Effects of Sound Effects

Imagine yourself finishing your first short film. However, something is just not quite set. You have the main subjects walking through grass without talking. Can you hear the grass? Are there great sound effects when the window breaks? Can the listener really feel the presence of the crowd? Want to have the sound of a large crowd without paying for extras? Try layering a sound effect.

With the use of sound effects, you can have a foghorn while you’re filming the ocean. This creates the impression that there is a ship in the distance. Nearly every scene is filled with layers of sound effects. Most of the time, it is done without us knowing it! Imagine your subjects are sipping on sweet tea outside at night. What would you hear? Crickets? Perhaps an owl? Maybe you would hear wolves? Layer these sounds in editing.

The editor’s best friends are the sound effects. Some sounds do not capture well on camera. Some events need help with sound amplification.

The best part of using sound effects is the budget. Sound effects are rather inexpensive and can save your project’s budget. Instead of manually creating each effect, you can download a variety of sounds. There are quite a few free sites on the Internet. The best sound effects you’ll have to buy, but they are only a few dollars.

One of the biggest issues facing the entertainment business these days is legalization. When finding a site to acquire your sound effects, look for sentences like this one found on soundsnap.com, “Access 100,000 legal sounds with our economical Download Packs.” Take a look at Sound Snap. They are a great place to let sound effects inspire your creativity, legally.

Another great option is making your own sound effects. You can use your voice, your children, your kitchen appliances and even various taping speeds on your table.

Here, a youtuber named Esalaah gets creative with sound effects. He’ll give you a rather in depth description of making a gun shot noise using your mouth!

If you’re a twitter-aholic like myself, I suggest following @ProSoundEffects. This company, based out of New York City, updates Twitter frequently on their database of sound effects. On their Twitter page you can find a link to their website. A few other good ones to follow are @a1soundeffects and @sepulchra.

Remember, when creating, use what works for you. Create your own sound effects, or find amazing ones online. Either way, use sound effects to help you make your projects the best they can be! Good luck on your films!

How To: Green Screen

One of the easiest special effect to pull off is Chroma Key, or more commonly referred to as green screen. Beginning filmmakers or your typical vlogger can use this technique relatively cheap. When filming a scene where you, as the filmmaker, would like to make the background different than what it is, have your actor stand in front of a big green or blue background. The reason why green and blue are used, is because they are farthest from the color of skin. A room wall can be painted green or blue, or you can fashion fabric or poster up that is that solid color, big enough to fill the frame.

Once you’ve established your own green screen you need to focus on your lighting. Make sure you have it evenly lit before filming.

Wavelength Media, has an easy to follow tutorial for beginners. Their best advice:

“remember the two most important considerations: 1.The colour and lighting of the green screen needs to be as even as possible. You can't have anything in the foreground (i.e. part of the the subjects) which is the same colour as the green screen.”

Sometimes the simplest of rules are broken and the Chroma Key fails to look as seamless as the filmmaker intended.

For the purposes of this blog, I am using a MacBook Pro in where iMovie is the chosen editing software. It is extremely useful for a filmmaking beginner because of the ease of use and the amount of online help you can receive for it.

Step one…film your subject in front of a green screen.

Step two…film your background, or find photographs of for your background.

Step three…import all filming into iMovie.

Step four…drag the selection of film or photographs you’d like as the background into the upper left hand side.

Step five…drag the green screen film work you’d like to use ON TOP OF the selected background in the upper left side of iMovie.

Step six…select green screen and watch it put together.

Of course you’re going to have to edit it to get the timing right, but it really is that simple. I found a great tutorial that says the same steps, but shows you how to do them:

Ken, from Maholo.com, the website that can teach you basically anything you’re interested in knowing, has a video about how to use a green screen with imovie11, which for your average mac user, is a must for movie magic. I found his video at macmoviemakers.com

Finally, I’d love to leave you with a fun video of one of my favorite bloggers, one half of the Vlogbrothers, Hank, showing us, back in 2009, his new green screen.

Thanks for reading and feel free to send me your green screen work!