Sound Editing

There were two parts to the editing process: Visual and audio. Because we layered interview audio over other footage, we split the audio from the clips. We used iMovie to edit the film as we were unfamiliar with editing and decided to use the default program on our school's iMacs. The majority of the audio is in green, with some still attached to the clip being shown as blue sound waves.

An overview of the audio in the film. A majority of the audio is split from the clip, with some audio still attached. Throughout the entire film there is a backing track and multiple layers of sound (backing track, dialogue and gameplay sound).

Audio that started over another seen had to be split from the clip and lengthened. This can be seen with the green audio file on the bottom going back to before the beginning of the clip. Syncing the audio and the clip was difficult, and to deal with this we clapped during filming to find an easily identifiable moment of synchronisation. To cover cuts in the audio as we jumped from specific moments of dialogue to another, we showed either other angles or gameplay footage, the gameplay having its own audio. We had to balance the sound so that  both were easily heard but did not get in the way of each other. Dialogue tended to be louder than the sound effects in the game as it was of greater import.

The backing track was played throughout. An intro/outro song was used as well as ambient noise from the iMovie sound effect library called "Borealis". "Borealis" was only 30 seconds long and so had to be looped. To make the continuity sound more like one piece, we shortened it to before it faded out and added the same track after it. Matching the beats made it sound like one continuous piece, and so could be used for extended period of time. Matching it with the intro/outro was also simple, as both had very similar beats and timing. To eliminate any differences, we faded out from on and in from the other. This made the transition natural and eliminated any jarring elements.