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The Master Guide / 13 Sound design and mix · Effects and beds

Placing effects

Every effect lands on its picture event, stays off the words, and supports whatever leads the moment.

Every effect lands on its picture event, stays off the words, and supports whatever leads the moment.

  1. Find each visual event's frame. Step through the cut at full size, frame by frame, and put a marker on the frame (steps below).

  2. Land the onset within about one frame of that marker (about 42 ms at 24 fps). Snap the sound's onset, where it becomes audible, to the marker, not the file's start. For a whoosh or riser, the peak lands on the frame.

  3. Hits, whooshes and stings land in the gaps between words, on a breath or a pause. Small foley that belongs to the action on screen (a cup set down, cloth, the product handled) may sit under speech, lower than the voice [proven].

  4. One lead at a time [proven]. The Lead column names what leads each moment, and everything else supports it. Count what sounds at once: more than two one-shots of the same kind, or a designed effect over a line of speech, is a flag for your ear, never moved by rule.

  5. Effects and music are one soundtrack [proven]. A hit or sting that isn't tied to a picture event lands on the chosen track's measured beats, or on a picture event that itself lands on a beat (the tempo is measured with the music takes: see Music → Music takes and the shortlist). The music carries the button, the film's last beat; a designed logo sting reinforces the track's last hit rather than adding a second ending. In a 25 fps TV version, one-shots move to their picture frame, while the voiceover, music, beds and any sonic logo keep their own speed (see Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → 25 fps TV versions by speed-up).

  6. Ambience sits low and continuous across cuts. A continuous bed glues the shots and dips slightly under speech. A bed that moves. Option: use it when a bed sounds flat [single strong source]. Let its level drift slowly across the scene, a couple of dB over several seconds, and tame stray clicks in a generated bed with a limiter. A bed fixed at one level is a tell of generated sound.

  7. Off-screen sound [proven as craft]. Where it helps the story, each scene gets at least one layer from beyond the frame (a car passing outside, a door down the corridor), chosen by the source order. A culturally specific sound, such as a call to prayer, passes the cultural check first (see The brief and research → Culture).

Then check every placement by ear, and with earshot's timeline (see Sound design and mix → The earshot listening check).

Do it yourself

Find a visual event's frame (Premiere)

  1. Step through the cut at full size, frame by frame, with the arrow keys in Premiere.

  2. Put a marker on the event's frame, then snap the sound's onset (or a whoosh's peak) to it.

Sources

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