The sound design for this project presented me with two major challenges: finding voice actors and deciding whether or not to sacrifice realism for clarity.
My original plan was to have four characters: Captain America, Harry Potter, and Joker. In the final moments of the PSA I was going to have Joker set off a bomb, destroying the city, however I decided that that would be too many explosive moments in term of sound, would be too complicated to film in stop motion, and I could not find a fourth voice actor willing to play the part.
In postproduction I had to create six audio tracks to fit all the elements I desired. I started with ambiance, which I collected myself from the streets around campus. Then music. Next I included any major sound effects like the car crash, the motorcycle and the fire. After that I included less significant sound effects like Captain America’s phone vibrating and Harry Potter Dropping his sword. After that I mixed the voices.
Since the scene was supposed to be chaotic there was a lot of overlap which made it difficult to decide who to prioritize in terms of voice. For the most part I prioritized Captain America, because he was the villain, for lack of a better word, in the story. For instance, Batman’s “dun nun nas” when he is running across the street are barely audible under Captain America, the motorcycle and Harry’s warning. That being said, however, Harry’s warning was also not as loud as it could have, or should have, been in hindsight. It would have been more realistic, and effective to lower the sound of the motorcycle in that moment and have Harry speaking at almost max volume. However I wanted the threat of the crash to be ever present and in this case had to sacrifice realism for dramatic effect.
In the last few moments, I overlaid Captain America and Harry once again. This time Cap takes the back seat while Harry’s audio is the most prominent. I think I had Cap speak a little too softly, and had the fire sound effect in the background a little too loud. So Cap’s guilt is somewhat muffled and distorted, as is Harry’s. In this instance I should have sacrificed realism for drama, lowered the volume of the fire crackling, and made Harry and Cap’s voices more distinguishable.
Other than those two instances, however, I believe I did a decent job sound mixing this project. If I had to go back I would have focused less on the visual, and dramatic aspects and focused more on finding the right balance between drama and realism in the sound.
COM220 and 326 
I think your PSA idea was great and brought your own spin to the message using “Protect Your Heroes” which is actually very powerful. Visually, your camera shots were intriguing and kept the animation interesting. It definitely added another element I wouldn’t expect from a 25 second PSA which kept me involved with the story. I think your animation was well executed and certainly a challenge with multiple characters in multiple shots. I noticed that the approach you took with the different shots wasn’t as traditional as a typical commercial or PSA, but I think it would’ve worked better had it been. Your story was well thought out and creative but had there been an establishing shot of the city with the three characters, the story would have come across better visually. I could tell you thought hard about the sounds you would include in the PSA. You certainly captured everything you would hear in this setting. You have the roar of the engine, the vibrations of the text notifications, and the sound of the car crash at the end that brought it all home. I think some city sounds in the very beginning would have set the scene well for the rest of the PSA and potentially some footsteps for the characters movements that would bring them to life for the audience. I think a hiccup may have been your sound mixing. I think it was a great idea to have voice actors for your characters but their voices were overstepped by the sound effects and were highlighted. I also think the sound effects may have blocked out the music you had. In my opinion, the music wasn’t completely necessary and think that you could have used city sounds as background noise instead and set the sound effects at a lower level so the voices were the star of the sound while the rest were just transporting us into this city you created. Overall, your project was super creative and fun to watch and I look forward to seeing what you come up with later in the semester!
LikeLike