Harry McHale - Sound Design

Our film is based in various locations that require a different sound palette. In the post-production we will have to make sure the diegetic sounds match the location such as the ambient sounds. For example, at the cliff-edge where the father attempts to take his life, we have to make it out that the daughter's shout is hard to hear due to the heavy wind; in order to do this we will either have to record the ambient sound during production or create a foley in post-production.


Various aspects in terms of sound require preparation and can't be done on the spot. Various non-diegetic sounds will have to be considered such as the voiceover when the daughter reads her father's suicide note: this will require practice in order to make it seem realistic as emotion will have to be shown despite no visuals of the father in this scene. 


The soundtrack will have to planned carefully. The film's genre is a dark drama therefore a happy uplifting non-diegetic soundtrack wouldn't be appropriate however, the film starts with a happy family having good times therefore we will need two styles of soundtrack in this film. We decided that we can use a non-diegetic soundtrack as a sound-bridge where the sound is parallel in the 'happy family' scenes but contrapuntal when we cut to the shots of the father via parallel cutting. This helps emphasise the contrast or difference between the father and daughter and foreshadows the plot for the audience but also dramatic irony for the spectators which helps keep the audience's attention.

The dialogue will be recorded separately from the film camera if it's important to the plot: dialogue such as various conversations going on in the background during the family gathering won't be recorded separately as we want to create a busy atmosphere in these scenes.

We may alter sounds when we follow the father to emphasise how strongly the drugs are influencing/effecting him. We don't want to overdo this as a few scenes use parallel cutting therefore the sudden changes in sound will put the audience/spectator off.


Overall, the sound has been carefully planned out; we conjured a script which has dialogue for each character and various elements such as how each line should be said. Since this short film has various actors, the dialogue will need to prepared and will need to record lines multiple time so they are a good quality.