I’ve heard a great deal of Don LaFontaine’s work in older movie trailers, so I was curious as to how using that voice and style could make anything seem dramatic.  Looking around for inspiration, one of the first items I saw was a highlighter, which thus became my subject.  I decided to emphasize the contrast between the brightness of the highlighter and the drabness of studying in order to make the highlighter the protagonist of this fictional tale.  I recorded the piece dramatically in Audacity, and then played around with the pitch to deepen my voice.  This took a bit of work, as initially I sounded like a terrible beast, and then over-corrected so my voice resembled a chipmunk’s.  I eventually found a happy medium, and the result is below.

So, for this audio assignment I chose to do Use the Voice.  Using a voice over similar to the famous Don LaFontaine, I had to create a movie trailer out of an everyday thing, or something normal.  I chose to do the birth of a baby.

Check it out!

Here is the transcript:

*action music*
In a world where fluid and placenta collide, when your life is no longer your own, one baby will change everything.  The selfishness will fall, and the family will rise.  One baby’s journey from womb to earth will quickly unfold.  
*music silences* 
*baby cries*
*BUM BUM BUMMMMM*

I got this idea from looking at several examples of TV trope listings and then came up with the idea of making an epic birth story.

Whenever people watch movie trailers the first thing that comes on is either the voice over, or some sort of action-packed soundtrack.  I found mine from searching through YouTube and I ended up selecting “Epic Blockbuster Trailer Music.”

And downloaded it using http://en.savefrom.net/

From a previous assignment I knew this video would not import directly into Audacity so I went to an online converter and changed the format to a WAV file.

Since I was doing a baby birth trailer I needed an actual baby’s cry to use, so I found one on Freesound.

Now, using Audacity, I recorded my voice (while speaking into a glass cup) with the dialogue I wanted to say.  Don LaFontaine’s voice has a characteristic deep tone to it, and unfortunately mine does not.  So in order to make my voice deeper than the cup gave me, I played around with the pitch until I got a sound that was as good as it was going to get.  Hmph.  To get to pitch on Audacity, go on top to Effects>Pitch

After I got the pitch down, I imported the movie soundtrack.  There are points in the clip where I am talking but you can still hear the music in the background.  In order to do this you have to change the volume of the music at the appropriate spots.  Once you highlight the portion of the sound you want lowered, you have to click Effects>Amplify and then change the volume accordingly.  For a smooth transition between my voice and the background music, I faded the end and beginning of the music where I wanted my voice to go, and then pasted my voice in that spot.  I did the same thing when I added the baby cry in there too.  Here is a screenshot of my different wavelengths of sound.

When I was done, I exported the sound as a MP3 file and then uploaded it to soundcloud.

This assignment has to be the strangest and corniest one I have done yet, but it is about time I got pushed out of my comfort zone. The assignment was called “Use the Voice” which means the voice of Don LaFontaine, who was best known for his voiceovers in movie trailers. Well I attempted to do the same, but I don’t believe I am anywhere close with Mr. LaFontaine.

The other day I ran out of bacon, which to me is probably one of the worst things that can happen considering I make bacon and eggs just about every morning. So I decided to turn my lack of bacon and the need to go get more into a epic quest of achieving bacon glory. This very low production film would include one man on a journey to find the last amount of bacon on the planet or die trying. Oh and bonus for all you youngsters, it’s rated PG-13. I hope y’all enjoy bacon as much as I do and never run out of the deliciousness that it provides us on a daily basis. Here is to you bacon:

The making of the fake movie trailer voiceover was pretty simple besides the lack of a deep awesome and epic sounding voice like LaFontaine’s. First I wrote a small script, so that I would not forget what to say. I used QuickTime Player to record my voice and uploaded it to Garageband. I was able to separate the dialogue with the deeper voice and the other supposed voices (myself). I then changed the pitch of the deeper voices to about negative four to completely alter my voice. Additionally, this trailer would not have been complete without the use of some sort of bacon. So I decided to add some sizzling Bacon sound, which I downloaded from freesound.org. Pretty simple process, if you have any questions please let me know.

So, for this audio assignment I chose to do Use the Voice.  Using a voice over similar to the famous Don LaFontaine, I had to create a movie trailer out of an everyday thing, or something normal.  I chose to do the birth of a baby.

Check it out!

Here is the transcript:

*action music*
In a world where fluid and placenta collide, when your life is no longer your own, one baby will change everything.  The selfishness will fall, and the family will rise.  One baby’s journey from womb to earth will quickly unfold. 
*music silences*
*baby cries*
*BUM BUM BUMMMMM*

I got this idea from looking at several examples of TV trope listings and then came up with the idea of making an epic birth story.

Whenever people watch movie trailers the first thing that comes on is either the voice over, or some sort of action-packed soundtrack.  I found mine from searching through YouTube and I ended up selecting “Epic Blockbuster Trailer Music.”

And downloaded it using http://en.savefrom.net/

From a previous assignment I knew this video would not import directly into Audacity so I went to an online converter and changed the format to a WAV file.

Since I was doing a baby birth trailer I needed an actual baby’s cry to use, so I found one on Freesound.

Now, using Audacity, I recorded my voice (while speaking into a glass cup) with the dialogue I wanted to say.  Don LaFontaine’s voice has a characteristic deep tone to it, and unfortunately mine does not.  So in order to make my voice deeper than the cup gave me, I played around with the pitch until I got a sound that was as good as it was going to get.  Hmph.  To get to pitch on Audacity, go on top to Effects>Pitch

After I got the pitch down, I imported the movie soundtrack.  There are points in the clip where I am talking but you can still hear the music in the background.  In order to do this you have to change the volume of the music at the appropriate spots.  Once you highlight the portion of the sound you want lowered, you have to click Effects>Amplify and then change the volume accordingly.  For a smooth transition between my voice and the background music, I faded the end and beginning of the music where I wanted my voice to go, and then pasted my voice in that spot.  I did the same thing when I added the baby cry in there too.  Here is a screenshot of my different wavelengths of sound.

When I was done, I exported the sound as a MP3 file and then uploaded it to soundcloud.