Sound design

[Gerry]

In creating my "Nightcallers" trailer I can see the need for something beyond just sound effects and music. I think what I'm inching toward is "sound design", but I don't know enough about it to know what questions to ask or what kind of samples to ask for.

 

One thing that struck me when we were doing the "Bus Stop" project was that I was adding sound effects that worked okay and were sufficient, but to my ear it was like "sound effect/sound effect/sound effect", i.e., the sound track didn't have a "shape" or anything dynamic about it.

 

I want something more for "Nightcallers" but I don't know how to go about getting it. I know there must be people on the forum who know lots more about this than me, so, any suggestions or ideas?

[HomeSlice]

I'm not a "sound" guy so probably not the best person to make suggestions, but I can share what I observed when I worked with Angelo Panetta on SO. Angelo knows the whole sound design thing inside and out.

 

Imagine what kind of environment your scene sits in and then imagine what sounds would be in that environment. Environment sounds don't have to be loud or very noticeable. Even barely audible sounds will have an impact when they are all layered together.

 

Some common elements for an outdoor scene might be, wind blowing, leaves rustling, sounds from birds and other critters, water running in a stream etc.

An inside environment might include things like a clock ticking, a radio or TV faintly audible, a refrigerator, a fan or air conditioner, cars driving by outside etc.

A large hallway might include echoes from voices or footsteps far down the hall, doors opening and closing, elevator sounds, muzak playing over a speaker system etc.

 

Also when a character moves they make sound. Footsteps, the sound of clothing brushing against itself, the sound of a person rubbing his/her face or scratching his/her head. These types of sound, from my limited experience, are often exaggerated.

 

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for?

[largento]

I'm in the same boat. Don't know much about it, but having to get my feet wet anyway.

 

One resource I've been making use of is Amazon's MP3 sales. There are literally thousands of sound effects from probably a thousand different sound effect CDs that are available on Amazon for 99¢ each. I bought one CD with a bunch of sound effects to give me a starter library and then when I need something, I go on there and pick and choose. A friend was nice enough to give me an Amazon Gift card for my birthday and so far, all of my sound effects have come with no out of pocket for me.

 

Like Holmes says, the layering of sounds can give you all kinds of stuff.

 

You can use GarageBand to do a movie project and it's pretty helpful for mixing and matching things. I've also just layered in a bunch of sounds into my editing program.

 

As of this point, I've made no attempt to get tricky with having things come out of the left speaker or right speaker, etc.

[Gerry]

thanks guys, all very helpful. Holmes, your description is a great help for thinking in terms of context and framework. And Mark, GarageBand is a good tip. I've dabbled with it and I usually think of myself as a *little* musical but I guess I don't understand the underlying structure to make much headway. However I signed up my wife and myself for some One-To-One training at the Apple Store and been trying to clear some time to learn GB over there. This is another good reason to do so.

[Gerry]

'kay, I'm starting some GB training at the Apple Store on Tuesday morning!

[thejobe]

the term you are referring to is environmental ambiance. it is a way of maying a scene seem like you are there. surrounding you in the movie you are watching.

it does take a bit of finesse but doesnt take alot to do.

 

what i have done in the past is start collecting sounds.

A: go to a park and start recording stuff. just leave the camera running for about 20 mins straight.

B: go online and look up ambient sounds there are tons of them. even youtube.

 

then all you do is bring it into any mix (wether for sound or video) and start layering sounds.

[Gerry]

Good point Jason. I was thinking that the main sound would be heavy electric guitars and not much else, but as the scene develops it turns out I will have some dialog at the end, then I started thinking about various sound fx, and it's sort of taking on a life of its own.

 

I started Garage Band lessons at the Apple Store two weeks ago. I finally sat down yestdrday to create a project and it was confusing and frustrating when I wanted it to be exciting and intuitive so I guess there will be a learning curve.

[TheSpleen]

good rule of thumb is NO silence

Always some ambient sound in background

[thejobe]

if you need sound FXs made up im pretty good with that. i use FL Studios. its a bit more involved than garage band but the quality is superb.

[Simon Edmondson]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Great-Animal-O...9773&sr=1-1

 

There was a book featured on BBC radio Four in their "book of the week" slot last week called " The great Animal Orchestra" by Bernie Kraus in which he examined what he called the Biophoney, the world of natural sound in the environment. The radio show featured samples of what he was talking about and made it fascinating to listen to. I don't know whether the paper book will do it justice ( I'm awaiting my copy ).

 

In the interim might I suggest you try the DVD of the film " No country for Old Men". The film itself is very striking ( if violent ) but one of the most impressive things about it is the sound design as it is nearly all ambient sound with no music dubbed over the top. It has the result of making the action even more dramatic because you are not led up to it and delivered by the music.

 

regards

simon

[largento]

I find GarageBand relatively intuitive, but I haven't been using exclusively on this project. I find GarageBand most useful for finding and creating musical stings. There are tons of loops to make use of. I just wish I had actual musical talent, then I could really do something with it. :-)

 

I've been using SoundBooth for recording the dialogue and cleaning it up. And I've been putting a lot of it together just in Premiere, buying royalty free sound effects one at a time from Amazon's mp3 store.

 

Gene's right about the no silence thing. A continuous background ambience also covers up the ambient noise in the recorded dialogue (or rather makes it less noticeable when it disappears between clips.)

[Gerry]

Thanks guys. I did better with GB on Sunday. Ridiculous getting frustrated after two hours with a new app! I did get a rough cut done of one of the songs just for practice and I'll bring it to my GB class tomorrow for comments and critique.

 

Vicki wrote a bunch of really nice songs for the project a few years ago, though we've never actually figured out where the songs go in the story. But it would make a cool music video, so that's what I'm thinking about. But jeez, anything that takes me away from animating seems like a distraction!

[phatso]

About never permitting silence (except for during a song), that is THE rule for sound tracks. Even a little ambient sound disguises the splices between the more important sounds.

 

Even the pros sometimes screw this up. I remember listening to the soundtrack from Jungle Book over headphones. Of course, that film was made back in the day of analog tape recorders, so there was some hiss under the dialog, clearly audible. And it was very obvious that each voice actor recorded their lines separately and then they were spliced together, because the hiss would go away between lines. Even a tiny little bit of background jungle sounds would have corrected this.

[Fuchur]

About never permitting silence (except for during a song), that is THE rule for sound tracks. Even a little ambient sound disguises the splices between the more important sounds.

 

Even the pros sometimes screw this up. I remember listening to the soundtrack from Jungle Book over headphones. Of course, that film was made back in the day of analog tape recorders, so there was some hiss under the dialog, clearly audible. And it was very obvious that each voice actor recorded their lines separately and then they were spliced together, because the hiss would go away between lines. Even a tiny little bit of background jungle sounds would have corrected this.

 

It really depends what you are talking about here. You are right if O-Track (or Fake O-Tone) is included here, but as any rule: They are there to be known and broken if needed. It can help to get the attention on exactly that.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[phatso]

Sure, if that's the intent. I ran across a guy who went through and "corrected" all the "errors" in some composition by Bach. What an idiot.