. This granted him a ban from two games, one of which was the Semi-Final of the FA Cup. Unfortunately, the broadcast team could not mute of dub over the language used by Rooney, and this is probably why he was given a ban for his actions. In the second clip, the crowd are heard, and they are chanting about how bad Sky TV is, supposedly. In this instance, the team working behind the broadcast were able to drown the crowd out with other stock audio of a crowd at a football game. They placed this over the audio track which initially had the offensive chant, as to not affect the volume of the commentary or anything else

5. To change the chronological or logical order of a series of sounds or speech.
Changing the order of sounds within a clip is incredibly useful in film trailers, where video and audio are placed out of chronological order, which gives the audience a more engaging insight into the film. If the trailers were just highlights in order then it would be less interesting for the viewer. These trailers both give good ideas of the characters and their relationships, but they leave the twists and shocks for the real film, which is effective because the audience will in no way be expecting something like that to occur. 

6. To create impact by adding sound effects and/or music between pieces of recorded speech.
Adding music or sound effects into recorded speech can be incredibly useful to display a specific message to an audience. Within pieces of speech, using music can better create the intended atmosphere. For example, in a film, if a character is hit with a piece of devastating information, the sudden introduction of a sad soundtrack can heighten the emotion in the scene. Vice versa, happy music can make the viewer feel the same as the character in the scene, all through adding more sound to the scene.
Contrapuntal sound is when the sound is the opposite of what we expect to see on screen. This can be effective to create a sense of recklessness and free will.