Twenty years ago, recording your own movie was a bit of an ordeal made possible only by carrying a cumbersome camcorder around.

Nowadays, not only can you record movies on a whim because the equipment is so small and you just have to press a button, you can easily edit and improve your movies, before sharing them with people around the world.
Here are three ways you can enhance the atmosphere in your home movies by adding sound.

Set the mood
You might think that the primary aspect of a movie is what you see, but it's important to realise that what you hear is just as important.
Watching a film with the sound muted usually means the mood and overall impact is greatly reduced. A movie-watcher who is suddenly startled and throws their popcorn everywhere is as likely to have been affected by hearing short, sharp sounds rather than what they've just seen.
Another way of understanding how sound changes the atmosphere is by people's reactions to the mention of different films. If someone said Jaws, how many people instantly think about the tension-building music heard as the great white approaches? The impact sound can have in movies is impressive.
And sound is not just used to convey tension; it can be used with similarly-powerful effect to evoke feelings of humour, excitement or love. And appealing to such emotions can add another dimension to home movies.

Fill the gaps
A movie reaches out to the eyes and the ears, so if you leave your movies as they were recorded, you'll be resigned to one of two audio outcomes: background noise or no noise at all. Both create a negative impression on the viewer.
Background noise constitutes whatever was happening around you when you were recording, such as the noise of passing cars or people talking. Sometimes this is intentionally left to create a rustic and authentic feel.
More often than not though, it's a grainy and raucous soundtrack, which only serves to put off the viewer.
The only thing more off-putting is the lack of any sound, unless, of course, you're watching a silent movie. Most of us have played a video on YouTube™ and, when hearing nothing, fiddled with the volume (on the video and on your computer) in the hope of unearthing some sound.
When you discovered that there was, in fact, no sound at all, you probably didn't stick around much longer. For this reason, it's important to pay attention to sound and the effect it can have.

Create a timeless quality
If it's just a movie recorded on smartphone or digital camera, you don't have to worry about enhancements to the sound. True, you don't have to, but when you understand what a difference it can make, you'll want to.
Presenting a home movie with no attention paid to audio might interest friends and family briefly, but as soon as the movie ends, their memory of it fades as well.
Giving some thought to the sounds and music in your movie, on the other hand, can produce a keepsake that lasts long in people's minds. It will be something they revisit again and again, rather than a throwaway rough recording that's banished to the recycle bin.
The visuals indicate what the scene looked like and what happened, but it's the sounds and music that awaken the feelings and emotions of the occasion.

Don't suffer in silence
The only remaining aspect that might now deter you from enhancing your movies' sound is the difficulty of the task, but it doesn't have to be difficult at all.
No matter how niche the effect or music you're looking for may seem, you'll more than likely be able to find it online. There are sites devoted to providing material free of charge and of copyright infringement, and movie editing software is freely available to help you add and fine-tune such sounds in your movies.
And, when done properly, sound really can have an amazing effect.

Peter White is employed by Serif, a leading developer of software for home users. Serif's MoviePlus movie editing software is popular with amateur movie makers and complements Serif's website builder and graphic design software.