Audio Profile: "Saudia: Honest Reflections"

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The Most Interesting Part of MOMI Experience

The Museum of the Moving Image was a cool experience.

Besides seeing the Jim Carey "The Mask" replica, the most compelling part of the trip was seeing how post-production audio works.

(Tough act to follow, but audio took the cake for me.)

I was intrigued in class the previous week, where we learned that people behind the screen made the noises we hear that go along so perfectly with what we see. 

For instance, there was a scene where a woman scooped out the contents of a fruit that coincided with a baby dinosaur breaking out of the egg. It had never previously occurred to me that so much thought went into making accurate audio sounds. 

The textbook for Media 160 was right, I thought. When the audio is perfect, no one notices-- but when it's off, everyone realizes how awful and amateur the production is. 

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At MOMI, there was an arrangement where we could participate in laying over a voiceover for Jack Black and his students in "School of Rock."

It was shocking to see how tedious it is to make sure it looks like Jack Black is saying what you are saying. 

As Jack Black mouthed the words my classmates spoke, I was reminded of foreign films and the inaccurate mouthing to speech difference. 

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It was enlightening to learn that there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that make the whole production make sense to the audience as a whole. 

Sub-par audio is easily detectable and having proficient people working behind the scenes are necessary to achieve the continuity desired in a production.