Sound and Music for the Moving Image Project

Sound and Music for the Moving Image:

Lord of the Rings Gates of Gondor scene

For my sounds and music for the moving image project, I chose a scene from the move The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; a scene were the gates of Minas Tirith are being knocked down by the battering ram Grond. I personally loved this scene ever since I first saw the movie, and I thought it would be a good (albeit, challenging) clip to recreate the sounds and music for.

To start off the project, I recorded the first thing I could use to replicate a sound: my voice, this was for the trolls and orcs within the scene (although voice acting is not a requirement for this, I felt it counted more as a sound effect than anything else).  Recording these voices posed as no challenge to me, it did however strain my voice after a while, so I recorded more voices at a later date.

On the same day, I made use of a handheld recorder that was at my disposal, and went out to find any potential sounds. The first sound I recorded with the handheld recorder was the sound of a bin-flap closing, this was to create a gate smashing sound. Although the sound was good, it wasn’t perfect for the actual sound I was going for, I would later use this sound for the layering of the gate being hit for first time. The second gate smashing sound effect I recorded was the sound of the mic box kept in cupboard 3 being slammed shut, this created the perfect sound for a smashing effect, as it provided the attack and the punch of the ram impact (I do however, admit to using this sound multiple times, as it was so perfect). The remaining layers of the gate smashing were bin lids being closed. In the end I was more than happy with the gate smashing sounds I created.

For the scene outside of the gate, where Grond is about to take its second impact, I acquired the creaking sounds by recording my front door opening, as it has not been oiled in a while, and creates a long creaking sound, perfect for the scene. When incorporated into the scene, I pitched it down the sound and took out some of the dry signal on the Space Designer; I increased the dry signal as the camera panned closer to Grond with automation.

For the arrow swooping sound effects, I recorded the song of my fingernails dragging along a wooden surface, and reversing them in Logic Pro 9. I felt this sound, although not perfect, did suit the scene nicely, especially when layered and automated accordingly. For the sound of the arrow launches I combined the sounds of cellotape and the finger nails sound, and automated them to make them sound more natural. It doesn’t sound perfect, but unfortunately, due to time constraints I couldn’t find any better sounds.

For the sounds of the crowd storming in through the gates, the first approach I went for was to literally record the sound of footsteps and layer them on top of each other, this however, especially when put in context of the scene, did not work well,  as it lacked weight. In the end, I incorporated the use of pitched down synths and MIDI drums to create the required weight for the crowd, which consequently, did create the effect. I did however keep the footstep layering in.

For the troll footsteps, I simply recorded the sound of me walking heavily, and combining it with MIDI drums for extra punch and weight, followed by layering and automation in Logic.

For the sound of the horse clopping, I used the famous Monty Python coconut trick; I hollowed out a coconut and recorded the sound of the two pieces of the coconut clopping against each other, the result was a success, and worked well within the scene.

During the crowd clashing, I had to emulate the sound of hundreds of armour pieces hitting against each other, I did so by recording the sound of tin foil crumpling up, the results were a surprising success, especially when put together with the orc sounds. I recorded the tin foil sound again, except lightly crumpling it to replicate the sound of ambient armour effects, this being particularly so during the gate smashing scene, and the lowering of the spears. 

The most challenging part of this recording so far is finding a good sword sound, so far I have tried recording some old gardening tools from my shed, however, I felt they sounded too weak, and did not emulate the sound correctly, I did end up using these sounds for ambient sword clashing sounds in the end of the scene, as I felt when solely reverb was applied to them, it created a good effect.