Storytelling with video and film, part 2: sound elements
In part 1 of this series, we talked about the visual elements of videographic storytelling. In this installment, we’ll talk about some audio tricks that add polish to the finished product.
Hire a sound technician for the shoot
If your budget will tolerate it, hire an audio engineer to record sound on separate digital equipment (outside the cameras) during production. In addition to improving the audio quality, you’ll benefit from having a person solely dedicated to the audio portion of the shoot, listening for background noise, keeping the incoming signal pure and clean.
Music beds
Who writes all that smarmy music for corporate videos? And how do they keep from putting themselves to sleep during the recording sessions? There are so many excellent pieces of stock music out there—and so many creative ways to apply them to videographic products—that there’s no reason to end up with a sleepy soundtrack.
Picture a video scene where a chemist is working in a hospital research lab, as an example. Imagine the following three music beds under it. (The first one is the same smarmy piece that’s linked ab0ve, but the other two have the potential to take the scene to a whole new place, in entirely different ways.)
http://sounddogs.com/previews/3151/mp3/528161_SOUNDDOGS_Sk.mp3
http://sounddogs.com/previews/3791/mp3/377565_SOUNDDOGS_Ov.mp3
http://sounddogs.com/previews/3988/mp3/541609_SOUNDDOGS_Mo.mp3
An unorthodox look at your music bed can do amazing things for the mood of a video. Spend a little longer in the music library. Be more creative with your search terms. Listen to music samples during the conceptual phase of the creative process, and it may even change the way you script the project.
Voice-over
It’s always tempting to stay inside the box when you pick voice talent, to go with the guy who sounds like all the radio spots you’ve ever heard or all the corporate videos you’ve ever heard. Don’t. Look for alternative voice textures and fresh delivery styles.
If you haven’t worked with the voice talent before, request an audition in which they read a portion of your script. Offer suggestions during the audition to see how directable they are. Good voice talent should be able to give you precisely the read you’re looking for. Great voice talent should be able to take you beyond what you had originally imagined.
Pacing
Make sure the rhythm of the voice-over complements the rhythm of the music bed. It shouldn’t sound like a rap song, but these two components should have a harmonic relationship.
Audio sweetening
When you’ve finished the video edit, take the individual audio tracks from your edit master to a reputable sound studio and ask them to sweeten the audio. This will consist of processes like EQ adjustment, compression, normalization and a few other digital effects that you don’t need to understand, but you do need to spend money on. The result will be a warm, full-bodied, well-mixed audio track with levels properly adjusted for all broadcast and presentation purposes. It can cost as little as a couple hundred dollars for a short project, and the result will be a noticeable difference in the overall quality of your video.
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