Production- Background Track and Sound Effects

  As I prepare for filming, I wanted to get started on deciding what music and sound I want to play in the starting and throughout the background of my film opening. As shown in my storyboards, I plan to incorporate non diegetic sound in the first and second scene, as the first scene depicts a nostalgic mood and the second a more light, playful mood. As for the third scene I plan to use diegetic sound to capture the family and South Asian culture oriented environment. To make sure I don't get copyrighted I will also be making sure I use sites and sounds that can be used freely. 

Scene 1 :

  For scene one, I decided to choose Pixabay as the website I will be getting my free music from. From here, I am able to easily download the sound of my liking. On Pixabay I looked for song choices that were slow, instrumental and were mainly driven by the sound of the piano. After looking through dozens of choices I came to like these three. To make finding them easy, I have made a "Film Opening" folder so that I can come back to them when I need to. Out of the three the one I am leaning the closest to is the sound titled- "Deep Cinematic Emotional Ambient" by RomanSenykMusic. I favor this one as the pace is soft and also will provide a good basis for my title card, since I want the title to be on beat with the piano.

  Another factor I need to take into account is sound effects. As I will be creating my film opening outside and with my Kodak digital camera, I might want to add in subtle sounds of nature that aren't picked up by the camera. This can include the sound of birds, trees, wind, ducks and more. So on Pixabay I too looked for these sound effects to have in handy in case I want to add to the ambience.

As you can see to the same library I added sound effects of a swing, sounds by the lake, soft laughing and a water splash.

Link to Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/

Scene 2:

For scene two, I will have an entirely different approach as it will take place inside a room with other types of props. As I also want to adhere to a romantic drama's conventions, based off my research, when introducing the main character a dance/synth pop which is more fast paced is used to showcase parts of the setting which the character is in. This way information is given indirectly to the audience. In my case using this type of music will also be more suiting to my main character as she is a teen. It also conveys a sense of love to the audience.

When trying to look for a sound that suited this scene it was much harder, and I didn't find many options on Pixabay. So looking to other resources, I used Youtube and searched up, "love pop synth songs which are royalty free", and a video came up with multiple sound choices in one. From this video, I came to like "Did I Make You Wait" by Staffan Carlen. It was fast paced and was a nice song to introduce the main character and give insight to her and her feelings. It provoked happy, upbeat emotions.

Link to Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai-lcy5DJt8&list=RDAi-lcy5DJt8&start_radio=1&rv=Ai-lcy5DJt8

 

As for sound effects, I looked for effects that matched up with the actions of my main character-Zara. In this scene, she sketches out "Noah", and uses her phone to text him. Therefore I may want to use sounds of "pencil/pen scratching", text notifications and typing on the keyboard. To find these, I used Pixabay once again and this time created a new folder called "Scene 2".

Scene 3:

  In scene three, I do not plan to have any background music, but I will be using sound effects from Pixabay such as the "Servant Bell Ring 2" and other household sound effects that take place in a kitchen. On Pixabay I even found background television sounds that sound like people speaking in Urdu, which play into the narrative of growing up in a South Asian household. I may not use all sound effects, but if I do need any, I can use this folder which I named Scene 3.

Now that I have all my sound effects and my tracks decided, the editing process will be much more faster and efficient. Throughout this whole process, I strived to find tracks that were similar to those used in the film openings I analyzed and used for reference so that my conventions are met. These tracks will be a big part in creating mood and sound effects will help make it feel more real. I'm excited to see how this works out!