How to Create Voices and Sound Effects for a Stop Motion Movie

After a Stop-Motion movie has been taped and put together, it is time to add the voices and sound effects. Voices and sound effects are important because they help your little claymation world come alive and voices breathe life into the characters, helping create them more lifelike. Read on to learn more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. To begin the voice recording, it is important to view and review a lot of your footage. If possible, try to keep the footage playing for whichever voice you are recording for. It will make the voice seem more accurate and actually coming from the character’s mouth. Make sure that you record the voices in an echo-free and quite room. A loud computer, heater, or air conditioner can greatly affect the quality of the voice. Unless you have something already specifically picked out for a voice, try many different variations. Michael Myers recorded all of Shrek’s lines in the movie Shrek using a normal accent, until he decided that he wanted to do a Scottish accent and rerecorded all of the lines. The Scottish accent gives Shrek more personality and changes the way the big was viewed. Try out different things even minimal, like a lisp or a stutter.
2. If there are multiple characters to a scene, record background noise too, even if it is just general murmurs or the cheers from a crowd. The more depth you put into your sound, the better it will sound. Try getting multiple people to record voices too, unless you are a great interpreter, the voices will all have some sort of similar tone, and each character will have a greater personality with different people used for different voices.
3. If there are multiple characters to a scene, record background noise too, even if it is just general murmurs or the cheers from a crowd. The more depth you put into your sound, the better it will sound. Try getting multiple people to record voices too, unless you are a great interpreter, the voices will all have some sort of similar tone, and each character will have a greater personality with different people used for different voices.
4. Like the free play music, sound effects can be found online at various sites, or like how you recorded your voices, sound effects can be recorded too. Using different things like coconuts, shoes, train whistles, or anything else, sound effects can be created, but for the homemade sounds to really work out, you need to have a sound-free room so the microphone can pick up just the sound.

Tips & Warnings

• Doing voices and sound effects can be fun, but also tedious. In the end it will help bring your movie to life and add a lot more to it.
• Just remember to layer the sound and put as much as you can in there, but do not over do it, because that will confuse the audience and their ears.