Sound Editors

A sound editor in a film is the person who put's all the audio into a film, mixing and mastering of a final product. The key elements of this are: Dialogue, Music and Sound Effects. They have to manage the levels of all these.

The first film to have any sound was 'The Jazz Singer' in 1927 there was synchronized dialogue and musical numbers featured. But this still had to be edited by a sound editor using a 'talkie'. As sound in film began to develop, composers shone through and made the film. Here's a link to an interesting new's article about composers being a directors best friend in film processes: Sound Editors, A Directors Best Friend

Sound editing has developed so much now that in the 2013 film 'Les Miserables' the music numbers were all recorded on set, on the day. Well at least the vocals were, the orchestral element was then later recorded and dubbed onto the soundtrack. This was the first time that vocals were actually recorded on the set of a film and is now acclaimed to be one of the best soundtracks of all time. Not only because of the beautiful music scores but because of the amazing sound editors:

Alot of sound editors use foley, which is sound they have made themselves using objects. This was often heard on the radio for radio plays. We even had a go ourselves at making some sounds.

A famous example of this is is the 'Wilhelm Scream' that you might have heard in things like 'Star Wars' and all sorts of Disney cartoons. But these have become a bit of a joke to film makers. However back in the day it was meant to be a serious sound effect. Here's a compilation of where this scream has been used:

I don't think we'd use this sound in our film, as it sounds too comical for the film we want to produce. Well it's used for comedy purposes now anyway so it's not much of a loss from the thriller genre anyway.

I think that sound can really make a film, no matter how good something can look on screen the sound really does make it. Making the sound editor a very crucial role!