Making Better Movies with Moviestorm Vol 3: Sound and Light

AMBIENT NOISE
Technique
Experiment with adding different amounts of ambient noise to a scene.
Ambient noise, also known as "atmos" or background", or simply "ambience", is all the sounds that are naturally
made by the environment.
When adding ambience, you can be very flexible with how much you add. This is mostly a stylistic choice. It is
something that you can simply leave to the sound designer, but it helps to be aware of this while shooting, as it gives
you a better idea of how the finished scene will play and the mood you are creating.
In some cases, particularly action scenes, it can be good to have the ambience so loud and complex that they take
over, but you need to ensure the audience can follow the important parts of the story.
Left: a scene in a busy office, with people talking, making phone calls, and using computers. Right: in this
action scene, you have explosions and gunfire, as well as people running through trees and undergrowth and
shouting. The ambient sounds add to the setting, but can quickly become distracting.
Use a scene in a moderately busy location – either interior or exterior. Ideally, it
should be 1-2 minutes long, including 2 or more people. Scenes with some dialog
work best for this.
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