Mar
05
2010
Your Questions to Erik Aadahl
Now, you have the opportunity to do your own questions Erik Aadahl. Please read the exclusive interview first. Maybe you can find your answer there.
5 Comments link
Mar
15
2010
Erick Ocampo Talks About the Sound Design of “Front Mission Evolved”
Square Enix has published on his blog a post by Erick Ocampo, who talks about the sound design of “Front Mission Evolved”, talking about his work on the Wanzer robots. He also talks about working with our featured sound designer Erik Aadahl, who participated in the creation of the sounds of the video game.
My name is Erick Ocampo, I am the Sound Designer on Front Mission Evolved. When I first found out I was going to work on a Square Enix game I was super excited! My main focus on the project was Wanzer sound effects and cinematics. I really wanted to capture the essence of each Wanzer pilot and bring out their personalities with vocal-like movement sounds for their Wanzer. I used a variety of sounds such as lions, male vocals, servos, farm animals, metal creaks, brass instruments, whales, and processed them with various plug-ins and other effect processors. My goal was to say clear of generic servo movement sounds and give these Wanzers a much more sophisticated feel.
Another important part of Front Mission Evolved is the story told by the detailed and action packed cinematics. I’ve always felt that sound for game cinematics should be up to par with the audio in a high budget film. There is about an hour and a half of highly complex-intense battle scenes, involving Wanzer artillery, human perspective, hi-tech machinery, futuristic space vehicles and much more! Just like a movie without audio to help sell the visuals it just wouldn’t be the same experience. Creating sound for cinematics was a very challenging but fun adventure. In some scenes there are moments where I really wanted to grab the players attention and feed them emotion with tonal drone sounds and gritty stingers that would emphasize the moment — very similar to what a composer would do while scoring music to a scene. [...]
Thanks to Chris for the link!
Mar
15
2010
Tom Bellfort on the Sound of “The Pacific”
Studio Daily had an interesting talk with Tom Bellfort, supervising sound editor of the HBO miniseries “The Pacific”.
The Pacific–the WWII miniseries from the producing trio (Tom Hanks, Steve Spielberg, Gary Goetzman) who brought us Band of Brothers–will debut on HBO on the evening of March 14. This ten-part series depicts the brutal war in the Pacific by following the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines throughout their deployment until they go home after V-J day.
If Band of Brothers is any indication, The Pacific will be gripping drama with a tremendous attention to the kind of authentic detail that builds the “you are there” reality. While much is written about how the visuals achieved that level of realism, the important contributions of audio don’t always get the same attention.
I spoke with Tom Bellfort, supervising sound editor, who notes that watching the entire miniseries is an emotional roller coaster. “It is genuinely a quite an experience,” he says. “You go through ten episodes of the enthusiasm towards war and the Marine Corps, but by the end of the ten episodes, you also experience some of the bitterness and cynicism towards the war.”
Mar
12
2010
Erik Aadahl Special: Sound Recording and Design
GETTING THE RECORDINGS
Recording is one of the most fun parts of the sound experience for me, yielding fresh material to work with and inevitably leading to unexpected ideas. I consider it central to the sound design process.
Part of the fun is the stories you’re left with. While recording, I’ve:
- Caught a microphone zeppelin on fire while doing stovetop ignition bursts (twice)
- Had a wolf jump up and attack my mic, hanging on a boom over a fence at a refuge in Arizona and pulling me off my feet
- Crushed a lavaliere mic inside a hydraulic press recording a coffee can crush
- Dropped a piano off a forklift, snapping the cable off a mic planted inside (sorry Kim)
- Watched as my friend Ethan nearly got torched recording the afterburners of a F22 Stealth Raptor fighter jet
- Hung out of the trunk of a Saleen sports car racing at 100 mph while recording the muffler
- Shattered my car windshield, with a mic in the driver seat, after dropping 50 gallons of water from a balcony
- Made a cow cry after separating him from his friends to get some moos. It was heart-breaking.
- Had my rig, with a home-made battery pack resembling a home-made bomb, confiscated by Shanghai airport police
- Been eaten by swarms of bugs recording jungle atmospheres in Cambodia
- Got elephant snot all over my Neumann microphone
Mar
12
2010
Game Audio Podcast #3 Available Now
The third Game Audio Podcast is available now for download. This time the discussion is about “Interactive and Dynamic Music”, with special guests such as Vincent Diamante (Composer/Sound Designer), Scott Morton (Composer/Sound Designer) and Wilbert Roget (Composer, Music Editor/Implementer).
They also talk about some news featuring software such as Hybrid Reverb 2 – Zappa IR – Wwise 2009.3, things like Korg DS10+, NDS ToneSynth, Conan Interactive Music Video’s, also talk about our Audio Implementation Greats series, and more!
Mar
11
2010
Audio Implementation Greats #5: Ambient – The Hills are Alive
In a continued attempt to shed light on some of the best examples of Technical Sound Design in the current generation, I’d like to call attention to several titles that have pushed the envelope when it comes to the art of ambience. The all encompassing experience of “being there” in a game, where the sense of place is encapsulated in the sound of the environment. Stepping beyond the background din of a given location, we’re moving forward towards the players ability to affect the sound of a space by their interaction with it. This can be as simple as turning off a machine that had been emitting a constant loop of activity, or as complex as scaling the dynamics of a crowd dependent on the current artificial intelligence activity in an area.
THE SHACKLES
Despite leaving behind the memory restrictions of previous generation consoles, hearing a single looping ambience throughout a level or area within a game continues to be common – making any recurring distinct elements of the background clearly identifiable when repeated. While these backgrounds, well designed and teaming with character, still contain the potential to keep the player immersed in the game world, anyone who chooses this approach runs the risk of exposing the limitation this technique to the player. Several best practices have evolved and taken root to combat repetition and further lend a sense of randomness to the sound aspect of the game world.
In an article by Nick Peck back in 2004 entitled “Tips for Game Sound Designers”, a case for highlighting ambient elements which vary in time, duration, and position in order to “Generate 5.1 content without full bandwidth sources” was made. This included the idea of a subtly shifting background ambience with randomly placed elements as a solution to static looping soundscape, and presented a way out of the confinements of the locked loop. While likely that this presentation was not the first time a solution was defined, the practice of ambient creation using these methodologies perpetuates today in step with the advancements in available resources and the increased creativity of audio toolsets.
THE LAND OF THE LIVING
The world of Oblivion can be bustling with movement and life or devoid of presence, depending on the circumstances. The feeling of “aliveness” is in no small part shaped by the rich dynamic ambient textures that have been carefully orchestrated by the Bethesda Softworks sound team. Audio Designer Marc Lambert provided some background on their ambient system in a developer diary shortly before launch:
“The team has put together a truly stunning landscape, complete with day/night cycles and dynamic weather. Covering so much ground — literally, in this case — with full audio detail would require a systematic approach, and this is where I really got a lot of help from our programmers and the Elder Scrolls Construction Set [in order to] specify a set of sounds for a defined geographic region of the game, give them time restrictions as well as weather parameters.” – Marc Lambert
Mar
11
2010
“The Crazies” – Interview With Jeremy Peirson and Laurent Kossayan
There is a new interesting interview at Filmsound Daily on the sound of “The Crazies” with supervising sound editors Jeremy Peirson and Laurent Kossayan. Let’s read:
In an interview with Colider.com, Director Breck Eisner explained, “The town is pretty much a character in the film at the beginning and then as the military comes in and the disease takes over, you see the whole world literally turned on its side and you get to watch the decline and decay and destruction of this small, kind-of-perfect American town.” How was this idea of the ideal town implemented in the soundtrack? What sound ideas where used to show its decay?
JP: One of our original ideas was to set up this concept of decay by contrasting life and activity early on in the film. We tried to make the town as active and peaceful as possible.
LK: We made exteriors busy with kids playing and other off screen activities; Lots of birds, too – almost like a cliché ‘happy town’.
JP: As soon as the military enters and it’s clear the sickness has progressed, the birds die off. We wanted to help sell the idea that the water was poison and birds would be affected very quickly. It also helped set up a sense of isolation. The idea of taking these things away leaves you with the question of what’s left. To that end, we allowed the bugs to survive and used them in very interesting ways to evolve and flow during a scene. At the beginning of the scene we might have started off with one set of bugs, but by the end of it, we would have ebbed and flowed through four more different sets of insects, ending with something that sounded completely different.
LK: We designed a layer of drones derived from winds and insects, too, to add weirdness. Additional strange sounding animals one-offs were always placed in the distance and not very talky or obviously sonically noticeable, again to reveal the overall emptiness of the area.
JP: Things would come and go, as the scene needed. In town, we would also hear the clanging of the flag pole, distant metal signs rattling, and weird distant metal squeaks to add to this sense of desolation.
Mar
10
2010
Erik Aadahl Special: All About the Sound of “Transformers”
Transformers has been one of the most important titles for Erik Aadahl’s career. As we are on his special, I take the opportunity to do a mashup of articles, interviews, and videos, trying to put all the info about Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen I found in the Internet, including also material from the rest of the crew on the mix, dialogue and foley. Also an exclusive interview with Erik on Transformers is coming in the next days.
Transformers (2007)
I’ve read a lot of discussions lately about defining a Sound Designer. What were your duties on Transformers?
Erik Aadahl: The term “sound designer” can mean lots of things. In some cases, a designer is brought in to handle a scene or a concept, with effects editors handling everything else. In other cases, a designer may have a broader role and oversee the overall track. This movie was a little of both–I was brought on by Ethan van der Ryn to design the robots, but as time went by that job broadened to encompass the entire final track. By the end of the final mix, I had plenty of chances to go over the whole film, tweaking details till we couldn’t do it any more.
Had to ask it. Is the signature transforming sound from the cartoon in the film?
Ethan Van der Ryn: We used the original transforming sound twice in the film. It is used for one of the largest transformers and also for the smallest. More importantly we were inspired by the original transformation sound in the creation of new sounds. The very first sounds heard in the movie which play over the Dreamworks and Paramount logos are an example of sounds which are inspired by that original transformation sound vibe.
How much time did you get to spend on conceptional proofs before going full bore on design and editorial?
Erik Aadahl: It all happened at the same time. The first scene I got was Blackout (at the time his name was Vortex) destroying the Qatar airbase. I had a week to come up with the transformation and weapons and destruction and the shape of that very first pass stayed pretty much intact until the end. After that first week, I had a chance to catch my breath and go conceptual again, spending my days under headphones recording everything that might be useful–scissorlift servos, remote control copters, sliding acrylic sheets, power windows–and then throwing them into ProTools to manipulate them into fun sounds. After a few weeks of that, I had a palette of several hundred fresh robot sounds that I could draw from as the movie progressed.
Mar
10
2010
A Field Recording Guide by Chuck Russom
Chuck Russom has published on his blog an interesting article on field recording, providing the audio and the slides of his Field Recording Lecture at Game Developers Conference 2006. He talks about the importance of a good field recording, what’s inside the common field recording bag, how to get ready for a session, how to record sounds well, and more.
Audio
Slides
A few notes abot the gun and animal shoots that are featured in the talk:
The gun shoot was done over 2 days in the fall of 2005 just outside of Los Angeles. It was for the Sony PS3 game Warhawk. There were 3 recordists on that shoot. John Fasal was the lead recordist. Chris Clanin (Warhawk audio lead) and I were the other 2. The samples presented in the talk were taken from all 3 recordists (John ran the most channels, so a good number of samples are probably his, the Nagra was definitely his). I don’t remember how many channels we had or which samples came from which recorder.
The animal shoot was in spring of 2005 in Big Bear, CA. It was for a PS2 project I was working on at the time called Neopets (don’t look it up, it’s terrible). I brought along 2 other sound designers from Sony (Jeff Darby and Brad Aldredge) to assist me in recording, each recordist ran their own machine (either in stereo or mono). I remember I used a Fostex FR2 at 24bit 96K with a Sennehiser MKH40 mic. All of the animal samples are from my recordings.
Mar
09
2010
Interview with Bay Area Sound Team
Julian Kwasneski, Jared Emerson-Johnson, and Damian Kastbauer, the guys at Bay Area Sound had a nice interview at MOJO, talking about his work on the company, the previous titles they worked on, and more.
If you’ve played any game listed in the Mojo database, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with the work of Bay Area Sound or the seasoned team behind it. Formed in 2000 by Julian Kwasneski and Clint Bajakian after years of serving in-house in the LucasArts audio department, the respected company offers everything from sound design, musical scoring, and voiceover work for game projects. In addition to being the go-to guys for LEC and Telltale, BA Sound also handles the audio for the other LEC spinoff studios, and as a result their high caliber work can be heard in the likes of Psychonauts, Insecticide, and A Vampyre Story as well.
Given that one of the most consistently cited areas of excellence in these games is their sound, and considering that many of the same dudes that are responsible for the audio of the LEC classics continue to play such a crucial and dependable role in the games we anticipate even now, it’s clear that BA Sound, today primarily run by Kwasneski and Sam & Max maestro Jared Emerson-Johnson, is something of an unsung hero in the Mojo world. Fortunately, we were able to briefly coax some of its key people away from their hectic schedules, and the result is this enlightening and long overdue interview for your enjoyment. Read as our prodding questions are answered and we learn what goes on behind-the-scenes when creating game audio, and why in the case of BA Sound the end result is more than just background noise.
Via: @lostlab
Mar
08
2010
Erik Aadahl Special: Conceptual Beginnings
Our job as sound designers is to be storytellers. Instead of words or pictures, we tell the story with sound. And it all starts with the script. Sometimes I’ll get a script in advance of a job, sometimes not. Ideally, the screenwriter has worked sound into the very fabric of the script. Some of my favorite movie scenes of all time were written with sound as a central player. Once Upon a Time in the West comes to mind, where a badass is introduced entirely offscreen with the sound of intense battle going on outside, as saloon patrons tremble inside listening to the chaos.
Last year’s No Country for Old Men is another great example, where the beep of a tracking device tells us the villain is slowly approaching–a far scarier technique than just showing the guy walking up. What we don’t see is often scarier than what we do see, and sound is a great tool to achieve that.
But sometimes the script can be a little misleading. I don’t know how many times I’ve read “and then they fight”; just four words on the page, but depending on the director those four words may translate to 20 minutes of insane action.
