AS Media - Heartbeat SFX Practical Experiment

The Brief:

-To make my own heart beat SFX

Different ideas:

In my sound effects research of the old radio days, I understand that to create heartbeats, they placed the arm of a record player on a towel or other kind of soft fabric – with the needle actually touching the cloth. Light taps on the fabric translated as low-end thumps when amplified through the record player. The “heartbeats” could then be performed as needed. I don’t know how “good” they sounded, but it’s certainly one method.
– Steve Lee

A buddy of mine created a very nice heartbeat using a large plastic trash can. The plastic popping in and out was very controllable and created two distinct in/out “pumping” sounds.
– Bob Kessler

Take a piece of fabric and hold it with a loose grip. Then quickly stretch the fabric for a pounding, heart-like sound.
– David Filskov

Bare your chest (!), position a microphone pointing at your shoulder region and then make a quick inward pull with your arms and hands and stop abruptly. Keeps you warm as well :)
– David Filskov

Any kind of thump run through a lowpass filter sequenced in a reasonably rhythmic sequence will give you the effect. It might be fun to throw in some “flushing blood” kind of liquid.
– Jamey Scott

Anyone try contact mics on a pulse point? This might work well if you also employ a BP cuff (don’t try it on the one in your neck :)
– David Steinwedel

I double the heartbeat with a kick drum. Filter anything below 60Hz, add an insane amount of mid frequency.
– Jerome Boiteau

Sourced from: http://www.epicsound.com/sfx/

Due to my lack of equipment, the availability to much of the methods previously discussed is limited. Therefore, I decided to use one of the methods, being making the noise with my mouth.

After doing the experiment the sound created are linked below:

-

Evaluation Percussion Noise (made with my mouth)

Pros;

- The right sound levels

- The right volume

- The sound was a deep sound that didn't need any distorting or manipulating

Cons;

- Slightly unrealistic

- The quality of the sound was not up to standard

- No increase in the rate, making it harder to use

Further evaluation:

In my opinion the sound created was useful in portraying a rested heart rate, however to a lesser extent. I feel it would be more useful to have an external professional sound effect as it would make the noise, one more realistic and two, more conventional as it would create a more suspenseful effect as that is the purpose behind the professional sound effects.

Editing Sound- Practical

In this task I added the twig snap sound effect that I created with celery. I downloaded my sound effect off of YouTube and dragged the sound effect into the appropriate place in our film opening. We decided to add it just before the extreme close up of Lucy's eyes looking around, and at the end of the clip where the killer is scrapping his knife against the chain link fence as he walks up the stairs. I then cut the beginning of the clip where there was no sound, and the end of the clip so that you could just hear the twig snap sound. As shown in the screenshot below.


In the screenshot below it shows that I moved the twig snap sound to the appropriate place in our film opening. The sound effect has also been cut.
















I then turned down the sound slightly so that it sounded more realistic. We decided to add the twig snap at the end of the clip where the killer is walking up the stairs, as it would sound and look as though he had made that sound as he was walking up the stairs. This therefore meant that Lucy turned around.

'Stabbing' Sound Effect Research

For this research task, I looked on YouTube for stabbing scenes to research stabbing sound effects so that I could re create my own for our coursework.

The first video that I clicked on was from the TV series, 'Game Of Thrones'. In this scene, on of the characters gets stabbed multiple times giving the audience a gruesome image and sound. When the character gets stabbed, the audience can hear squelching and oozing sounds as a character stabs the other multiple times. This sounds realistic and gruesome for the audience.
'Game Of Thrones' Clip

The next clip that I found was from the film, 'Fertile Ground'. In this clip a female character stabs a male character. The sounds that the audience hears when the woman stabs the man repeatedly are almost like a shovel has been shoved into the ground. These sound effects are less 'bloody' than the previous clip.
'Fertile Ground' Clip

In the film 'The Babadook' a little boy stabs his mother. When the knife enters her stomach, it makes a thumping noise and there is not sound of flesh or blood being cut through. Although this may be a realistic sound effect, it does not portray the 'slasher' effect that we are looking for.
'The Babadook' Clip

In conclusion, I believe that the most realistic and gruesome effect is from the 'Game Of Thrones' clip. This is because you can hear flesh being sliced and you can also hear the sound of blood oozing out of the wound. This therefore makes the sound effect realistic and give it the 'slasher' effect.