Good sound and audio is crucial to any peace of creative media for so many reasons. The sound gives life to the media and enhances what you’re playing or watching.

This includes the sound effects, the music and any speech and dialogue.

Good or bad sound can make or break a project and good sound design can enhance an already amazing movie or game.

Many famous pieces of media have at least 1 iconic sound effect of song or soundtrack that’s associated with them and that’s the result of good sound design. For me, the entire legend of Zelda series springs to mind. It’s full of so many iconic sounds and effects, alongside an always incredible soundtrack. Though new instalments are being released, they keep the iconic theme and sound effects similar, but different enough to fit there themes and specific game. In terms of animation specifically, Ghibli movies come to mind. It’s famous for its visuals and animation but also its soundtrack. Without it they would lose alot of what makes them so special.

Sound designers create and compile audio assets for media. This includes sound effects, voice over's, film, television, advertising, games and even live performances like theatre.

Basically their the ones responsible for creating all the audio and sound.

For sound and sound effects, sound weaver and krotos studios are common suggestions.

It takes a good understanding of timing as you need to match the characters lip movements to the dialogue being said.

Capturing the natural look and flow of speech can be hard.

In order to understand this better, I looked into videos to learn how its done effectively as my animation skills are lacking as is. Doing both an animation and a lip-sync is going to be challenging. Luckily for me, Shar who I watch on YouTube a lot uploaded a video very recently about how she animates dialogue. So I used this to start learning.

Mouth shapes

When we speak our mouths make different shapes, and understanding these is important to having smooth dialogue that matches what's being said. Each sound is going to look different.

Facial expressions

Making sure the face moves and matches the mouth and dialogue being said is also super important. Doing both these things well and adding them together breathes life into what otherwise would be flat expressionless characters.

Getting good at these things requires good observation skills, as well as a good understanding of anatomy, which is a bit of a road block for me as this is something I'm still working on. The fastest way to improve this is to simply look at a reference and practice. Which sadly I'm a bit limited with time wise with the 1 and a half week left of this project. But I'm going to get as much practice in as possible and document it here.

For this first one, i struggled finding sounds that i thought fit, so some may seem a bit random.

I started the week well, but then fell behind a bit after getting the second project from charlotte I wasn't managing my time well, but its something I think I'm adjusting to. I just need to get used to having two projects at once.

Next week I'm going to make sure I get everything I need to get done on time, whilst catching up on what I'm behind on. As well looking into extra things to help my understanding.

I know I need to add in-betweens but i dont understand how to do them

I added some necklaces and settled on her coat being green. I also lightened her eyes from the dark magenta to a very light mint green, although you cant really see that in this sketch as she had white pupils.

I brought the bullet holder thing back from my original sketches, but put it beneath her coat this time. then changed her tights to de-clutter the design a bit.

I’ve stuck with my first idea for this project and stuck with it so far because I think it works with the voice clip I chose. What I now need to decide how detailed I want to make this animation, whilst keeping in mind time limits and my own general ability. I’m going to spend the first half of next week animating and then finish any unfinished work and annotations. I’m a bit behind with somethings so I’m going to catch up over the weekend and make sure I have as little to do next week making sure my Animation gets done.

At this point i realised i would have time for colour, but to make sure i get both projects finished properly, the background might have to be skipped.

Ive included a link to the sounds if you want to here for yourself.

https://youtu.be/osR6OdBphQs?si=U8SqR2TWPBw6EL2S

In terms of primary research, i looked into lip syncing videos and wrote down what i learnt from them which really helped me learn the dos and dont's, and really improve. I applied everything i learnt into my final product and without it i'm sure I would've struggled. For my secondary research i looked into hollow knight and why i think i uses sound so well. I learnt why certain choices can have such a large impact when dealing with sound. This is something I want to use not only in this project, but future ones to. Ive learnt so many skills I didn't have prior to starting this project like lip syncing, a more in depth understanding of 2d animation, using after effects for sound, and how to use sound. In terms of improving, my animation as always is a bit shaky. Its not great but i'm going to keep practicing because i think its a skill that comes with time. I think their somethings just not clicking for me, but once the penny drops ill be able to create higher quality outputs. My ability to use after affects had only gotten better with me now knowing how to add sound in it. Lastly, lip syncing. Yes a kind of animation but to me it felt like its own skill that i just couldn't quite click with. I think its what drags the whole final product down so i really want to work on developing it. I think everything i've developed and learnt is applicable to any job in the industry so i'm glad this project gave me the chance to learn them.

My main issues this time round were mainly convincing myself that my animation doesn't deserve to be binned every ten minutes, especially with the lip syncing. As always my own idea of the minimum standard slowed me down, so i slowed down in week two annoyingly. This is just something im going to have to overcome, in fmp i'm not going to have time for it so i'm glad its happening now so i can adapt for the next project. Making sure i keep my motivation is crucial and i'm what i'm going to work on, though sometimes i don't think i can do much.

Overall, this isn't my best work, and i'm ok with that. With the 3 week deadline, and still lack of animation skills, a masterpiece wasn't going to be produced and definitely nothing that meets any professional standard. This are all skills I can build on going forward and the difficulties were mostly just necessary hurdles that come with learning any new skill.