SOUND DESIGN LACKING in MONSTERFEST

J.R. Hudson

J.R. Hudson

Spirit Animal
We need to start having some lessons in Sound design I think.

http://www.filmsound.org/

As fun as some of these are; they are really lacking in this area. I find SOUND to be sooooo important in selling the world.

Think about a scene taking place at an outdoor cafe and all of the sounds one may hear :

The dialogue of course

The sounds of glasses and silverware, ambient dialogue, cars driving by, horns, birds chirping, the wind or a breeze blowing, the hum of an air conditioner maybe ...

Enhance all of that with foley for specific shots making the frame come alive

Score

Mixing ....

Anyways

Just a thought on how some of these could be much better
 
I agree 100%

Most films (including my own) suffered from mediocre or poor sound design.

The sound design area is an incredible way to make the world of your film more real and a lot more interesting. Definitely an area I want to improve on.
 
I thought Ryan Frias did a great job on mine, he built it up 100% in post (the on-set was fubar'd and he took ADR and went from there). We did several passes tweaking the background walla, adr reverb, fx foley and more. Though with so much music it's hard to tell, as we didnt get any quiet ambient moments.
 
Great post, J.R. Filmsound.org is a really great site and I highly recommend people check it out and read some of the articles by highly respected people within the sound community. I especially recommend people check out Randy Thom's article Designing for Sound. In it he stresses that good sound starts with the script writing process.

Sound is a major part of the telling a story that is rarely utilized for its full potential. So many people think that good sound starts during post with the "sound design." A lot of the better film makers here realize that they need to plan for sound during pre-production, making sure that they get good production audio, but the real art lies in planning for sound.

Take my favorite sound moment in films, the landing on Omaha beach near the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. Sure it is an awesome sounding scene and sound designer Gary Rydstrom did an absolutely amazing job, but there are dozens of decisions made before the sound designers ever got to it.

One really important part is that Spielberg and composer John Williams were brave enough to decide that they didn't want music during that scene. That's not to say that music is bad, but it let Rydstrom take full advantage of the entire frequency range without fighting the music. They made a decision and stuck with it.

Even more important than that, Spielberg decided to shoot the scene at the same level as the soldiers, making as feel as if we are with them. That gave Rydstrom the freedom to do all of the cool bullet bys, guns and explosions to add to the chaos. But I think the most important piece of the puzzle probably came during the writing process. The piece is designed to from the perspective of Tom Hanks. We hear all of the sounds of war, putting us in the middle of it, plus we have the "shell shock" sequences with Tom Hanks, adding to the horror of war.

Anyway, just something to think about. I'd love to read more about people's views of how sound can contribute!
 
My biggest concern regarding sound design in these fests is the lack of professional-grade equipment. This was my problem on Tiny Dancer (sound equipment we had was ATROCIOUS).

Of course, it couldn't hurt to offer lessons and book references (seriously, so many great texts on production out there).
 
I'll also take this opportunity to point to Noiz's post "Key to making your film sound like it had a budget"

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=172106

And the compilation post of a ton of post sound basics.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=174562

A great breakdown on things that are done EVEN WITH GOOD PRODUCTION tracks to make a movie sound great. And even with poor equipment, some basic post sound (along with wild takes and room tones) like dialog editing, backgrounds, and a few FX can usually at least get a movie to the point where the sound is no longer a distracting element.

And I certainly agree with Brad's points about designing a movie for sound.

You'll NEVER hear a sound designer complaint he/she was brought into a project too early. I (and I'm sure most designers) love reading scripts before they're shot and offering ideas that could help improve the effect sound will have on an audience.

And there's a lot of guys on the boards, myself included, who are happy to help on projects.
 
Doing sound myself I "often" deal with directors who are kind of intrested in sound, but think that sound is "normal".

Sound is something....very special... Viewers won't think 'hey... I hear city ambiences, but is it shot in a city ?" and "hey..... I hear the dog barking just when the bad guy is escaping..."

That's also the raison I like to do soundediting / sounddesign.. there is no one who is thinking of you :p But you know that you're deciding wether they like it...or less...

Oh and mostly sounddesigners aren't realy credited (name on posters)... It's always a big big big blabla about directors, DOP, even the hairdresser... but sound... Sound is something very unknown (by some).
 
I am stoked everyone seems hyper-aware of this element.

I always say that actors and sound are what sells your flick. Everything else is forgivable.
 
Most sound and sound effects in films sounds artificial to me, although Kill Bill, even though heavily processed, had a great surround mix. But maybe that is to a degree what is expected.
 
I added a lot of foley effects to One Percent. The fish tank filter, the blinking of the alien eye, the phone call operator, whistling/boiling kettle, footsteps, creaking floors/doors, everything. I also threw in plenty of low ambient sound effects, including some odd alien sounding stuff as well.

When I handed it over to Herman for the score he commented on it and said that he liked the creepy tone that it set up and didn't want to drown it out with a score. That's why there is very little music early on during the opening dream sequence. Herman also mixed it all together in the end very well.

I commented on every film and in most reviews I started to sound like a broken record. I listen with headphones (PC speakers suck) and a simple background room tone would have helped some entries immensely. Not terrible mind room, but 'sound is 99% of the picture*'.


* I think I'm quoting Herman there. :grin:


PS - If you don't have a subwoofer then headphones will still help you get some of the LFE that will be lost on cheap PC speakers without a sub.
 
J.R. Hudson said:
I am stoked everyone seems hyper-aware of this element.

I always say that actors and sound are what sells your flick. Everything else is forgivable.
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I totaly agree to this one, not only because I do sound myself, but let's analyse a few things:

Situation 1: a traveling shot where the focuspuller has to focus just in time one someone's face at the end of the shot. If the focus is a little to late... it doesn't matter. If the boom mice is to late... it sounds "unreal".

Also if the actor starts talking already before he's in frame...it's not that crazy.

In big budgets it's all ADR and foley of course... But I have some idea most people here do low budgets :2vrolijk_08:

And I have to say that SFX are also importend to be as perfect as possible.
 
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Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
I added a lot of foley effects to One Percent. The fish tank filter, the blinking of the alien eye, the phone call operator, whistling/boiling kettle, footsteps, creaking floors/doors, everything. I also threw in plenty of low ambient sound effects, including some odd alien sounding stuff as well.

When I handed it over to Herman for the score he commented on it and said that he liked the creepy tone that it set up and didn't want to drown it out with a score. That's why there is very little music early on during the opening dream sequence. Herman also mixed it all together in the end very well.

I commented on every film and in most reviews I started to sound like a broken record. I listen with headphones (PC speakers suck) and a simple background room tone would have helped some entries immensely. Not terrible mind room, but 'sound is 99% of the picture*'.


* I think I'm quoting Herman there. :grin:


PS - If you don't have a subwoofer then headphones will still help you get some of the LFE that will be lost on cheap PC speakers without a sub.
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You are indeed quoting Herman, I know him also. I have visited him doing some "foley" things for "Carte Blanche".
 
I agree with what Mike says. Anybody that's editing should definitely listen to the sound with headphones on. That's the only way you will be able to pick up on oddities that you otherwise wouldn't hear listening without headphones. That's the beginning of the sound, making sure the audio is consistent and there are no blank pauses in sound or pops and etc. Then ambient sound and all the other things that come along with that you work in.
 
This is all well & good... headphones, studio monitors, subs, etc. The thing to keep in mind is the audience you're mixing for though. Most people (general public) are going to be watching our shorts on a computer with its crappy speakers. Your finished film (web version) should translate properly on the thousands of inferior speakers out there.

Most of us here (because we're picky bastards) will be listening on phones or studio monitors or in home theatre set-ups. Might be a good idea to create multi-version mixes so they're available for different venues.
 
ZazaCast said:
This is all well & good... headphones, studio monitors, subs, etc. The thing to keep in mind is the audience you're mixing for though. Most people (general public) are going to be watching our shorts on a computer with its crappy speakers. Your finished film (web version) should translate properly on the thousands of inferior speakers out there.

Most of us here (because we're picky bastards) will be listening on phones or studio monitors or in home theatre set-ups. Might be a good idea to create multi-version mixes so they're available for different venues.
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True. Although you may miss the great LFE of a good mix with cheap speakers they will still catch the noticeable hiss when ever someone utters a word and it is not properly mixed. Garbage in = garbage out.

A good mix will still sound great on cheap speakers so there's no need for multiple versions. Even better on a good setup of course.
A bad mix sounds bad regardless of what you listen to it on.

I guess the point is... clean up the audio as best as you can and then you won't have to worry what someone listens to it on. :)

MAH
 
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