Royal Television Society | Best Postgraduate Scripted Film & Best Writing
National Youth Film Awards | Best Director & Best Writer Nomination
Dinard Film Festival | Best Actress & Special Mention
Women Over 50 Film FestivaL | Best Student Film, 3rd Place
Norwich Film Festival | Best Student Film
Carmarthen Bay Film FestivaL | Best Short shot in Wales
Edinburgh International Film Festival | Official Selection
Richard Harris Film Festival | Best Student Film Nomination
This is England | Official Selection
In the Palace Film Festival, Bulgaria | Nominated for Best Student Short
Dam Short Film Festival | Official Selection
Woods Hole Film Festival | Official Selection
Cordillera International Film Festival | Official Selection

Ambience

Layer one

The first layer provides the base of the mix. The sounds include distant waves that are out of focus but give a feeling of grandeur to the ocean outside of the shot. I also added details such as flags hitting poles, wind and seagulls.

Waves

LAYER TWO

The second layer is made up of real waves I recorded on location during the shoot. I have shaped the waves using editing, velocity automation and EQ to match the waves' movements in the film.

Water Details

LAYER THREE

In this layer, I blended various recordings of close mic’d water. This includes a dripping tap, sloshing the water in a sink, an underwater sound effect, a water stream and water in a bucket. I found these sounds useful to add the details that the wave recordings were lacking. These sounds make the waves feel closer and more tactile.

Splash Accents

LAYER FOUR

This layer includes more waves recordings, but they are much more tightly cut around the peak of the waves splashing. They also include layers of noise to fill out the frequency bandwidth. This gave me more control of the waves' dynamic so that the points where the waves broke jumped out of the mix.

Additional Textures

LAYER FIVE

This layer includes sounds that you wouldn't normally associate with waves that I've used to make them feel larger than life in a way that draws the audience's attention into the film's world in high focus. These sounds include gravel moves, wood chips, rubber gloves/pillow covers flapping, a wrench twisting, ice cubes, seeds in a bowl, plastic tub low hits, pop rocks and a firework. You'll also hear rustling paper with a bandpass filter sweeping up through the frequency spectrum to add an artificial rise in tension to the break of the waves.

Sound Effects

LAYERS ONE TO FIVE MIXED

This shows all five layers mixed to form the full depth of the world on screen. Initially, we planned for the film to open with just the sound effects and image of the waves which would have sounded like this version of the mix. However, as discussed in my reflection essay, I decided to try adding music.

Music

LAYER SIX

This clip shows the opening with the music on its own. We considered taking out the sound effects completely to let the audience’s imagination fill in the gaps. This is definitely an interesting take and is quite impactful in its own way.

Final Mix

All LAYERS

Ultimately we decided that we liked how the sound design and music interacted. It’s as if the waves are answering the questions suggested by the music. I’m glad that I started by making the scene work with sound effects alone as the detail of the waves underneath the music makes this scene feel very full with a real sense of depth both sonically and emotionally. The combination of the two creates many questions for the audiences and sets the film up to answer them.

Production Sound

First Cut ScREENING

The sound in this cut is the raw production sound. For a first cut the editor, Marie, did a fantastic job of getting the pacing very close to the end product. But particularly towards the end there are pacing issues that need fixing in this cut, and you can hear the pitch drifting between takes which is quite jarring.

First Attempt

Building the ATMOSPHERE

In this version, the pitching issues are still there initially, but for the most part, the pacing of the scene is much the same as the final cut. Here I threw the pub atmospheres at it quite haphazardly to see if the idea was going to work and they are quite washy and undefined because of this. I spent more time trying to get the transition from Ceri and Erin to the pub singers to feel right at this stage in the edit as I knew this was important to get right before picture lock.

Experiment

Adding a Soundtrack

In this version, the pitching issues have been corrected. This helped me to try adding an underscore to the singing. I still sort of like the direction this version was going in and would have liked to explored it more. But it was decided by the director, Eileen, that while the way the soundtrack closed the film was working, she preferred to focus solely on the singers. I agreed with this and didn’t follow through with completing the music here, but it did become the basis for the music that made it into the final film.

Final Mix

REFINING

In the final version, you can immediately hear the vocals are clearer and that I managed to remove the car in the background. I've balanced the voices of Ceri and Erin to smoothen the cuts. The foley of the chair and clothes draws the audience's attention into the screen. The pub singers' appearance now comes first, before the atmos, placed over Ceri's expression of settling into her memories. The pub singers are much fuller and joyous sounding and now include Ceri and Erin in sync. I also made use of the Kimber's Men choir recording to add more weight to the mix. At the very end, I subtly added the score that I created in the previous version, to underpin the final chord in a warm and satisfying way.

Production Sound

Problematic

In this clip, you can hear the unmixed and untreated production sound. The sound of the waves in the background is very loud, making the dialogue unclear and muffled. There are also issues with the lavalier microphone signal disconnecting.

Wild Dialogue

Solution ONE

In this clip, you can hear the first way I attempted to tackle these problems. Going into the shoot, I knew this scene would cause problems, so I made sure to capture wild lines in a more sheltered outdoor location. I used these takes here, and while it sounds much clearer, to the point that it needs dirtying up again, the performance of the actor’s isn’t as strong as the real thing.

Noise Reduction

SOLUTION TWO

In this clip, I have isolated the dialogue so the noise reduction can be heard. Using iZotope RX and EQ, I lowered the waves' noise and brought out the frequencies of the dialogue. I took this processing further than I usually would as I knew I could hide some of the noise artefacts brought in by the processing with the sound effect layers of the waves. While it doesn't sound good on its own, I have shaped it so that it will be easier to mix in a way that will make it clear and natural.

Foley

REBUILDING

After stripping away everything except the dialogue from the production sound, it was essential to bring back the missing elements missing using foley. In this clip, you can hear the foley in isolation. The sounds draw the audiences focus right into the action and give the film a crisp and textural feel.

Sound Effects

SHAPING

I then carefully re-edited the production sound and waves recordings to bring back the realism of sitting that close to the sea, but with control. You can hear the sounds subtly duck to make space for the dialogue.

Final Mix

MIXING

This is the final version with all elements working together to create the full sound. The waves' ducking isn't noticeable with both played together, and the dialogue cuts through. The dialogue also sounds like a clear recording, and the artefacts brought in by the noise reduction are masked.

Production Sound

PICTURE LOCK

In the raw, unedited production sound, you can hear some problems with the dialogue sounding a little distant and some jumps in level. The editor has used production sound of a tap on location that is very dry and upfront in the mix, and it isn’t clear that it is a tap. There is also a temp door shut that sounds like a sound effect rather than the door in that space. Other than that the sound is relatively quiet and not very interesting.

Clean Up

DIALOGUE EDIT

This is the version after the first dialogue edit pass. You can hear that the dialogue is now clearer, levelled and clean. The distant dialogue was solved by using a combination of the boom and lavalier tracks.

Adding the Detail

ATMOS & FOLEYS

After cleaning up the dialogue, it was time to explore all that space left by such a quiet recording. Immediately upon playing this clip, you can hear that the atmosphere is much fuller than before. You can feel the energy of the pub and the outside world. The characters moves, and interactions with the props are starting to have more presence. The elements of the tap breaking are laid out for later refinement. The door shutting is now softer to match Ceri’s mood; she’s not angry, she’s embarrassed. But there is still more to be done to add full realism to the scene, particularly with off-screen sounds.

Final Mix

COMPLETING

To complete the mix, I added more off-screen sounds such as Ceri’s moves when she ducks to fix the tap, as well as some breaths. The tap has been restructured to make it more transparent what has happened.

There are two instances of incidental score throughout the film. It serves two primary purposes in both cases. To get inside the main character’s head and to make the shanty Leave Her Johnny feel familiar at the end, even if it’s the first time an audience member has heard it.

I reimagined the shanty using a fragmented version of its melody and reharmonizing the chords for each track.

The opening track stayed much the same from its inception. However, for the beach scene, we tried two different approaches. The first was quite foreboding, suggesting Ceri had given up. The second more hopeful. We ended up using the second version but using some of the darker instrumentation from the first. You can hear how it developed in the Beach Scene clips on the right.