Audiences are stupid. That is a universal fact in film making (see anything made by Michael Bay). Audiences will forgive bad acting (see: Tom Cruise), bad directing (again, Michael Bay), even bad writing (pretty much anything on NBC). But the one thing audiences will NOT accept is bad sound. The two times in my life I’ve walked out of a movie theatre were based completely on the unintelligible words being spoken.
For this written assignment, you will research online and find a short video with bad sound. Anything live-action is open game here – no animation. But promotional ads, commercials, training videos, narrative pieces are all acceptable…go crazy.
Once you’ve found your video, based on your own experience and the lessons from the two video tutorials, you will analyze and critique the video, making at least 3 recommendations on how the sound could have been fixed. Remember you’re focused on the sound aspect – ignore bad acting, directing, lighting, Michael Bay, etc.
Submit your completed assignment by following the directions linked below. Please check the Course Calendar for specific due dates.
Save your assignment as a Microsoft Word document. (Mac users, please remember to append the “.docx” extension to the filename.) The name of the file should be your first initial and last name, followed by an underscore and the name of the assignment, and an underscore and the date. An example is shown below: