Audio in a Flash movie

Audio sends the appeal of any movie through the roof.. provided it's done carefully. You can do a mediocre job of it and still make a crap movie slightly better, but with some experience you'll learn what works and what doesn't, and that good audio will put your work ahead of the rest.

Back when I was earning a regular salary, I had little trouble paying for the sounds I needed at broadcast quality. Partly because I always got good sound effects any time I'd paid for them, and partly because I never wanted to use audio that could have been heard elsewhere (like ripping it off from a game, movie or television).

Paying for sounds is more difficult for me these days, because I don't have the security of a 9-5 job with a regular salary.

So my attempt to secure a sponsor for the sound effects on Animotd fell short today. I've been spending way too much money lately on sound effects and about a week ago I contacted a certain online sound effects website and asked if they'd like to sponsor the remainder of the Animotd movies. That way, they get some advertising and I can finish the movies in style.

They finally replied today to say they weren't interested, so a little disappointed, I've decided to get creative and record as much of my own sound effects as possible from now on. I have a pretty huge library from all the years of buying from that site* though, so I'll be falling back on those now and then too.

*If you're wondering why I haven't named the sound effects site in question, uhm.. it's because I'm hoping they change their mind :)

Ninja Audio: apart from the massive explosion (which I originally bought and used for the 'Sore Tooth' clip), the Ninja clip audio was recorded in its entirety on my Sennheiser e815s microphone here at home. Here's a list of the sounds I recorded for the Ninja clip:

• Various skin taps, pats and brushes
• Paper "wibbling" sound (originally recorded for the News reader clip)
• Torch clicking on/off (my fingernails clicking)
• Lifting the bomb (rattling my Wacom pen)
• Bomb wall-mount (tapping a stone candle-holder on the brick wall next to my desk)
• Bomb activate bleeps (DTMF Signals generated in Audition)
• Door open & slam shut (my office door here behind me)
• Security guy dialogue (my 'old security guy' voice)

So while that's a relatively small movie, I proved to myself that I could have been saving a lot of money all along by recording more of my own sounds. If you're desperate, want to save money or even just want to get creative, I suggest you get hold of a good microphone, a good sound editing program (Audition highly recommended) and you'll save yourself wads of cash while boosting the entertainment value of your movies.

For anyone interested in audio setups, my mic plugs into an EDIROL USB Audio Capture
UA-25. I'll be giving that a massive workout now that I've decided to stop buying (or at least try not to buy) audio anymore.

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Today's Animotd has confused a few people. "I don't get it" is a common one.. but there's not really anything to 'get'. Just like there isn't anything to get with 'Idiot' and 'Green Cat'. Some days I'll start on a movie and seemingly of its own accord, the story will chuck an about-face, going off in a completely different direction than I'd set out to go.

In 'Brisk Walk', his face was to fall off (cos of that violent up-down head action), and then he was going to slip on his own face, like a banana skin. But as I started work on the walk cycle, I just started animating his eyes flopping about. So I created the little office scene at the beginning and it was finished.

As I was testing the movie, my iTunes was on shuffle and an old 80's song came on that I hadn't heard in years. It seemed to fit (even though the walk cycle doesn't quite fit the beat), so I put it in there :D

If you have Flash MX 2004 (or Flash 8), the rough walk cycle can be seen in the FLA here (click image to download):