Technical Goals⌗

  • Students will learn how to record on audio tracks using a microphone.
  • Students will edit overlapping audio items on multiple tracks.
  • Students will alter audio pitch and time as needed in their project.

Creative Goals⌗

  • Students will balance audio levels to draw attention to spoken dialogue tracks.
  • Students will write an engaging, persuasive, and/or entertaining advertisement.
  • Students will write a script that is easy for the listener to understand.

Summary⌗

Produce and record a 30-second ad for a fictional product or service.

Scriptwriting⌗

Write a script for a fictional product or service. Base your ad on a standard ad structure. One typical ad structure is to have a “problem person” and a “solution person.” Other ads spew a dizzying array of facts that may or may not be valid. Ads frequently start with a question: “Do you wish that __?” “Don’t you hate it when __ happens?” They will then answer the question with a product that’s for sale.

Top Design Firms provides an excellent template for writing a script.

Dialogue Recording⌗

Once you write your script, record the dialogue in the DSU studio. Use of the studio is a requirement for this project. You may not use your home studio.

Find a partner to read your script as you run the recording session.

Record your script one line at a time to enable easier editing. Create separate tracks for each character in the ad and give the tracks appropriate names.

Use proper microphone techniques for voice recording. Record the dialogue at an appropriate level without clipping. Experiment with the methods listed in this article on voice-over recording.

Editing⌗

After you’ve recorded all your dialogue, edit the recordings so the ad fits into 30 seconds. You can do this by removing gaps between lines or even specific words where you took too long. Be sure to do this with grid snapping off.

Sound effects⌗

Now that your dialogue fits into 30 seconds, add sound effects to liven up the ad. Listen to our ad examples to hear what sound effects are commonly used to grab a listener’s attention. Find sound effects on Free Sound or use your own if you have them.

Music bed⌗

Create a music bed to accompany the ad. Use loops if you want, or create your own piece. Remember that music is sometimes not the star of an ad, unless you’re writing a jingle.

Final mix⌗

Now that all of your elements are in the project mix each part to work well together. Ensure the listener’s attention is driven towards the dialogue so they know what is being sold.

Technical requirements⌗

  1. Ad is 30 seconds long
  2. Clear dialogue - Dialogue tracks recorded at appropriate level, not too low and not clipping
  3. Ad also contains sound effects and music.

Creative requirements⌗

  1. Write an engaging, persuasive, and/or entertaining advertisement.
  2. write a script that is easy for the listener to understand.

Turn in the following⌗

  • A Reaper project that includes all of your project audio files in a subfolder called “Audio”
  • A rendered WAV file of your project
  • the ad script