Sonic Design : Project 2 Audio storytelling

25.10.2023 - 06.11.2023 ( week 09 - week 11 )
Len Hoi Yee / 0353430
Sonic Design / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Project 2 Audio storytelling  



Project 2 

For Project 2, we are to choose a fairy tale story and create an audiobook. There should be narratives, sound effects and to enhance the audio storytelling, screenshots of movie scenes are to be displayed. We are allowed to use any video editing software to pair the audio with the scenes as if the audience is watching the movie. 


Progress 

Research & Preparation 

After searching for some fairytales, I have decided to go with The Lion King movie. I have always loved this movie since young, and until now I still listen to their soundtracks. I have found the screencaps at 4K online for the audiobook. 

I have used its storybook as a reference for the narrative. I have also used Miro board to sort out my narratives, dialogues, and screencaps to be used for the audiobook. A total of 6 voices will be used in this audiobook, including the narrator. 

Voiceover Role: 

  1. Mufasa 
  2. Adult Simba
  3. Young Simba
  4. Scar
  5. Nala
  6. Narrator 

Screencaps at 4k: https://animationscreencaps.com/4k-the-lion-king-1994/page/1
Storybook in pdf: https://books-library.net/files/books-library.online-01251945Pq9C6.pdf.
Miro board link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVNRi4NoM=/?share_link_id=998724758312


Story


Scene 1 & 2 
Fig 1.1 Denoise, EQ & Autogate

In scene 1, It requires a lot of animal sound effects, therefore it took me some time to find good sounds for the animals. I have included animals such as elephant, zebra, hawk, flamingo, and lion. First, I set the narrator's edit to default so it could be used in other scenes as well. Mostly, it involves denoise to clear the background, EQ, and autogate to make the sound clearer. 


Fig 1.3 Hard Limiter and Stretch 

Adding a stretch effect to the hawk sound to stretch out the short and fast hawk sound. The hard limiter limits the lion's roar to not exceed the limit.  


Fig 1.4 Panning

I have also added panning to the sounds so it moves across the ears, for the zebra, it focused only on the left side. 

  
Fig 1.5 Editing in Premiere Pro

I have decided to do the editing scene by scene, so once i have done the audio mixdown, i imported it and work on the scene accordingly. 

Fig 1.6 Adding dialogues

Friend #1 who is playing Mufasa, has a deeper voice, however, it was quite challenging for me while editing his voice, because the audio somehow just sounds airy. Friend#2 who plays the role, young Simba, required more editing on her sound as her sound quality isn't that good. 


Scene 3

Fig 1.7 Narrator's audio settings

Fig 1.8 Scar's dialogue 

Friend #3 plays the role, Scar and he managed to make the cunning and creepy voice, I have also added an evil laugh at the end. Echo is added to make the sound more reflective. 




Scene 4 
Fig 1.9 Scene 4

In Scene 4, It is a chaotic scene, where background sound plays an important role, especially the detailed sounds such as the stampede, rock crumbling sound, This scene has the most sound effect among all and a lot more editing than the others. 

Fig 1.10 Editing the movement of images 

To not let the audience feel bored, i have created a movement of the image so the audience's attention is drawn according to the camera movement. And since this scene is more chaotic, it would be more interesting if there's movement rather than looking at still images. 

Scene 5

Fig 1.11 Scene 5

In scene 5 where happy moments are mostly happening, More upbeat and joyful sound effect is added. 

Fig 1.12 Growth scene

Since, I did not mention about Simba's growth in the audio, but I have used images to show he slowly grew up as time passed.  It's mostly fade in and fade out animation.


Scene 6
Fig 1.13 Dialogue

This scene included 2 roles, friend #4 has a deeper voice as well, and he plays the adult Simba role, and to indicate that his part Simba is mad, i have added a roar round before his dialogue comes in. Friend #5 plays the role , Nala which only has 1 line, however, her voice is surprisingly low. 

Fig 1.14 Create split screen 

I created a split screen at the part where tey both recognized each other. 



Final Outcome 





Reflection

In this project, i have learnt not to be last mnute, HAHAHA because everything is in a rush but I managed to produce soemthing that is quite up to my satisfaction,  Even though, there were troubles such as my file just got deleted and thank god i could take from the backups, since it is for the lecturer to check our work, I had to make sure that these files are playable. Another problem I have encountered was when I opened my files the medias were not linked which I panicked because I rly wanted to get it done asap. Thankfully, I managed to make it all linked and quickly upoloaded everything into Drive. 

It was a fun project honestly, I enjoyed doing all the recordings and editing. plus I was working on my all-time favourite movie, which made it less suffering. All in all, I am glad that I have learnt a lot in this project, you could say it was one of my favourite projects that I have worked on. 




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