Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

• Demonstrate industry-standard techniques essential to a workflow of sound editing for video through finalized delivery.
• Design sound effects and modifications of recordings to increase the realism and impact of sound tracks.
• Edit and compress audio for use in various delivery modes of digital media using standard digital video editing software.
• Evaluate digital audio projects, identify items for improvement, and implement changes.

The material in this course will be presented in a classroom lecture/discussion/demonstration format, and in class handson exercises.
There will be short assignments weekly, which may be partially completed inclass. Also, a longer assignment, which demonstrates techniques and skills, developed in the course.

Projects will be the major criteria for evaluation. Emphasis will be placed on creativity, presentations, meeting assigned deadlines, and participation in critiques. Additional methods of assessment may include quizzes, exercises, assignments, and attendance.

Themes
· Layering audio by mixing location recordings, voiceovers, ambient sound, sound
effects and music.
· Developing workflows that support creativity, quality, and efficiency.
· Writing audio story for existing video to communicate new ideas.
Concepts, Issues & Skills
Setting Up an Editing System:
· Nonlinear editing software for audio
· Monitoring & room acoustics
· Plugins for editing & effects
· Setups for surround sound
Workflow:
· Acquisition of dialog, ambience, incidental effects from a shoot.
· Dialog replacement.
· Acquisition of ambience & effects, foley.
· Acquisition, mastering & distribution codecs.
· Ideal levels for audio recording.
· Understanding Analog vs Digital metering.
· Cleaning up and enhancing a dialog sequence through use of trimming, room tone, EQ, gating, compression.
· Adding voiceover, music & effects.
· Dealing with bad recordings.
· The 3d sound field.
· Using compressors, reverbs, EQ, gates, ducking, and other tools.
· Noise Reduction.
· Mixing
Mastering for Distribution:
· Sub mixes and stems, multilanguage programs.
· Conforming to DVD standards, PCM and AC3.
· Conforming to online distribution standards.
· Uncompressed, audibly lossless, and lossy compression.