Sound Mixing

Okay, so let’s be honest.. sound mixing was weirdly one of the easiest parts of this entire project. I don’t know if that makes us geniuses or just lucky, but seriously, it took us barely 15 minutes to finalise the whole sound plan. And the funniest part? We did it before we even started editing.

We were literally on our way to the shoot, car Bluetooth on, and just started playing different tracks trying to imagine what would match the visuals (which we hadn’t even filmed yet lol). And then we found this traditional cultural track on YouTube that just clicked. We both looked at each other and were like yep, this is the one. It just had this vibe that was perfect for the first half of the sequence. From there, everything else kind of built around that one track.

What’s actually pretty cool is, we ended up using the exact same sound arrangement from the rough cut in the final edit too. Copy-paste. No changes. Because it just worked that well.

After selecting the music, I handled all the sound mixing on the software. I started by placing the traditional track for the opening. Then, for the rough cut, I added this glitch sound effect to create that jarring moment of transition. BUT for the final cut, we actually took that glitch sound out because it felt a bit too on the nose. Instead, we focused more on building tension gradually.

So right after the transition, I slowly faded in a set of drums underneath the traditional track. As the drums got louder, I reduced the volume of the traditional music, kind of like this power shift that really helped with the narrative. It made the transition from 'dream-like state' to 'something is wrong' feel smoother but still intense.

Then towards the end, just before the girl wakes up from the dream, I brought in this intense sound effect, gradually increasing its volume over a few seconds, building that tension until... BOOM, everything cuts off abruptly the moment she wakes up. Right after that, we go back into the traditional music to close the sequence, and that shift back to calmness made the whole thing feel complete.

Honestly, I didn’t expect sound to be this satisfying to play around with, but it ended up being one of my favourite parts. Not because it was easy, but because it actually worked. People noticed the way the sound changed with the visuals, and for a first attempt at sound mixing, I was kind of proud. Okay, really proud.