Animation Project Critical Evaluation and Reflection

For my animation audio project I have produced a soundscape accompaniment for the visual piece Endless Rust. For this I aimed to create a complex ambience backing which would be an immersive and full mix, this was then layered with music tracks as well as foley spot recordings and fx. Focusing on the sound design for this project I am satisfied with the final product, In the pieces backing track Implements use of a number of software instruments and sound generators to create the soundscape and these were a good addition as they reinforced the heavily designed sound I was aiming for. Throughout the piece the foley recordings which I had produced I believe were of a good quality and with them being placed and positioned in the stereo image in a way which fits the on-screen visual cue in a responsive and synchronized way which helps to immerse the sound into the scene.

There were some instances with the foley recordings where the backing room tone was noticeably different to the rest of a scenes audio backing, however with this I went back and adjusted fades and levels to minimize the effect. Within the piece there was also some clicks in the footsteps tracks, these I saw were not clipping peaks and therefore they could be attenuated with compression to bring them down to a level more in line with the rest of the step tracks.

For the backing music I focused the timbre of instruments on voices which would typically be fitting of a sci-fi piece and this worked effectively to emphasize the setting of the animation and the overall aesthetic of what was being aimed for with the animation by its original creators.

I was most pleased with the rocket ship sounds after I had them finalized. I worked to have a very low-end focused sound for these at first however with this there was a lacking section of mid which the rockets were not filling, after some feedback from my lecturer I worked to amend this and filled the space with some higher register sound and the difference was very effective, with the rocket sounds now situated as the cinematic peak of the audio accompaniment.

Between the two mixed I produced for this, the Atmos mix does contain the interesting binaural movement which adds to the immersion within the sound design which I was aiming for, as with the software I was able to spot numerous objects into the 3D spatial image of the mix and add movement in to enhance this further, however I am undecided on whether the atmos mix is better than the original stereo mix which I produced through a combination of Logic Pro and Pro tools.