A few weeks back, my business partner and I realized how sound can help pull a viewer further into a video. When we first began filming and making videos together, we never really understood the importance of audio and would just play videos to specific music. So one day, we set out to do a little test by filming parts of Asbury Park in New Jersey and then by throwing together a short edit with all sorts of sounds to create more of a moody video. While testing the audio, we were also testing some of the low-light capabilities of the DJI Inspire 2, X5S, 45mm Olympus lens and the Sony a7S II, which is known to be one of the best low-light cameras. By combining aerial clips, ground clips, and actual sounds of the locations, I think this video is much better than it would have been just to the sound of the music.
Why add audio to your videos? Audio can be another aspect of video that grabs our attention. When we are at the beach, we can imagine the sounds of the waves. When we are in a city, we can imagine the sounds of the cars, traffic, people and so on. These subtle sounds almost help place us in the video: when we can see and hear the things we are watching, we are able to create a sense of feeling or emotion. In this video, you can hear the ocean, the wind, the traffic, and the train which all help set us in the location we are seeing in the video.
https://vimeo.com/203710832
Our goal here was to create a lonely vibe of this town at night. Without the audio, I think the video would still look good, but I do not think that it would convey the same emotion. If you are a video person, I would definitely recommend trying out some more audio effects in your videos if you haven't already. The more you play around with audio, the more you will pay attention to it and see how it can benefit some of your projects.
A lot of the time when I am adding sound, I will search for it online; but as I get more and more into it, I consider actually recording some sounds while I am out filming. Above, you will see another good example of audio that was added by Joshua Cowan. I had previously written about this video not only because of his aerial work, but also because of his editing and ability to pull me into the video with the audio and visuals combined.
I liked what you did with the audio, but I think the audio and music were battling it out a bit much. I think the music needed more prominence over the aural atmospherics. Of course, riding gain now and then helps for certain moments, but I think the music (which reminded me of Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack, not a bad thing) should have more prominence. This is my personal opinion or course, nice work overall.
Well thank you, I appreciate the advice! Always things to work on. It will all come together over time.
Nice article! I'd be interested to know of any good sites that provide background audio for use in clips similar to this.
I use one site that is pretty good called soundbible.com check that out and see if you like it at all. They don't have everything but it is free and easy to use.
Pretty cool article!
Thanks!