Talking Julia - Synchronising sound

In this tutorial, we will be synchronising voice audio to text. You will need to download two files: JuliaRoberts.pct andsmart.wav. Right click on the hyperlinks to save the files.

Cue points will identify specific times within the sound member. On Windows,Adobe Audition, Sound Forge or WaveLab support cue point, or on Macintosh -Bias Peak or Amadeus Pro. SoundEdit 16 is discontinued. The first part of the tutorial will create the cue points using Adobe Audition. If you don't have any suitable sound software, you can download the edited sound file here -smartCue.wav.

Adding Cue Points

1. Open Adobe Audition and open smart.wav. Play the sound to hear what it contains. 

Below is a compacted window of the audio open in Audition. This is the edited audio clip (with cue points).

2. In the Edit View window, click towards the start of the sound (the yellow line will appear at that point) and press F8. This inserts a cue point at that point called Cue 01.

4. Create a second and third cue point at the points indicated in the screenshot above.

5. Open the Cue List window by right clicking the red cue triangle (over any cue point) and selecting Go to Cue List. You can also open this window by clicking the Cue List icon . 

6. Change the labels of each cue point as below by clicking the Edit Cue Infobutton and then changing the Label field.

Synching the Sound in Director

1. Create a new movie with Stage size, 640 x 480 and background colour as white. 

2. Choose File > Import and select the two files JuliaRoberts.pct and smart.wav you just created, then click the Import button. If you don't have sound editing software to create the cue points, you can use the filesmartCue.wav.

3. A dialog box appears before importing for the pict image. Next to Color Depth, select Image (8 bits) and next to Palette, select Import. Press the OKbutton.



4. Open the Vector Shape window and create a text balloon as shown below. The graphic can be made by first drawing an ellipse, then adding corner points with the pen tool and moving them with the arrow tool. Close the Vector Shape window.



5. Open the Text window and type the text 'I'm smart...' in Arial (or Helvetica), bold, 48 point as shown below. 

 

6. Click the New Cast Member button  and create a new text member with the words "I'm rich..." with the same formatting. Repeat this step adding the text "Do you want a job?" The text should be 36 point and extend over two lines. Close the Text window. 

7. From the Cast window, select the JuliaRoberts image and place it onto the Stage, dragging it to align to the bottom left corner. In the Score, extend this sprite over frames 1 to 34. 

8. Click and drag the text balloon member in channel 2, and extend the sprite from frame 5 to 34. Change the Ink Effect of the balloon sprite to Background Transparent. On the Stage position and size the balloon approximately as shown below. 

9. Drag the text member created in step 6 into channel 3, and extend the sprite from frame 5 to frame 14. On the Stage position the sprite as shown below.

 

10. Place the text members created in step 6 in channel 3, extending over frames 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 respectively. Position all the text sprites centred over the text balloon (as shown above).

11. Click and drag the smart sound cast member from the Cast window to sound channel 1. Extend the sound sprite over frames 1 to 34. 

12. Double click frame 4 in the tempo channel. In the dialogue box that appears, click Wait for Cue Point, and select cue point 1: i’m smart from the Cue Point pop-up menu. 



13. Create a wait for cue point 2: i’m rich working in frame 14, one for 3: do you in frame 24 and {End} in frame 34 of the tempo channel. 

Rewind and play the movie.
The sound should be synchronized with the words as they appear on the Stage. 
Now would be a great time to save your movie as tut6.dir.
You can see the completed tutorial 6 here - tut6_fin.dir.