Thriller Construction - Lesson 5 - Titling and Soundtrack

In today's lesson the focus was to begin the titling process and have a rough soundtrack produced. Bethany was absent, so Ellie and Beth focused on finalising the titles that we had short-listed in the last lesson and selecting the timings and adding the Production Company still that Ellie and I created. LiveType was not functioning properly so they used Final Cut to produce some titles and effects using the fonts myself and Ellie selected when the rest of the group was absent. They did a fantastic job and completed about half of the titles, along with the ending scene where the title is displayed - Ellie produced a very good "typewriter" type effect here that is very effective.

Meanwhile, I was on my own producing a Soundtrack. I had downloaded the editing software Audacity that I referenced in my Soundtrack post and placed all the samples I was going to use into the software, and began fine-tuning and editing each track, by adjusting tempo and abbreviating certain areas, as well as isolating particular notes and segments, such as the piano used in the start - the actual score I was working with was from British rock band Bring Me The Horizon's track "And The Snakes Start To Sing" - I isolated an instrumental by removing the vocal frequency, and then used a loop to get a solemn, piano piece. After discussing with the group, we decided to not use a few other samples I had created, and so extended the loops. Next lesson I need to fine-tune this area by adding a synth effect, that I could find online or use production software to create - the desired effect is a synth that builds in a lurch then cuts, to go at the end of each bar. This will also mean that the backing track will have more layers making it more original. I created a piano effect to go at the end of this sequence using Garage Band, to fade the clip out as the Detective picks up the ribbon in the sequence.

Here is a screen shot of the timeline of the Soundtrack on Audacity, after about half an hour of producing. You can see
the different tracks clearly, along with where I've added Fade in and out effects to the different tracks. Since this image, the second track has been removed and the tracks have been re-ordered, but this shot shows how I have been producing the Soundtrack so far.

I then used my edited abbreviated version of "Pyres of Varanasi", an instrumental track also mentioned in my Soundtrack post, to heighten the pace. I listed timings from the edit to base the soundtrack around, so that it was synchronized with the action, i.e. a large crashing noise is heard as the Shade is first seen. In the next lesson, I need to add the Camera sound effects and loud, low-frequency boom on each flashback/Shade sighting, and fine-tune the end section of the Soundtrack also. Although frustrating to time correctly, the lesson was productive and we made good progress as a whole despite the absence of a group member and can hopefully make more progress next lesson towards completing the rough edit.