Sound design
Layers, mix hierarchy, and copy-ready briefs for 15–24s teasers — including silent-first still montages.
Mix stack
Higher layers win when they collide — duck below
Music bed
Emotional spine of the teaser.
Sets tempo and tone. For 15–24s pieces, one bed with a clear rise into the button is enough. Loud music fights dialogue and SFX.
When
Almost every teaser
Avoid
Wall-to-wall busy tracks with no pockets
Brief line
music: low pulse, minor, rise into final button, leave 0.5s air
Picture before polish sound
Don’t score a moving target.
Lock shot order and durations first (Editing module). Temp ticks are fine during assemble; final bed after picture is stable.
Rule
Picture-ish lock before final music pass.
Studio tip
Use Editing pace recipes as the sound grid.
Sound brief recipes
Paste after your edit spine / project pack.
Neon 24s hybrid
Wet night pressure
Bed
Dark pulse + high neon tick
Hits
Whoosh at 3s and 12s; sub at 18s button
Silence
0.4s dip before button
When
After Neon pack + 24s edit recipe
SOUND BRIEF — Neon Courier 24s duration: 24s music: dark minor pulse, restrained, rise from 0:15 atmos: rain + city bed, continuous foley: wet boots under walking stills (2–3 steps) sfx: soft whoosh @0:03, @0:12; sub hit @0:18 button vo: none silence: 0.4s pre-button duck do_not: busy full orchestra, copyrighted melodies, constant hits
Cheat sheet
Layers · hierarchy · brief pattern
SOUND DESIGN CHEAT (Studio Academy) LAYERS (top → bottom attention) VO/story hit → designed SFX → foley → music → atmos → silence RULES 1. Picture spine first — sound won’t fix a weak cut 2. One hero sound event at a time 3. Cut points are candidate hit points 4. Trait-based music briefs (not titled clones) 5. Silent still montage is valid early 6. No clipping on button hits BRIEF PATTERN duration · music · atmos · foley · sfx hits (timecodes) · vo · do_not NEON 24s QUICK rain atmos + dark pulse · whoosh @3s @12s · sub @18s · 0.4s pre-button air