Creating sound for video

What you will study

This short course focuses on practical skills acquisition, specifically those skills needed to create and edit sound for video. Using Reaper, and a set of video templates, you'll progress through a range of situations that require the creative placement, layering and manipulation of sound to a provided video project. The learning is divided into six weeks of content focused on the following areas:

Week 1: What is sound for video?
You'll begin with an introduction to the basic principles and functioning of sound in video. You'll get acclimatised to handling audio-visual components within Reaper in order to understand basic audio post-production tasks.

Week 2: Audio-visual pairing
Week 2 focuses on effective pairing of sound with on-screen activity and explores the importance of synchronisation through a range of practical tasks. You'll also learn about practices, such as Foley, that are used by professionals working in audio post-production.

Week 3: Editing sound
In Week 3, you'll edit sounds with cut, paste and trim functions and consider the vital role volume adjustment plays when establishing and supporting the communication of on-screen actions. You'll also look at the different roles played by sound emerging from the scene and that added afterwards.

Week 4: Layers of sound
This week examines concepts and techniques of sound layering through a discussion of sound mixing and provides you with practical ways to manage multiple sound layers in the course project.

Week 5: Sound transformations
Week 5 is all about transforming and modifying audio to create new and exciting sound material to better support your audio-visual project. You will apply a range of transformations to sounds (reverse, pitch-shift and EQ) and explore the application of modified audio in a range of settings.

Week 6: Finalising your project
The final week of the course will guide you through applying finishing touches to your project. You'll be introduced to the concept of mastering, and you will bring together the learning from the past weeks to complete and render your audio-visual project.

You will learn

By the end of this course, you will have gained:

Knowledge and understanding of:

• basic skills in audio postproduction.
• sound’s role in audio-visual communication
• basic theories of sound and its connection to visual action or events
• how professionals use audio-postproduction software to creative effective audio-visual experiences.

Cognitive skills, with the ability to:

• understand and use key concepts and vocabulary relevant to the course (including new sound editing terminology) to communicate your ideas
• engage critically with a range of multimedia sources to use as examples such as illustrations, instructional videos and audio-visual resources.
• reflect on your perspective and the perspectives of others in relation to the materials discussed on the course.

Key skills, with the ability to:

• apply basic sound editing procedures to provided material (cut, copy, paste, duplicate, layering, rearranging).
• follow along with instructional videos, which demonstrate sound editing in action
• consider the implications of sound editing procedures and make choices about where to apply such procedures.
• self-reflect and improve.

Practical and professional skills, with the ability to:

• plan, study and manage a sequence of work that meets a deadline
• apply acquired practical skills within and outside of set activities
• engage with and evaluate multimedia sources
• understand future study opportunities.

Vocational relevance

The course introduces students to techniques of sound editing for video that are used in a variety of vocational settings, from social media campaigns to more advanced commercial applications. It equips students with a basic understanding of a widely used Digital Audio Workstation, Reaper. An array of vocational roles are introduced within the course to demonstrate the breadth of jobs roles dedicated to sound in screen media productions.

Teaching and assessment

Assessment

There's no formal assessment, although there will be three ‘review and reflect’ points built into the course which you'll use to reflect on your understanding.

Regulations