I wanted to think carefully about editing the clips together, I felt that just putting them together in chronological order and moving on to the sound design wouldn't be a good approach. The main focus was on how I'd transition between the scenes, how I'd open the film and other aspects such as including a title. I also felt that working on the sound alongside the editing would make my job easier as I could use ideas as I went along instead of waiting until I had completed editing the clips together.
I wanted to start on a black screen instead of just jumping into the opening shot, it creates anticipation as the viewers have no idea what they're getting into. It felt appropriate to leave it on black for a few lengthy seconds to build this anticipation before the sound of thunder strikes to help transition it into the opening scene. I was debating between a fade or a straight cut but when looking at it, the fade felt like it made it too long. Playing into the research I did in sound design, I implemented a crescendo through the thunder. I had the sound build up on the black screen until it reaches its peak as the black scene cuts into the opening shot.
I chose this particular video to be the sound as throughout it has a strong bass which I feel helps bring the immersion of this thunder storm. I feel it utilises the rythimic pulse method of suspense with sound as it has this pulse throughout that is very inconsisent with it's timings, meaning the audience doesn't get used to it or the silence inbetween. This also contrasts with the much louder thunder strikes that play alongside it.
I let the audio start in to build up this crescendo as planned, I alligned it so that one of the thunder strikes would align with the cut to the opening scene. This worked out just as planned. I then overlayed the sound of heavy rain which would play for the duration of the opening scene.
I wanted to next add the title of the film before it would reach the interlude scene. Though since the text was just on a plain background it felt too empty and didn't feel like it had enough interest to it. This was what I almost considered using but even then I felt it wasn't good enough for the film, it didn't really add to suspense.
If I didn't find another option I was either going to use this or have no titles for the duration of the film. Though this is where I decided to experiment with the idea to mix the title into one of the early shots of the film. More specifically the shot with the moon in view, I experimented with the text in three different positions with the addition of 'the calm before' on the title so it would better reflect my project.
In the end I was happiest with the 2nd option as I liked the text alignment best there and I preferred it being more centered in the screen. I had it fade in alongside the moon and fade out shortly after the camera started panning down to the city below. However, I was going to save a version without the title credits for a comparison. In terms of sound design I wanted a relatively calm song you'd expect to hear during a rainy scene of a film, something similar to Blade Runner so I particularly wanted something with jazz noir elements but this wasn't a necessity. This song would play through the interlude scene and help to set the atmosphere of this weirdly calm and seemingly completely empty city, something that also felt that it had a hint of sadness to it. I had a few choices for this:
What I liked aboout this piece was that it naturally felt very fitting as it was from the game's original score. But I also liked it for the atmosphere created, especially with the rain at the start. It portrayed a very hopeless and sad setting through the music even without any context.
I loved this piece because much like the previous, it is great a portraying an atmosphere. In this case it helps to portray the fog / mist covered city full of neon lights in Blade Runner. It's something that feels very cinematic and has a combination of wonder but also sadness.
I particularly liked this because it was a completely different style of music but still captured the atmosphere I wanted. It has a hopeless sounding atmosphere mixed in with aspects that bring the opposite. It felt very appropriate for walking in this war torn space completely alone. I was a big fan of the acoustic guitar used alongside violins.
This was a piece of more contemporary jazz that I found. Whilst it has a relatively fast pace compared to the other pieces of music, I felt that it actually surprisingly fit the mood of the film. I really liked the similarities it had to a lot of the tracks from ODST's score but it still felt unique. There were aspects where the piece felt cinematic and I could see it playing along to the film.
This piece of music captured a very dark and gloomy atmosphere, more so than the others. It felt more focused on this aspect which I liked because of the difference. It matched the scene just as well as the others, just for different reasons.
I was stuck trying to decide between these 5 tracks as they were all very fitting. I had to play them alongside the scene multiple times to find one that fit best. In the end I chose Overture as, like I said, it was the one to naturally fit the most considering it's from the source material. Though I really wanted to try and use Red, Blue & Green later in the film.
One thing I noticed was that it felt too quiet when there wasn't rain in the background. To fix this I decided to keep the sound playing throughout, even if there wasn't visible rain. I was going to make it sound lighter though in order to signify the storm hadn't started yet.
I decided to play Red, Blue & Green during the main scene of the film and keep it playing for the duration, with the plan to have it muffle during the power cut. To do this I revisited something I did during my previous project Memento, for this I simply added a 'lowpass' filter and added keyframes so it would cut in during the thunder strike. I then let it slowly fade back in so it would play a chord just as the scene cut to black. I also decided to move the title to here instead, it felt like it made a lot more sense being at the end. That was essentially my work done, I wanted to add some heavy breathing near the end to show the soldier's fear and a gunshot during one of the last thunder strikes but otherwise I was done with my work and I was very happy with it.