What you are asking is the responsibility of the sound designer. This is a very creative skill that requires a lot of outside-the-box thinking. In many cases, the sound we hear when something happens was created using all kinds of instruments and tools that are totally unrelated to the action on screen. For example, when someone punches someone else in their face, the actual sound is, for example, of a mallet hitting a vinyl cushion, combined with a sound of a hand hitting the water surface.

The sound that you are talking about seems to be fairly simple. If it is just an ordinary door that closes, the organic sound just might even do (the actual sound of the door closing). All it needs is a bit of sound processing, by adding some long reverb and equalizing it to enhance lower frequencies. Same goes for footsteps.

There are numerous libraries of sound effects out there that contain pre-processed effects (with your 'deep bellowing echo' already built in) for many common situations. Some of these are expensive (for professionals), some are cheap (but still usable), many have online samples of their entire collections in MP3, so you can browse until you find what you need.

?quote?Originally posted by Vasic

What you are asking is the responsibility of the sound designer. This is a very creative skill that requires a lot of outside-the-box thinking. In many cases, the sound we hear when something happens was created using all kinds of instruments and tools that are totally unrelated to the action on screen. For example, when someone punches someone else in their face, the actual sound is, for example, of a mallet hitting a vinyl cushion, combined with a sound of a hand hitting the water surface.

The sound that you are talking about seems to be fairly simple. If it is just an ordinary door that closes, the organic sound just might even do (the actual sound of the door closing). All it needs is a bit of sound processing, by adding some long reverb and equalizing it to enhance lower frequencies. Same goes for footsteps.

There are numerous libraries of sound effects out there that contain pre-processed effects (with your 'deep bellowing echo' already built in) for many common situations. Some of these are expensive (for professionals), some are cheap (but still usable), many have online samples of their entire collections in MP3, so you can browse until you find what you need.
?/quote

thanks man, that really helped.

i already knew a lot about foley, and sound replacement, but the stuff about raising lower frequencies of basic sounds never even crossed my mind. luckily, that shouldnt be too hard, as i am adept at a couple audio editing programs.

nevertheless, thanks.

Another thing that is used in sounddesign (in movies but also in music) is reverb.
Reverb can make a room sound small or large. It also places sounds closer or further away from the listener.
And it can 'keep the sound together': when applying reverb to al sounds: use the same settings, but mixed at a different percentage to create depth.

<hr noshade size="1">
Audiovisual Designer - making corporate films, commercials & short films - http://www.brokxmedia.nl

...and really really expensive mics. No kidding. Garbage in, garbage out. Perfection in, perfection out.

There's a reason that "Hollywood" movies cost a lot. The equipment that is used is "the best" and the people who know how to use it all are (often) "the best."

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com
http://www.realfilmcareer.com

About those mics; I have noticed that, over the last five years or so, Chinese makers have become quite good at making very good microphones very cheap. Their quality control may not be perfect, so you may be unlucky to get a lemon (which should be easy to resolve by returning/exchanging/fixing under warranty), but it is remarkable how far their technology has come. MXL and Nady seem to be the most common in the US, and they are really disproportionately cheap. Five years ago, you would have to spend $500-$1,000 to get similar level of audio quality and fidelity. Many of these cheap models cost less than $100. You are obviously NOT getting a Neumann U87 ($3,000+), but the mics still sound remarkably well; certainly significantly better than any camcorder built-in microphone.

Oh, and by the way, I agree with the 'GIGO' concept (Garbage in - garbage out), however, I'm not sure about perfection in - perfection out. I've heard too many audio recordings that were captured using perfect equipment, and by great audio engineers, only to be butchered later...

quote:

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Originally posted by Vasic

Oh, and by the way, I agree with the 'GIGO' concept (Garbage in - garbage out), however, I'm not sure about perfection in - perfection out. I've heard too many audio recordings that were captured using perfect equipment, and by great audio engineers, only to be butchered later...

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Well, that's true. 🙂

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com
http://www.realfilmcareer.com

quote:

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Originally posted by Vasic

What you are asking is the responsibility of the sound designer. This is a very creative skill that requires a lot of outside-the-box thinking. In many cases, the sound we hear when something happens was created using all kinds of instruments and tools that are totally unrelated to the action on screen. For example, when someone punches someone else in their face, the actual sound is, for example, of a mallet hitting a vinyl cushion, combined with a sound of a hand hitting the water surface.

The sound that you are talking about seems to be fairly simple. If it is just an ordinary door that closes, the organic sound just might even do (the actual sound of the door closing). All it needs is a bit of sound processing, by adding some long reverb and equalizing it to enhance lower frequencies. Same goes for footsteps.

There are numerous libraries of sound effects out there that contain pre-processed effects (with your 'deep bellowing echo' already built in) for many common situations. Some of these are expensive (for professionals), some are cheap (but still usable), many have online samples of their entire collections in MP3, so you can browse until you find what you need.

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Spot on there. I know some people also take something like a handclap, slow down (stretch) the audio in order to bring the frequencies down and effectively create a new sound, then adding fx to it. It truly is a science in itself.

A bit of a tangent, as it's being applied to a song instead of a sound fx, but check this out.

?url? http://soundcloud.com/shamantis/j-biebz-u-smile-800-slower?/url?

A software was used to slow down a Justin Bieber song (I know... I know...) and creates something that sounds incredible. In this case, the audio was slowed down but intentionally retained the integrity of the soundwaves, thus keeping the pitch.

Composer/Arranger
www.mattgruppen.com

quote:

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Originally posted by NanoStray675

How do they make those deep, bellowy sounds, like, for instance, a door closes dramatically, and you hear this huge bellowing echo. Or when somebody is making really dramatic footsteps, you hear the same type of sound.

How do they do it?

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As stated, a combination of Foley and sound design. I've done a door slam that had a big bang sound to it. To achieve it, I took a Tom Tom wave and transposed it down about 30 semitones. I layered it with the door and it was bigger than life. In the scene, the main character just discovered a body in a warehouse, so the music was pumped up as he was running out and the door sounded like a big metal industrial door.

As for the footsteps, you might have seen some behind the scenes with foley artists. The have a soundproof room with multiple walking surfaces - gravel, tile, concrete, etc. They can literally walk in a circle around the mic. This closeness to the mic creates the "proximity effect," where the bass is accentuated.

Foley is done because the boom mic is usually a fair distance from the persons feet, door latch twist, match strike or anything else that needs sound detail. Shooting outdoors (and in) can pick up uncontrolled ambience, like traffic, wind, etc. Foley creates isolated sounds and as Vasic points out, they are EQ'd and sweetened to perfection.

Here is an audio clip where I foleyed and dubbed a lot of the audio:

http://www.midnightsunent.com/EXILEaudio.mp3

The hard footsteps were me walking on concrete, in my garage.
The dirt footsteps were recorded in the desert.
I programmed the metallic Sonar sound on an FM synthesizer.
The male voice is from the actual location.
The female voice is dubbed.
The wind is a filter swept noise generator on a synth.
I threw rocks on the ground to make the thuds.
I stepped on some branches.
Pneumatic door slide is from sounddogs.com and layered over location slide sound.
The machine guns are from sounddogs.com.
The yells are me in the desert.

A couple of mistakes: The shooting needed more reverb (to simulate distance) and the various shouts and yells should have had different pan settings - some right, some left, some middle.

All of this was recorded with a Sennheiser ME66 going right into the camera (HVX200). It's not as state of the art as a lot of other modern mics. I wish I could afford a Schoeps, but you can pull of some decent audio with close recording.

I have a Youtube video of this process, but the audio compression sucks, compared to the MP3, above. Since you have an idea of the audio quality, here is the video, with more info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya2SQJyUxP4

quote:

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Originally posted by sonaconer

?quoteI know some people also take something like a handclap, slow down (stretch) the audio in order to bring the frequencies down and effectively create a new sound, then adding fx to it. It truly is a science in itself.

A bit of a tangent, as it's being applied to a song instead of a sound fx, but check this out.

?url? http://soundcloud.com/shamantis/j-biebz-u-smile-800-slower?/url?

A software was used to slow down a Justin Bieber song (I know... I know...) and creates something that sounds incredible. In this case, the audio was slowed down but intentionally retained the integrity of the soundwaves, thus keeping the pitch.

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Wow, thankyou for that link, Matt!! The software for this kind of timestretching is free and available with a tutorial here:

http://lifehacker.com/5615442/how-to-create-your-own-slowed+down-ambient-epics

www.midnightsunent.com

Walter made a good point about reverberation
I think espically when people re-record something or are doing there own foley they dont consider it enough.
You cant just shove the microphone infront of the source and record.
A sound travelling from further away will likely have more reverb, so will sound different - you cant just record something up close, lower the volume and think it will fit perfectly in the background

You have to take note of where the sound is coming from, the location it is travelling in - hard/soft
Get some sounds and just play around with them in an audio editor (audacity is free!), have a look at frequency EQ, reverb etc.

Rob - UK