Let's Have Some Audio Fun....Contest anyone?

Doc Bernard

Doc Bernard

Indie Arms Member
I see all of these Fests and contests here, and I love them.......but one of the things lacking is almost always the audio......

I am proposing a "sound design" contest. Let's show all the film-makers out there what can be done. Half of what I heard, never told a story without the image. We will do it like the DVXfests in how they have a "genre"

Rules I am considering, if this is green-lit by the Admin here at DVXUser....

1. Original work for the contest, no prior work.
2. Audio only. No video, other than text. (makes it easy to share here through vimeo or youtube)
3. 2-3 min max
4. Must have rights to use all sounds. Whether Collaborative, or otherwise. No ripping sounds/music/dialog from other works.
5. It must tell a story. Describe it in your entry.
 
I like it but you do realize this has everything to do with radio and very little to do with film post.

What might be more post focused is a 3 min. clip of video that everyone needs to do sound for.

One could probably grab something off Internet archive.

Of course if we want to make it "realistic" the deadline has to be really short and the day after the due date you change a couple of the shots in the video and give everyone 12 hrs to remix ;~)
 
On a related note (in my ADD mind anyway) I have a ton of old radio shows (as in like 9,000 hours or so). If someone wants to hear what it was like before TV let me know and we can figure something out.
 
Yeah one clip for everyone to score sounds like a great Idea to me. I know it could be difficult to source a clip for each fest that people are happy with but it would be the most beneficial and informative.

Great idea!
 
Noiz2......I LOVE the idea of providing a clip with no audio and have people redesign it..... That is what I had to do for my final exam......."Die another Day" James Bond......the Laser sequence.......Had to add everything in 5.1.

LOL, now kicking myself for not thinking of that. Let's ask a DVXUser to provide that from a previous film they did. I want to keep this "in-house", as it were.
 
Doc,

You must have missed several previous DVXFests including ones that were 4-5 years back. There were many entries which included beyond-this-world sound design work that could at least hold their own ground with just the soundtrack by themself. I remember Designing Sound use to have their own monthly or periodic sound design contests where everybody uploaded their work onto their Vimeo channel for contest, until recently that the amount of work and time attributed to the contest itself exceeded more than any of the moderators had expected.

The idea for a sound-only contest held every month or two would yield several interesting contestants to join, myself included. There's already a ScriptFest and our family DVXFest. Many ways to go. Maybe have the first month an animation contest, the second month a silent movie contest, the third a sound-only no picture soundscape that describes a word, color, or mood, and etc.
 
It would be great if contributors to this contest were to do a bit of "behind the scenes" for their entries...if they don't mind.

All in the spirit of educating those who want to learn to do better sound.
 
Perfect idea Denis. My goal with this is threefold:

1. Share knowledge to both film-makers and other designers or potential designers
2. Let people showcase their skills in sound design
3. Have fun in the process
 
Denis Haineault said:
It would be great if contributors to this contest were to do a bit of "behind the scenes" for their entries...if they don't mind.

All in the spirit of educating those who want to learn to do better sound.
Click to expand...

I did this in the last fest....no one seemed too interested?

IMHO, I find the sound design on most current fest films to be quite well done. I think the real problems stem from not capturing good clear dialogue on the shoot....then trying to do ADR. Most of the time, it stands out like a sore thumb and pulls you right out of the film.
 
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Nice, Zaza! You running that pair as X/Y, Blum, or M/s?

Note: this is my first time seeing this. Nice set up!
 
M/S ...it's a matched pair of Cascade Audio FatHead II's ribbon mics. I LOVE these mics on acoustic instruments (and they are very reasonable, should be in any mic collection).
...and thanks, just my little home set-up, you can take the boy out of the studio, but you can't take the studio out of the boy! :happy:

Here's a great example of what you can do with a single mic, using your recording space of choice....
(a single Cascade Fat Head was used in this one-take video)

 
Great job. A lot of people rip on 1 mic recordings.....but if done right like you did here, they can be intimate and soul jerking. Kudos. Ribbons on acoustics.......dream mics. I have a recording somewhere here of a cello direct mic'd with a ribbon I modded at my last F/T day job.....sends shivers down your spine....the engineer put it in the sweet spot.
 
Doc Bernard said:
I see all of these Fests and contests here, and I love them.......but one of the things lacking is almost always the audio......

I am proposing a "sound design" contest. Let's show all the film-makers out there what can be done. Half of what I heard, never told a story without the image. We will do it like the DVXfests in how they have a "genre"

Rules I am considering, if this is green-lit by the Admin here at DVXUser....

1. Original work for the contest, no prior work.
2. Audio only. No video, other than text. (makes it easy to share here through vimeo or youtube)
3. 2-3 min max
4. Must have rights to use all sounds. Whether Collaborative, or otherwise. No ripping sounds/music/dialog from other works.
5. It must tell a story. Describe it in your entry.
Click to expand...


Good idea - but how about enetring the International Amateur Recording Contest - too late for this year as the contest starts at the end of this week. But plenty of time for next year.

And the contest would welcome entries from the US and Canada as most seem to come from Europe at the moment.
 
John Willett said:
Good idea - but how about enetring the International Amateur Recording Contest - too late for this year as the contest starts at the end of this week. But plenty of time for next year.

And the contest would welcome entries from the US and Canada as most seem to come from Europe at the moment.
Click to expand...


John... you got my adrenaline flowing for that site... but that is about the least user-friendly site I've seen... where are the recordings for us to listen to? The best I could find was a video with sound... HERE and the sound is not good. There's frequent distortion and blown levels... (that's last year's winner?)

I love the ideas you guys have going in this thread... I proposed something like this years ago. The funny thing about sound... is you can get about 90% of the total available quality of a sonic event for less than 25% of the cost of a typical "higher-end" kit (in my opinion).

This thread prompted me to grab an old hard drive and see if I was kidding myself about some goofing around I did in '06 with a guitar-playing friend of mine. I popped on my HD600s (my cans of choice for a few years now) and yep... those old recordings still hold up really well... and I did them with a Mixpre and a Marantz 671... some with Oktava pairs (when they were cheap) and others with better mics... but still all gear that's affordable.

I thought I did those old recordings with a 302 > HDP2... but it was even less! (probably not a huge spec difference in gear however). Point is... good sound isn't a rich boys club... anybody willing to put forth the effort (and a modest investment) can do it.
 
MattinSTL said:
John... you got my adrenaline flowing for that site... but that is about the least user-friendly site I've seen... where are the recordings for us to listen to? The best I could find was a video with sound... HERE and the sound is not good. There's frequent distortion and blown levels... (that's last year's winner?)

I love the ideas you guys have going in this thread... I proposed something like this years ago. The funny thing about sound... is you can get about 90% of the total available quality of a sonic event for less than 25% of the cost of a typical "higher-end" kit (in my opinion).

This thread prompted me to grab an old hard drive and see if I was kidding myself about some goofing around I did in '06 with a guitar-playing friend of mine. I popped on my HD600s (my cans of choice for a few years now) and yep... those old recordings still hold up really well... and I did them with a Mixpre and a Marantz 671... some with Oktava pairs (when they were cheap) and others with better mics... but still all gear that's affordable.

I thought I did those old recordings with a 302 > HDP2... but it was even less! (probably not a huge spec difference in gear however). Point is... good sound isn't a rich boys club... anybody willing to put forth the effort (and a modest investment) can do it.
Click to expand...

Did you go here: http://www.soundhunters.com/soundfiles/index.html
 
ZazaCast said:
Did you go here: http://www.soundhunters.com/soundfiles/index.html
Click to expand...

Thanks ZaZa... much better. There is some decent stuff there. Both "The Big Trainride" and "Liberate Tuteme Ex Infernis" have some weird phasing in the narration (mp3 encoding?) while "A Transport of Delight”... to my ears, is head and shoulders above the other two, not just from the lack of phasing on the voice, but the spacial presence within the recording is much better... i.e. more "air".

It would be nice if entries in a sound fest tell a story.

On that same page... check out “How to Make a Tape Recorder”... all the way back from 1971. Pretty darn impressive... and that guy obviously loved sound.
 
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