External Diegetic Sound

Sound Implementation

Due to some takes being filmed under the expectation of me adding a voiceover in later, the sound in the film needed work quickly. Scene 2, where Pam's mother walks in and hints that she needs to go to the funeral now, was attempted the first time with a voiceover done on my phone. I recorded voice in a video format close to the voice of the actress doing the voiceover speech. This resulted in the sound's direction in the film to sound misplaced, as it was supposed to come from the direction of the door but instead sounded on top of the film itself (external diegetic sound).

The first attempt at doing the voiceover for this scene. It sounded unnatural for its confrontational tone of the voice actress and for its volume level/direction in relation to how the diegetic sound of this film would sound. 

Having looked over the take and given my limited amount of resources, I reverted to using the Voice Memo application Apple devices have. This allows the sound to be at a higher quality. To change the direction of sound, I had my voice actress play out the scene as it happens visually including; the door opening, the mother speaking to Pam, and the exit of the door closing and walking away steps. I recorded from the bed where Pam originally sits in the scene, figuring that the direction of sound would sound better suited to the scene once added if it is from that area away from where the camera during filming was. 

The revised voiceover with these changes implemented. As it cannot be easily identified as a voiceover — the goal was accomplished!

The sound tool settings on Adobe Premiere Rush that were used to smooth the audio into the scene with more ease were the reduce echo and enhance speech feature using a higher pitch. This quieted the background noise of the original audio and with the scene acted out, the door opening and closing, the footsteps, and the closing of the computer all come together to create this diegetic voiceover.

Seeing the drastic difference between my attempts, I learned the importance of considering every aspect of origin that the external diegetic sound in the scenes themselves would have. The loudness of sound connotes the distance it would be heard in the diegetic world of the scene. It also increases fidelity as one of the dimensions of film sound by accurately representing the sound's origin through playing out the scene detail sounds down to even the laptop being closed by Pam.