Sound design for video: commercials, ads and films

What sound design for video does

Sound design for video is everything you hear besides the words and the music: effects, ambience, the tone of a room, the small sounds that make an action read on screen. The final mix then balances all of it with the voice and the music. Good sound design is easy to miss. Missing sound is not: a door with no click, a street with no traffic, a cut where the room suddenly changes.

We build sound for commercials, ads, product videos and films, and mix each one for the screens it plays on, from a TV to a phone speaker.

Sound for AI video

AI video needs sound design more than most footage. Some video models generate sound with the picture, but each clip gets its own: the room tone shifts at every cut, levels jump and effects land a few frames early or late. Other models make no sound at all, so every footstep, pour and engine has to be built.

We treat generated sound as a rough guide at best. Each scene gets one ambience that runs under the cuts, so a kitchen stays the same kitchen from the wide to the close-up. Effects are placed against the picture frame by frame. When a shot cuts to a new place, the sound changes with it on purpose, not because a new clip started.

Built shot by shot

It starts with a spotting pass: we watch the cut and mark every moment that needs a sound. Then we build those sounds in layers. A product pour might be the bottle lifting, the liquid, the glass filling and the fizz settling, each placed on the frame where it happens. A door is the latch, the swing and the room it opens into.

Ambience sets the place: traffic below an office window, wind across a field, the hum of a store. Transitions and title cards get sounds of their own, used sparingly so they mark a change instead of filling space. Dialogue and voiceover are cleaned of noise and evened out, and the music is edited so its changes meet the cuts.

The final mix

The mix decides what you hear first. The voice sits on top, clear on a phone speaker and on a TV. Music drops back under each line and comes up between them. Effects support the picture without fighting the words.

We check every mix on speakers, on headphones and on a phone, because a film plays on all three. TV and CTV mixes are set to the loudness spec from your network or media buyer, and web and social mixes are set for each platform. Every cutdown and variant gets a mix of its own rather than a trimmed copy of the long one. You get the final mix, separate voice, music and effects stems for later edits, and mixed masters for every format.

Inside a production, or on your cut

When we make the film, sound design runs in the Finish stage of AI video production, built at the same time as the original music so the effects and the score don't compete for the same moments.

Bought on its own, sound design starts from your locked cut. Send the picture with the voiceover, music and any production sound as separate files, plus the delivery spec for each place the film runs. How long it takes depends on the brief: the running time, the number of versions and the formats. A schedule and quote follow the first call.