Imagine watching a movie scene featuring the London underground, seeing the train doors open, and not hearing, “Mind the gap!” Or a horror scene with a Spice Girls soundtrack.
It just doesn’t feel quite right.
While focusing heavily on a video’s visual elements, such as camera angles and special effects, is key to video production, you should never overlook the importance of sound design.
Sound design plays a crucial role in video production, helping create a more immersive and impactful video. Whether you’re working on short films, documentaries, or commercial projects, these insights and best practices will help you elevate the quality of your audio and overall production value.
WHAT IS SOUND DESIGN IN VIDEO PRODUCTION?
Sound design is the creation and manipulation of sound elements to boost a video’s quality. The term covers everything from music composition and recording or sourcing sound effects to editing dialogue and mixing.
Here at Perspective Pictures, we believe the goal of sound design in videography is to complement the visuals with cohesive audio, create an immersive experience, and intensify the emotional impact.
KEY ELEMENTS OF SOUND DESIGN
You can’t use sound design to create an immersive viewing experience if a few key elements aren’t in place. These include:
Dialogue and speech clarity: Use proper microphone placement, well considered ambient noise, and editing to ensure speech and dialogue is crisp, clear, and easy to understand. This allows your audience to follow the story while connecting with the characters.
Ambient sounds: Incorporate ambient sounds such as crickets chirping or traffic, sirens, phones ringing, and the hubbub of people talking to create atmosphere. This enhances the experience and helps transport viewers into the world on screen.
Foley and sound effects: Select and layer Foley and other realistic sound effects such as a creaking door, footsteps, or pouring liquid into a cup or glass, synchronizing them with the actions on screen. This enhances the video’s realism, adds authenticity and context, and increases audience engagement.
Music and score composition: Collaborate with composers or source music for seamless integration in the video. This will set each scene’s tone, complement the narrative, and evoke emotion in viewers.
Spatial sound and surround mixing: Place sounds in specific locations in the soundstage to create a 3D audio experience and use surround mixing sound design techniques to emphasise the spatial distribution of sound. This offers a more dynamic, immersive portrayal of what’s happening on screen.
SOUND DESIGN FOR VIDEOS: BEST PRACTICES
With hundreds of videos under our collective belt, the Perspective Pictures team knows about sound design in video production. These best practices drawn from our experience in sound design in London are a great starting point for effectively using sound to support storytelling, evoke emotions, and add depth to your videos:
1. USE SPOKEN WORDS EFFECTIVELY
Consider the content and quality of any spoken words in the video, such as conversations, interviews, testimonials, or voice-overs. Choose clear, concise, and compelling dialogue and narration for character creation, conflict, and resolution, and to communicate emotions, information, opinions, and perspective.
It’s also important to think about how dialogue and narration is performed and delivered. Spoken words in your video should be expressive, convincing, and natural. Use sound design techniques to edit and process spoken words to achieve the quality and effect you want, contrasting, emphasising, or harmonising it with other audio elements in your video.
2. USE SOUND EFFECTS CREATIVELY
Sound effects are all sounds that are not dialogue or music, such as ambient, synthetic, and Foley sounds. Consider the quality and source of these effects in relation to the visual elements, and mix and layer them to add complexity and depth to the soundscape.
You can also use sound design techniques to modify or manipulate these sounds to create new sound effects that further enhance the video’s narrative and emotional impact. By using sound effects creatively, you can enhance metaphor or symbolism and offer clues to the message or plot of the video.
3. USE MUSIC STRATEGICALLY
We mentioned above how music can convey the theme and set the mood of your video when used effectively. However, using music ineffectively can overwhelm or distract from the visuals or message, or it can come across as cliched, boring, or cheesy.
To use music effectively, assess the emotional base of the scene and then choose music that supports it. Think about the genre, style, and tone of the music you’re considering, adjusting the balance and volume to create the effect you want.
4. USE DELIBERATE PAUSES AND SILENCE
Pauses and silence should also form part of sound design on screen. You can use the absence of sound to create dramatic, powerful, or subtle effects to emphasise or evoke anticipation, relief, tension, and other moods and emotions.
To use deliberate pauses and silence effectively, consider their timing and duration to ensure they are appropriate and achieve the desired effect. It’s also important to vary and transition pauses and silence for diversity, dynamism, variation, and progression in the soundscape.
5. USE SOUND DESIGN TECHNIQUES, PRINCIPLES, AND TOOLS
Sound design techniques, principles, and tools can help you plan your video’s soundscape, add it to the footage, and evaluate its quality. Ensure you use appropriate tools including software, hardware such as microphones, and sound design libraries.
To make effective use of techniques and principles, consider those which are relevant for your video, such as balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, and unity.
PERSPECTIVE PICTURE PLUG: WORK WITH SOUND DESIGN PROFESSIONALS
Getting the sound design for your video right can be just as complex as shooting the perfect visuals. This can be a daunting prospect if you’re inexperienced or simply don’t have access to the tools and techniques you need. With ample experience in sound design, Perspective Pictures’ amazing team is ready to work with you to produce a compelling, impactful video.
Whether you want a video for your social media pages, an explainer video for a new product, a crowdfunding pitch video, or a video for other purposes, we can make it look and sound good.
