Audio Production and Post Production: Russian Murmur - Library Ambiance

Because Novikof takes place in Moscow, Russia (USSR), everyone in the library should be speaking Russian, or at least speak with a Russian accent. I might have had to rely on the extras at the library speaking with Russian accents and hope they were realistic enough, but, luckily, I have a friend (Philip Khaskin) and his family who speak Russian and I asked if he and his family would send me audio clips of them having conversations that one might have in a library in Russian. 

I took these and layered them. I also tried to create a surround sound feel by having some of the recordings play in one ear at a specific volume and others in the other ear at different volumes. I will also alter the volumes and where they play in space depending on where the shot is taken from/where the main character is located. For example, outside, the recordings will be louder, have more layered and closer to Novikof as he is moving through a crowd of people speaking Russian at higher volumes. When he goes inside, however, I will lower the volume and pay closer attention to where the recording is played in space as it should be farther from him. I will also edit the recordings to have higher or lower reverb, etc. to sound like they are either outside or inside. 

Here, I layer all of the audio clips of the Russian murmuring and I change the direction of each of them with the dials. Some are more to the left and some are more to the right.  

Here I use the parametric equalizer to move the curves and make the it seem like the audio is recorded at close range and then far away for the outside and inside shots. 

I also added a lowpass to damped the sound. 

This is how I edited the sound recorded by some Russian speakers that I know personally.