Sweetening

Sweetening

Before you finish, make sure your audio sounds as good as your video looks. Audio sweetening is the process of adding music, sound effects, dialog, and cleaning up any level, noise, or equalization problems.

Music

Adding music to a scene is a great way to help set the tone or provide non-verbal cues. When adding dialog and music in the same scene, keep the music at bed level, don't let the music over power the dialog. If you are having trouble hearing the dialog, this is a clear indication that the music is too loud. Keep in mind that you already know the dialog since you have written it and heard it played back several times. Close your eyes and try to listen with objective ears to make sure the first time listener will understand your script.

Sound Effects

Sound effects can provide a sense of realism for your project. If you have a scene with a gun shot, the addition of a loud bang when the gun is fired will make it much more realistic. Sound effects can also be used to make the setting more believable. If your video takes place in the woods at night, adding owls, crickets, and other night time sounds will make the scene more realistic. This realism will create a greater impact on your audience. If you doubt this, just try watching any movie without the audio.

Final adjustments

Before you finish, listen to the overall levels. Listen to make sure the levels are uniform throughout your piece. Your audience should not be expected to adjust the volume during the video. It is your job to make sure they don't have to. Listen for any noises, clicks, hum, or buzz that should be taken out. Most of the time, if you have hum or buzz on the tape, it is because you recorded poorly. If these noises are very apparent, think about re-recording. However, equalization often times can minimize bothersome noise (frequencies.) The general rule when equalizing is to try to decrease the offending frequencies first, then, if necessary, increase certain frequencies to provide intelligibility.

Sound creates expectations

Sound plays a strong role in setting the tone and expectation of the viewer. The following two videos provide examples of this. The video portion of these two pieces are identical up to the last edit. The music and sound effects however, are very different from each other. When viewing the following videos, pay particular attention to the audio. The audio can change your expectations, and it will affect Professor Monkey in strange ways.

File Type Size View

Real Player 506KB Here

File Type Size View

Real Player 527KB Here

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