Sound editors are the people responsible for putting or assembling the sound of a movie, whether it be foely sounds, music or dialogue, they are responsible for syncing it to the action on screen or rather putting it where the director wants it to be, because not all sounds are synced with the goings on, on the screen, for example L cut sounds are slightly out of sync with the things on screen. See my past post if you haven't already and that shall explain what an L cut is.
The very first films produced were known as 'Silent Movies'. This is because they featured no sound what so ever and relied on the on screen picture to tell the story to the audience. (See my post - Silent Movie Example 'Silent Chess' for an example of a silent film).
The first movies containing sound used a method called the Vitaphone process, which involved using a single microphone to record a sound from the set straight to the phonograph master. However the limitation to this is that the sound could not be cut, resynchronised, or dubbed over the film and so had to be shot and recording in one cut.
It wasn't until the 1930s when Warner Brothers used several recordings from the Vitaphone Process and mixing them together to create individual sounds such as 'Music'.
Foley artist's
What is Foley?
Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other mediums in post-production to enhance audio quality. For example when recording a scene you may want the persons footsteps to be more prominent, so you use a Foley of a persons foots steps and put that over the audio instead, it will be a clearer sound and is easily created.
Foley artists are people that are employed to be able to replicate sounds that we would recognize to be, such as walking through snow, opening doors, a cat purr etc. This is all what their job includes and they spend years getting the sounds exactly right. They could be forced to produce something because of ADR, this is when dialog/sound cant be salvaged so they have to re-create the sound to get it included in the film to make it accurate.
My class and i had a go at creating our own foley sounds, check it out;
The Wilhelm scream
The Wilhelm scream is a film and television stock sound effect just like a Foley, that has been used in more than 200 movies, beginning in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The scream is often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion, although because the sound has been used so often it has now taken on a comedic effect instead.
Here's a compilation so you get the jist...
I don't think we shall be using the Wilhelm scream in our movie, as our's is a thriller and the scream has taken on such a recognized comedic affect that all hopes of keeping it a serious thriller film shall be lost.
Film composer
A film composer usually is hired to write all original dramatic music for your movie. Any scene that has “score music” is part of what the composer should do for your movie, their job also includes, sourcing music, writing songs and recording/mixing music. It's their job to edit and manipulate the music and make it as memorable as possible, remember any film can be redeemable if it has a good soundtrack.
Examples of good soundtracks would be, The rocky horror show, Grease, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Graduate, Indiana Jones, E.T... oh the list goes on! but you understand now, that the soundtrack and the movie go hand in hand, if they have a good soundtrack whether it be, a musical or climatic music or just songs. The music makes the movie. If I played this song to you;
you'd know within a few seconds what film it was from! (providing you're not some weirdo that hasn't watch E.T)
