In the latest episode of the Game Audio Podcast, the panel (which includes guests Shannon Potter [Sounddelux DMG], Kristen Quebe [Microsoft Games Studios] and Fryda Wolff [Turtle Rock Studios] ) discuss the varied entry routes taken by audio designers getting into the Games Industry, as well as discussion on the diversity in games studios.

Listen to the podcast, or download it here

Editor’s note: This article is written by Karol Urban, CAS. Designing Sound did little to contribute to this interview beyond bringing two highly skilled women together to talk about working in sound. We thank Karol for bringing her expertise and perspective to this article.

Karol Urban: What do you think it is about you or your life experiences that has driven you to become a sound designer and recordist?

Ann Kroeber: I started off in sound very much by accident. I had a dad who was very strict and Germanic and he wouldn’t even allow me to turn on the stereo. He had very expensive photo equipment and I’d sometimes go out with him when he was shooting with it. For example, I’d point out the way the light was falling on the trees as a bird was flying over and he’d capture it with his fancy camera, but I wasn’t allowed to even come near that gear. That was strictly his domain. It was like a guy thing. So, “Don’t touch it!” I just assumed that that was just a thing that girls didn’t do.

So, it was when I was working at the United Nations. I had this awesome job. I had actually wanted to work there since I was about 16, and I had landed a real cool job in the film department. It was just kind of by accident that I got into the film section. There was an opening and I wrangled my way in.

I really wanted to work at the UN. So, I just learned everything. I learned as much as I could. I learned all about what the job was about. It was in the film library going through old archival footage and finding new stuff that could be used for other documentaries. It was a wonderful experience to be able to see all this cool stuff from all over the world.

Anyway, at the end of my assignment, I was trying to find another way to stay there in another capacity perhaps. My boss said “Well, why don’t you do sound recording?” And I looked at him like, “Yeah, Why don’t you do astrophysics?” It seemed out of the question…sound recording.

He said, “Yeah, you could go out with some crews and do some recording.” I tried to convince him that it was not a good idea. But he said “No Ann, here.” He showed me this new tape recorder, which was a Nagra at the time, a pretty expensive microphone, and he gave me very specific instructions on how to use the recorder. And I wrote them down very carefully. I got all the rules. How not to turn it up the sound past a certain dB and not to adjust the gain after you set it, to leave it alone. He said that was important.

I didn’t even try the tape recorder until I went out. My assignment was to go out and record Chinese New year. I went out down to Chinatown in New York City. I went out with full trepidation, carting all this equipment. Then, I put the headphones on and, all of a sudden, when I turned on the recorder, this new big world opened up. I thought, “My goodness. Wow, isn’t that just wow.”

I got so excited that I forgot about the rules and I just used my instincts and my ear. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to go over that level of gain; that it would distort. But, I switched the gain for the fireworks and I would get it right to the edge and then I would slowly bring it back. I would find cool places to put the microphone. I was just so excited. It was really fun. I had no idea how it was going to come out. But, I brought it back and they were surprised. My boss was like “Oh my goodness gracious, this is really good.” He was very excited about it. And so…that’s how it started, my career.

I was surprised to learn that an individual so renowned for her experimentation with recording technology, such as her work with the FRAP contact microphone, ever went through a moment of technological hesitance. She went on to explain that her ear, not technology, is what motivates her decisions.

I still have that old lingering thing about technology. I admire people who don’t have that. I am getting much better and, certainly, once I learn how to use something, I overcome my fear and I am fine with it. I can play around with it and find new ways to use that technology. And I like to collaborate with people who are easy with technology and enjoy my artfulness.

My whole approach to sound is through my ears and through my instincts. This is something I teach my students now: “the art of listening.”

For me, when recording, the most important thing is getting out of the way of your head, your mind, and just becoming all ears. It’s almost like a Zen thing. You get really quiet and you just hear. It’s just amazing…the world around you when we just listen. So, that really is just it. I have a pair of Schoeps and I couldn’t tell you what the number is on them.

I remember when I was looking for a new mixer. I can’t tell you which one I had, but I wanted a new mixer for when I was doing the production mixing for Blue Velvet. I went to the major [gear] store in LA to look for mixers and the guys pointing out the most expensive ones that they claimed were the best ones. I said, “I’ve really got to listen. I have to plug my microphones in the mixer and see what it sounds like.” They said “okay.” So, I did that. The one that I liked wasn’t the most expensive or the most popular but it sounded better, and they thought I didn’t know what I was talking about. So, they did a blind test with me and, sure enough, it came out the same…. That’s what I go by. That is the most precious thing I have when it comes to recording sound; my ears.

Everything else follows.

Would you say that the focus on listening is your favorite aspect of your career?

Oh no. It is capturing things. Listening is just the first step. It is not just being a passive listener at all. It’s coming up with things and being able to witness something that is available. It’s being open to new ideas around me. I am very much going for something. Whatever the project is, I am going for it. Listening is just the first part; it is about opening up to being available for sound.

I really like having…my sounds reflect the mood of my character. I just find that that really enhances the mood of my film. I did an experiment with my students in Sweden. We went out and shot a scene, a short little scene, and then I had them do the sounds two different ways. One way was to create a romantic mood, and the other an ominous one.

With just sound effects we made the scene be romantic, and then with other sounds made it scary…telling the story through sound effects. It was really challenging and also made me really appreciate the other aspects as well. But, you really can do it. You can tell a story through sound effects… You can really change the feeling of a scene just through the sounds that you use. I like working with that.

I am very interested in the musicality of sound. I find musicality in all kinds of things. I found it in my contact microphone recordings, listening to sounds in a toaster or the movement of Venetian blinds…all kinds of things. There are just amazing rhythms and textures that are really very musical. I really tried to portray that in the Hollywood Edge CD that I did, called “Sounds of a Different Realm.” They are common sounds that are heard in uncommon ways. I wanted to show people how musical something we take for granted like the water going down a drain can be. The rhythms of a dishwasher are amazing.

Viewing sounds through a lens that brings out details not capable through the human ear is so thought provoking. How did you discover this technique and when did you begin to explore it?

My late husband Alan Splet and I were working in England on The Elephant Man, and I turned on the BBC and there was this little 5-minute program on. A guitarist and a drummer were playing with what they called a contact microphone on the guitar. So, the recording only captured the guitar and not the drums right next to it. I thought “Wow, that’s amazing. Wouldn’t that be great for sound effects? You could put it on something and you could only hear that and not hear all the other things that are around you.” And at the time, it was a lot harder to block out all the other things, we didn’t have cool programs like we do now to do that.

I got back to San Francisco after our stay in England and I wanted to learn more about the contact microphone and I asked people about it. They told me the inventor, Arnie Lazarus, lived in San Francisco. I was curious and it became my quest. I went to talk to him and told him what I needed. We worked for three months. I went back and forth. He worked building a special microphone for me that I could record sound effects with. I could put it on the outside of something really noisy, like a steel mill or other really strong sounds, and still be able to capture them. But, also have nuance and detail in the sound.

So, we worked on it. And finally, we got it working pretty well. So, I went back to where I was working and started putting it on things. I was stunned. I had no idea. There is this whole world of sound that we don’t hear with our naked ears. We just don’t hear it. There is this whole other realm of sound going on. One of the first things I put it on was a ventilator, and with a ventilator you just hear a kind of a white noise airy sound. With the contact microphone I heard a symphony of sounds going thru the ventilator all the way up through the building. Also, there was a kind of alarm sound building up inside as the air rushed through the system. It was so dramatic. I played it for Alan and he was… “oh my goodness.” So, I continued the quest.

A couple times a week I would just see what I could discover. Sometimes I would put a regular Schoeps on one channel and the contact microphone on another channel and record a variation with both. We created the sound of outer space using that technique.

Interestingly, Ann went on tell how much the sounds of inner space used to create the outer space sounds of Dune were very close to the real thing…

One of the things that blew me away…A friend of mine from Amsterdam, Zander Rickart, contacted me about a Kronos Quartet program that was playing out in Stanford that was using space sounds.

What they had was actually real space sounds. They used real sounds from NASA. They had developed this gorgeous program. One of the things that actually blew me away was how much they sounded like inner space. This guy had captured sounds using a special technique called magnetic resonance recording, where they pick up the sound in space and convert them into something we can hear. What really impressed me was the space ship moving toward Neptune sounded so much like what I was hearing in inner space. It sounded so much like the kinds of ideas we were having for Dune of what space sounded like.

One of your great strengths and talents is recording animal vocalizations. Having recorded amazing vocal textures from big cats to alligators, have you ever had a close call with any of these animals and do you have any advice on safely capturing animal sounds?

I have been very, very fortunate. For example, let me tell you about this Tiger, named Caesar. I fell in love with him when I recorded him last summer. He wanted me to pet him. He had come over to talk to me. I was in front of a fence and he was in a big open space behind it. I had just developed this rapport with this Tiger. He would kind of talk into my microphone.

He put his head against the fence and he wanted me to pet him. I so wanted to do it, but I had read so many things about what tigers could do to humans. I told him that I just wasn’t allowed to do that. I was so, so sorry. He just looked at me, got so incensed, shook his head, just walked off, and wouldn’t have anything to do with me for while. I mean, ya know, he could have been setting me up to eat my hand? But, I don’t think so.

I think the most important thing that I can recommend, and what I have discovered with animals, is to treat them with respect and treat them like they are intelligent. I tell them about sound and what I am doing. I don’t know if they understand, but they seem to. They seem to get it. They are just amazing. I have had so many experiences with animals talking to me.

You have been recently credited for your work on one of the first releases for Xbox 360 to use the new Kinect hands-free accessory system, Kinectimals. It is a virtual pet game involving large amounts of interaction with big cat cubs. What was this experience like?

I had a great time working with Frontier on these. I really like the folks there. Eilam Hoffman did the design on the first one and Adam Hay on the recent bears version. They’re based in Cambridge, England, and I got to know them and their needs during a number of phone conversations.

Video games are getting so sophisticated. It is almost getting more sophisticated than filmmaking. It is really quite remarkable. Initially, I was a bit of a skeptic. I am not a game player. But the people I have come in contact with are really excited, really bright, and really into sound. So we have developed some great rapport.

For Kinectimals I spent a week in the Mojave Desert at a big cat preserve there. I got to know the big kitties, and they, me, by just hanging around with my recorder and talking with them…and they’d talk back to me.

Wonderful experience.

Is your workflow similar when it comes to games versus films?

Nowadays, I develop a rapport with the person that I am working with and I find out what they need. We come up with some ideas. They will send me clips. I get games clips. With Kinectimals, I got pictures of just what they were up to. With movies, people will send me the movie in the rough-cut stage or whatever. I do sounds for them and we go back and forth. I get to come up with new ideas for them. It is collaboration, really. It is a lot of fun.

How has the speed of new technology helps or hindered your creative process?

When I first started in film, it was all film. There was no video. There were no video copies, no digital. It was all analog. The sound was transferred onto mag film and you cut it. You cut the sounds to match. You had these huge editing machines. I used a Steenbeck, I had a dyslexic thing with Moviolas. It is so dramatic, the difference [now].

And there were just more people that worked on a film back then. There were many more people. The time was much longer just because of the technology. Being able to send some thing across the world in just as matter of minutes…now even my Comcast has gotten so much faster. It used to take forever. And storage…I remember Alan bought storage, in the early days of digital, and it was this monstrous thing and it was 250MB. And it cost many thousands of dollars.

It is a different kind of creativity now. The problem is that people need to realize a certain amount of time is needed to be given to develop a creative idea and to be able to develop sounds. Sometimes they just think you can do it in an eye blink. That’s a problem. But, there is so much more that you can do. Because the technology is so much cheaper, there are so many more people able to do it. You couldn’t edit a little film easily. It was just too hard. That is really quite a difference. And this is great.

It is so unique and special for me to find a woman with so much experience and insight in sound. Have you noticed an increase in diversity over the years, and if it was getting easier to be a woman in audio?

Yes. It is increasing now. It is slow but it is getting better.

I was invited to be on a panel about 6 or 7 years ago for AES called “Successful Women in Audio.” They wanted to allow us to talk about what it was like to be women in the business. We all had lunch together before the panel. I was talking about all of the difficulties I had after my husband passed away, just with being visible and so on. I said, “I want to talk about this with all of you, and get this off my chest before we go on.”

I told them how I felt. And there was a woman sitting next to me. She was European, very attractive, and seemed initially, well, slightly aloof…She was a scientist, a former President of the AES and one of the founders of Digidesign. She looked at me, undid her hair, put her elbows on the table and said, “Let me tell you…” She told stories. The other women told more stories. It was incredible. This talk continued at our AES panel. It was fortunate and I guess unfortunate as we were talking about what it was like to be women in the field and well, they never had another one of these panels…

But one of the things that have touched me to the marrow was when I was invited to speak at the School of Sound in London several years ago. It was a really big deal for me. It was kind of a coming out. I was invited to speak about working with Alan and I kind of took it a step further. I talked about all the things he did and all I had done with him and some of the stuff I had done since. And it was just amazing. The audience was really interested. There were people there from twenty different countries.

After I got back home, someone told me there was a game site where these guys were recommending me for animal sounds. They were saying, “Go to Ann Kroeber.” I was just so touched…

I know as a woman in the field that I am a minority, but there are a few women ahead of me who have led the way. Have you had female counterparts in your earlier years or felt a particular woman had been able to act as a mentor for you?

Unfortunately, there just weren’t very many women. I think most of the women that worked with me worked under me. And the women that were in the same level were very competitive.

In my generation, our mothers were all so frustrated. They all stayed at home. There needs to be a balance and it was very out of balance. And there is a lot of built up anger.

I think when there are more of us together that we become cooperative. I think it is our nature to be cooperative. But, when we are stuck in a situation that is not so friendly to us, we become competitive. And that is just my philosophy. But, thank God, it is changing. I think it is getting much better now.

When I am teaching, there are women there that weren’t there before. I taught a master class and it was just nice to see other women. It is evolving.

I notice you are often credited as a recordist, a sound designer, an editor, and, on Blue Velvet, an audio mixer. How has performing all of these duties helped you improve your craft as a sound designer and the communication and relationships you have with your fellow sound team?

It gives an understanding of the whole certainly. It makes me better at what I do, having had that experience.

Who inspires you and why?

I get inspired from the project, the collaboration, and the ideas that come off of it, the energy and all that stuff. It evolves that way. There are certain sound designers that I admire. Recently, the film “Super 8” blew me away. I didn’t know who had done the sound design.

I was just stunned. The first 10 minutes of the film I didn’t listen to the dialog. I didn’t even know what was going on. I was just so fascinated with the sound. I thought, “Wow, that person has such a command over the mix, the elements, the musicality of it….” I thought that soundtrack was brilliant. It turned out to be Ben Burt. He is brilliant. He has done such amazing things in sound, but it was a different style for him. I also admire Gary Rydstrom very much. There are lots of new people on the horizon that I have been working with and am impressed with.

I am working on a low budget feature right now where I am working as a consultant. I am doing the sound design advice and working with the Director, talking about the whole direction of the film and working with the Composer. We found this really talented sound designer in Canada named Joe Burruco. I saw many show reels and I thought he was very imaginative. I’m really excited to see what he is going to come up with. The movie is called “Us.” It is so well acted and so well directed. The Director’s name is Sam Hancock and I hope you all get to see this movie when it comes out.

You have such a passion for what you do. What is your biggest frustration about working in film?

One of the things that can be frustrating about film is that one aspect can fall down, and then the film just doesn’t quite make it. Carol Ballard talked about pole vaulting. You try to get over that hurdle of the pole and if you miss it by a little bit, you knock it down. And just by that little more that you can add to it, it can get you over that pole. I’ve seen that over the years.

Finally, how do you feel about the emergence of the online community and forums that are connecting sound designers across the world?

I met Peter Albrechtsen through a sound design group. He put a request on the Yahoo sound design board. He needed a piece of ice breaking up with kind of a magic sound. I contacted Peter. I had a lot of ice breaking up and water sounds of recordings in Alaska. We talked over the phone.

He had this actual recording of the ice kind of cracking. It was absolutely beautiful. But his director thought it sounded too spacey, like outer space. Which, I could kind of relate to. You couldn’t necessarily relate it to ice. So, I said we could ground it with some of these watery sounds, give it some slush. And I happen to have the sounds of a spirit catcher. It is kind of a whirling sound. It is actually in my Hollywood Edge CDs. I don’t know if Peter knew that. I think I gave him a variation. It has a whirling tone. I said, “I think you could use your ice, with the watery sound, and the whirling sound.” And they loved it. That started our collaboration. And I have worked with him on a number of films that he has done since. He has such a great spirit and is very talented.

I love the collaboration that seems to be happening. That is so important, collaboration all around. Film can be so much better when you can work with the composer or when the Director is thinking about sound. That is one of the big problems here. There are these compartments. Things stay separate. You don’t even know what the music is until the very end.

How can you make the music dance with the sound if you don’t hear it until the every end? With collaboration we can all flourish.

Thank you so much, Ann. I certainly hope to have the honor of collaborating with you in future.

Ann Kroeber is this month’s featured sound designer here at Designing Sound and this opening interview introduces several different aspects of Ann’s impressive and wide-ranging talents. On a personal note, I’ve collaborated and met up with Ann a few times during the last couple of years and her energy and enthusiasm is always infectious and inspiring. Hopefully, this shows here:

Designing Sound: How did you get started in sound?

Ann Kroeber: I started in sound quite by accident. I was working at the United Nations and was asked by my boss to record outdoor Chinese New Year celebrations. As a girl, I wasn’t allowed to touch any of my father’s records and was strictly forbidden from even turning off his stereo, so it seemed like this guy was asking me to do astro-physics, but, well, he persisted. After meticulously writing down the rules I nervously trudged down to Chinatown with expensive mic and Nagra in hand. I put the headset on, turned on the recorder and a world of fascination and beauty opened to me. I was so excited that I just followed my instincts and captured what sounded cool too me. My boss was delightfully impressed. I was hooked.

DS: What do you love most about sound?

AK: I love the emotionality and musicality of the sounds around us, that you get to hear when you really stop to listen. It’s a kind of listening where you quiet your mind, become all ears and just focus on sound. For example, right now, as I’m typing there is a gentle breeze wafting off my patio that’s making the blinds tinkle. My little dog is under the table by my feet, licking himself to the cadence of the blinds. I wouldn’t normally notice this, but I stopped thinking about what I’d write for a moment and now I simply hear it.

DS: You’ve been active for more than four decades now – very impressive! Has time changed the way you think about sound and the film industry in general?

AK: Three Peter! Three decades. I look forward to a fourth.

There are many, many changes and I’ll talk more in detail about this later, but one of my favorites is being able to access and share sounds so much more easily now. I love the interconnectivity and ease of sharing across the planet. Being able to call someone in Mumbai, talk with you in Denmark, send sound files to Moscow, download film clips in a matter of minutes that would have taken an eternity not too long ago, and been impossible when I started.

DS: What are your biggest influences inside and outside the world of sound?

AK: My biggest influence inside the world of sound was my late husband, Alan Splet. His attention to detail, nuance, perseverance, ability to vastly influence the mood of a scene by the choice and placement of sounds will always be with me.

Outside the world of sound is possibly what I learned from Anna Halprin, after my husband, mother and father had all died, all within three years. Six months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer (this is 16 years ago). It was the most challenging time of my life. Anna was a very famous dancer and choreographer, that had suffered from the same form of deadly cancer as Alan, but survived. She taught a class at Marin General Hospital for people with life threatening illnesses. In her class we screamed and danced our fears and anger, and drew pictures, found our animal guides, visited a group of Pomo Indians, and so many other things that many scientists and doctors would scoff at – but we healed! Of the 65 or more people that went thru Anna’s course, I know of only four that have died. That is incredible odds. I have a friend who was in a group of 15 then, and only two are alive now.

DS: I know that you’re doing a lot of sound effects recording, especially recording lots of animals. Any special tricks, tips or methods?

AK: I’m going to tell you more later about how I’ve found how much smarter animals are than most of us think and how easy it is to record them if you respect them, but what I’ll say briefly here is the most important tip is to leave your expectations and prejudices behind and simply “talk” to them. I’ll tell you how to do this and share some of the amazing experiences.

DS: You’ve also released the Unusual Presences library, highlighting your recordings with the special FRAP microphone. Could you talk a bit about the FRAP – it’s a type of contact microphone, right?

AK: Discovering the FRAP was, again, a serendipitous experience. I’m going to talk in detail later about my discovery of recording with this contact mic and the amazing worlds and new possibilities of sound that it opens up for sound designers. These are sounds that you can’t hear with your naked ears or any regular microphones.

Briefly, FRAP stands for “Flat Response Audio Pickup” and was invented by Arnie Lazarus. He customized one specially for me, but now there are several other brands available on the market. Trance Audio, for example, makes a contact mic that sounds fairly close to mine.

DS: How has it influenced your thinking about sound?

AK: It opened up a whole new world for me. The incredible tones, musicality and textures of sound inside just our everyday appliances, not to mention a myriad other machines, offers such a rich palette for sound design.

One of the most incredible discoveries was fairly recent when I heard NASA recordings from outer space and much to my astonishment, realized that they sound just like what I’ve been hearing in inner space,
inside machines, etc. The expression “so above so below” really hit me. We were unwittingly making outer space in Dune sound like it actually DOES sound.

DS: Otherwise, which are your favorite tools?

AK: If I weren’t, alas, still such a blooming technophobe, I’d have a far greater list. My favorite “tools” are very simple, Pro Tools, my custom made contact mics, Pitch ‘n Time, Izotope Rx, and my precious Schoeps, with exchangeable heads, it’s identity type number still escapes me.

DS: What are your favorite films for sound?

AK: There are many. I’ll leave out the films that Alan worked on (to keep from puffing and muffing). Well, a few that just happen to pop into mind are Once Upon a Time in the West, Atonement, anything by Tarkovsky, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Mulholland Drive, Saving Private Ryan and two recent ones: The American and Super 8. I loved the quiet elegance, imagination and way sound and music played together in The American and when I saw Super 8 I was stunned by the sound design. I was so fascinated by the way sound was used in this movie that for the first 10 minutes I didn’t have a clue what the characters were saying because I focused intensely on the sound effects and how they worked with music. I didn’t realize until the end credits that Ben Burtt was its sound designer. Every film that Ben has made has amazing sound in it but this one has a slightly different style and I thought it was stunning.

DS: What has been your most challenging project and why?

AK: It was a fairly low budget film that I thought had tremendous potential, called American Gun. James Coburn and Virginia Madsen thought so too, and starred in it. It was my first “Sound Designer” position. The director hired me because of my work with David Lynch and his admiration of David’s soundtracks. I worked with a terrific team and I was really proud of our work. We were working in Berkeley and the director was in LA and he didn’t hear enough of our work during the process. A huge mistake on my part! When I took the film down to LA for the mix he switched and became, for some reason, very literal minded (the opposite of Lynch) and took out many of our evocative backgrounds and mood elements that danced with the music, simply because they weren’t “natural”. He said, in reality, ”you wouldn’t actually hear that”.

I had communicated quite extensively with the composer and had designed sounds to work with his music. It was sad, at the time, I didn’t have Randy Thom’s words (or confidence) to explain how sound effects can show and amplify a character’s mood. I just knew it by instinct and had been doing it for years. When the composer and other members of the film crew heard the mix they howled because they’d heard quite different temps of our work. Some of our tracks went back but nothing like the design we had imagined. He admitted later that he was sorry and wished he’d done it differently.

DS: What would be your advice for any sound designer out there?

AK: My advice is to work as closely as possible with the Director all along the way. If you can talk about the sound before even shooting, all the better.

The second is to try and work with the composer. So much time and money can be saved if each knows what the other has in mind and a much richer soundtrack can be had. Also if there is any way you or someone on your crew can convince the producer to record sound effects on the set, everyone will be delighted, including him (eventually).

DS: What have you been working on recently? And what’s next for Ann Kroeber?

AK: Earlier in the year, I taught a master sound class at Gothenburg University in Sweden (wonderful time, I may have learned as much as they did) and gave, as you know, a delightful two day symposium with you in Copenhagen. I’ve worked on several fun (because of the sound people I dealt with) games, including the new World of Warcraft, Ripper, and Dragon Age II. I worked with Pavel Dorueli, long distance, in Moscow on Alexander Sukurov’s new film, Faust, that just won the prize over lots of big names films in Venice. (Bravo, Alexander and Pavel!) I really enjoyed working with Pavel, think he has a  terrific sound sense and am looking forward to seeing the finished movie. And, of course provided sounds for you, which is always a delight. I also provided some “little bear sounds” for the new Kinectimals II game, including recordings of my little “bear” who is doing some great whining, that I could have used, right now because he wants to go for a walk. Next, is another game that I can’t talk about and advisory work I’m doing on a feature called Us.

We’re starting off this month’s special with an exclusive interview with our guest Tim Nielsen, discussing influences, creative methods, techniques, and much more. Hope you enjoy it.

Designing Sound: How did you get started in sound design? What’s been the evolution of your career?

Tim Nielsen: I have to blame my dear friend and brilliant sound person Addison Teague. At USC in the graduate program, you have to crew on a student film in one of a handful of positions: director, producer, editor, cinematographer, or sound. Addison came to me one day, said “I’m thinking about crewing up in sound, but need a partner, are you interested?” To be honest until that point I hadn’t given sound a lot of thought. I entered USC sure I wanted to be a cinematographer, but quickly realized that I hated being on set, hated the energy and the insanity of it. So I thought, sure, I’ll give it a shot.

About a year later, while still at USC, I did an internship at Skywalker Sound with Gary Rydstrom. That was I believe in 1996, and actually I think I might have been the first summer intern Skywalker ever took. When I graduated a couple of years later, I was hired by a supervising sound editor at Skywalker named Tim Holland. His first assistant was going off to explore work in the picture department if I remember correctly, and he needed a new first assistant. I came up to the ranch in April of 1999 to work on Liberty Heights, a Barry Levinson film.

Tim Holland was about the best person in the world to work for, in the sense that even on that first show, when I asked Tim if I could cut something, he was totally open to it, and so I cut a reel. On my second film, Galaxy Quest, I cut more, and Tim being the incredibly great person that he is, went to bat for me and got me my first Effects Editors credit, on only my second film.

From there it’s been a combination of hard work, lots of luck, and having the honor of working with some really wonderful people who have and continue to give me incredible opportunities, even leading up to the project I’m involved with at the moment. I’ve certainly worked hard, and have a pretty good ear for this line of work, but I would be really foolish not to acknowledge the lucky breaks that I’ve gotten that plenty of others haven’t. USC led to an internship which led to my career. That needed have been the case, I had to do my part too, but I’ve been very lucky.

DS: Has working at Skywalker Ranch changed the way you think about sound and film industry in general?

TN: Since my first job ever in the professional world was at Skywalker, I’m not sure how it changed my way of thinking and working, as much as it forged it. I’ve been lucky to have some great opportunities outside of the ranch as well, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Journey 3D, and Prince of Persia were all projects done outside of Skywalker. But certainly my way of working was forged at Skywalker, and I’ve always carried that forward.

Certainly working at Skywalker, where the bar is set so high for all of us, continually reminds me what good film sound can do for a film.

DS: What are your biggest influences inside and outside the world of sound?

TN: I certainly find myself inspired by the work of others in sound. It’s very humbling to hear something and think, “Wow, not only do I wish I had done that, but I wish I was capable of doing that!” When I saw Rango for the first time, which was a film that I was involved with a tiny bit early on, I heard some work in there that I thought was very well done. I find Ren Klyce’s work incredibly inspiring, his tracks have such amazing detail, and all the sounds are just perfect. I remember seeing the film Hero, the Jet Li film, and hearing work in there that I was really in love with at the time. So when I hear inspiring work in other people’s tracks, it certainly inspires me to do better myself.

Outside of sound and film industry, this may sound strange, but I find myself influenced by excellence in general. I tend to really admire people who are just really good at what they do, whatever that may be. I find it inspiring to find people who’s dedication results in something extraordinary, be it a writer, a musician, a scientist. I find it both inspiring and incredibly humbling, since I’m not sure I would ever classify myself as excellent at what I do.

DS: What do you love most about sound design?

TN: First and foremost I love the power of it, and by this I mean sound for picture in general. As much as it’s been said, sound really is one of the most powerful tools available to any filmmaker wise enough to embrace it. And the lower the budget of your movie, the more of a bargain it is. I love the moments when sound can give you goosebumps. I love when a really well executed sound or scene elevates the entire movie. I love when you put a sound to picture, and it just sticks, and you know it’s the right sound. I love the happy accidents that come when you just start throwing sound all over the place. I love the creative freedom of it, although it’s also the part of this job that cause a lot of stress, stumbling around trying to find or make or record the sound that ultimately just works. But while stressful, it’s also the fun of it, the hunt for that right sound. And I suppose selfishly I love that when I do make a sound, or cut a scene, that it’s my work up there, and I know that no one else could or would do exactly the same thing, so I do enjoy that bit of ownership.

We recently screened The Fellowship of the Rings in our theater at Skywalker. I didn’t stay, but as they were doing a sound check, I went in, and it was a scene that I had cut. I jokingly started saying, “I cut that water splash, I cut that door, I cut that….” It was a joke, but I do enjoy that on the projects I’ve been involved with, I get to say ‘Hey, I helped make that’, even if my part is rather small in the grand scheme of things.

DS: How do you deal with writer’s block? What kind of methods you have for getting ideas?

TN: Procrastinate. Put if off as long as you can, and only at the last second, when the deadline is looming and there is no way out, do you pull out all the stops, and just go for it. Some of my best work was done in the last days of a project, or under the time crunch of a looming temp mix. Somehow when you know you can’t let it go anymore, the creative Gods will bless you and it will all work out. But honestly, I do tend to put things off if the creative spark isn’t there yet. When the crunch time comes, then you start just trying anything and everything. You start searching for sounds based on emotion, you start trying sounds that have no business being there, you start mimicking the sound with your own mouth, at least to find that shape, and then fill in with real sounds later. You fire up your recorder, and you just start making noise!

It’s daunting, that first pass creating a sound for something that doesn’t exist. I find that the hardest. If I’m working on a sword fight, maybe I don’t have the right sword sounds, but at least I know in my mind what I want the swords to sound like, and it becomes a scavenger hunt to find the right pieces. Some of the things I’ve been lately are creating sounds that are much more fluid and vague. They could literally sound like anything, as long as it feels right. These are huge challenges. All you can do is find that creative spark of an idea, make a pass, and start getting feedback, and hope that it can steer you to where you need to be.

I find just listening to raw recordings inspiring too, it’s a real treat for me on the project I’m on now to have an assistant, Nia Hansen, who has done a lot of really fantastic recording for the show. I love to listen through to things I didn’t record, and let it trigger ideas.

DS: How has been the evolution of you as an artist of sound? How is the balance between your craft and art in your career?

TN: Well certainly with the years comes confidence. At first you never want to play anything for anyone, you second guess everything you cut, you go through periods of hating it, and thinking, “Well I guess it’ll have to do.” Now I’m more comfortable making sounds, cutting them, preparing them and presenting them. Which isn’t to say I don’t get plenty of notes and direction, we all do. And I still hate playing things for anyone else, but I’m getting better at it. But I suppose that’s the main thing, as you do it more and more, your own taste gets refined, you realize what your taste is, and you embrace it more, you’re comfortable with it.

As for the balance between art and craft, I wish I could say that Art reigns supreme, but the truth is, Craft is becoming increasingly important. And by craft I would say the ability to cut fast, manage huge amounts of sounds and tracks through edits and rebalances, continuing visual effects changes, etc. Art sometimes feels like it has to take a back seat. What I hope for these days is to have enough time on the front end of the project to have some fun with Art, and then let Craft take over, carry the project through to completion and make sure it’s all done on time. But to be good in this line of work, you absolutely need both. The best technical abilities will do you well, and you’ll need them, but beyond that, you need some creativity of your own as well.

Train Recording for Polar Express

DS: I know that you’re doing a lot of sound effects recording. Any special tricks, tips or methods?

TN: Nothing that probably hasn’t been said a lot before, but I’ll say it again. Record a lot. Record a huge variety of things as well. And nothing will teach you more about recording than having to edit your own sounds. I’ve had people record for me before, let’s say doors, I get back four door opens, and four door closes, and they all sound exactly the same. I want to take them back to that door, and show them, ‘Look, first soft, then loud, then rattle it, then kick it, then pound on it, then slam it, then just the handle by itself’. Never stop listening for great sounds just because what you thought you needed from something, you got. The best sounds will almost always be accidents, or things you weren’t looking for, so after you’ve recorded whatever it is you’re recording, immediately start thinking, ‘Now, what else could I do with it.’

I’ll give one example that yielded one of my favorite sounds. I was recording for a show, recording a variety of simple sounds on the foley stage. One of the things we needed was an electric razor, just normal shaving sounds. And another was the sound of an organ (a Kidney) being dropped into a metal bowl. So I recorded both. And then for some reason, I touched the electric razor to the bottom of this cheap aluminum bowl. And it started to sing. And it made the most amazing complex music. And I’ve used that sound a lot, it’s in Lord of the Rings when the Ring Wraiths are entering the tavern in Bree. It’s this haunting, spooky ethereal sound, but it was ultimately a complete accident.

So open your mind to those accidents, and actively search them out!

DS: What would be your advice for any sound designer out there?

TN: Have fun, and experiment a lot. Learn early on that the simplest solution is almost always the best. Be judicious with plugins and processing and mucking around, especially as you get started. That stuff certainly has its place, but these days I think nearly everything I’m hearing has been processed too much. Great recordings are way better than great processing chains or great outboard gear in my opinion. If you’re just getting started, it’s paramount that you get a recording rig and start building your library. Nothing will prepare you better for your career than a sound library of your own creation that you know well. And having your own library will help you develop your own style, and your own sound.

And then learn when to stop. This has been my hardest lesson learned. I’ve always had a problem with over cutting and over thinking, and certainly I did my own fair share of over processing. Almost always, when a path I’ve put myself on doesn’t pan out, starting over, and starting with something much simpler, almost always turns out better. Some creatures I’ve been working on for the project I’m on now turned out more powerful, interesting, dynamic with much less ‘mucking’. We have some amazing new animal recordings on the show, and truthfully the recordings didn’t need a whole lot, they yielded what I was needing with some gently manipulation on my part, but very little processing.

Oh and I’ll give up one tip when working on animal or creature vocals, take your work file of sounds, and then erase out all the loud one. Then take what’s left and normalize it. The best sounds are likely to be the very quiet ones that you might otherwise have discarded. When an animal vocalizes, the loud ones actually tend to all sound the same, but the very quiet ones will have much more variety.

DS: Which are your favorite tools?

TN: I’m a bit of a microphone junkie, but truth be told, today $250 can buy you a recorder that will yield completely usable sounds. I’m in the Philippines for a month at the moment, and am carrying around a little Zoom H1, a $99 recorder that sounds surprisingly decent. That’s where these small pocket recorders are really fantastic, they enable you to get sounds that otherwise you might miss. And even if it’s not the most pristine recording, at least you’ll have it. They’re also great for sending out to other people to record for you. We’ve sent a couple out on the project I’m on now, and gotten fantastic sounds from people that we couldn’t afford to fly out to ourselves. And I truly believe you often get better sounds letting people record for themselves. First they’ll have more time to get interesting things. Second if they’re recording their own animals, those animals will almost always vocalize more and more interestingly than they will with you standing there, pushing a large microphone into their space.

I have a handful of plugins that I find useful, and samplers from time to time I find useful, although honestly these days I’m doing a lot less with both plugins and samplers. I’ve built up a pretty silly microphone collection over the years now, and it’s fun to go back and start recording again. I often think I should quit working in film, just so I can go and record sounds. That would be pretty much my dream job. Maybe one of these years…

DS: What’s your favorite films for sound?

TN: Well certainly I grew up with some of the classics, Star Wars, Raiders, a lot of Ben Burtt’s work. And also of course Gary Rydstrom’s work including Jurassic Park, Toy Story, etc. So of course those are all influential and remain some of my favorites. But some others I really enjoyed as I mentioned before, the film Hero, has some brilliant sound. Almost all of Peter Weir’s films I think tend to sound fantastic, in no small part to the fact that his films have so little music. I suppose though, my favorite films for sound are simply films that have a place for sound in them, where sound is really an integral part of the films themselves. This excites me, when a director thinks ahead about sound long before we’re sitting on a mix stage.

This is not in any way, shape or form designed to take anything away from Gary Rydstrom’s genius, but when I think about some of his more amazing and iconic work, the T-Rex attack of course, the opening and closing battles of Saving Private Ryan. In those Spielberg films, in those scenes there is no music. Which means that Spielberg had the foresight to trust sound in a very early stage. I wish that happened more. There is simply too much music in most Hollywood films these days. Master and Commander sounds fantastic, in part due to the amazing recordings they made for that film, but more in part to the fact that Peter Weir chose not to score the majority of the film. That opened up the track, and the sound in that film really elevated the entire experience of living at sea.

I just did some work on War Horse as an effects editor, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had cutting, getting to cut a long intense battle scene that we knew was going to have no music. That was a real treat.

DS: You’ve worked in several different genres – drama, comedy, sci-fi, horror, adventure, animation, computer games – have you got any favorites to work in?

TN: I don’t really have a favorite. I tend to end up working on a lot of fantasy movies, I’m not exactly sure how that happened. Strangely enough, one of my favorite jobs was working on There Will be Blood, which is a drama. But I was asked in pretty short order to recut all the backgrounds on that show. I was living in Vancouver, working on a project there, and had a small break when a friend from Skywalker called. I think I had about two and a half weeks, but had such a blast on that one. Anyone who knows me knows that backgrounds are my absolute favorite thing to cut. Ken Fischer, tied with Brent Burge for the title of World’s Greatest Effects Editor, he and I joke that all we want to do is cut backgrounds. So anyway, the genre doesn’t matter as long as I get to cut the backgrounds. Nia Hansen, our recordist on John Carter, promised me that someday she’s going to make an entire movie set in the rain, just so I can cut it.

DS: What has been your most challenging project and why?

TN: Each film you do presents challenges, they’re just always changing. At first, the films present plenty of craft challenges. I’ll never forget at the end of Liberty Heights, my first show, as we got ready for the print master, when the mixer Tom Johnson turned to me and asked “Are the pull-ups ready.” I’m sure the blank stare that I presented him with didn’t win over any confidence, but honestly, no one had told me what a pull-up was, let alone that someone should have cut them. I remember seeing an Avid change note for the first time and suspecting I was looking at something devised in the deep dark basement of NASA. Later the challenges become facing your own self-doubt, then later learning to juggle egos, especially your own, and later the challenge of running a crew, and learning what to do when people come to you and actually want you to tell them what to do! Politics can always be challenging on any show too.

Fellowship of the Ring was probably one of the most challenging, but for all good reasons. The scope of it, that we did that first film with a relatively small crew. That some of us found ourselves in a different country, with a group of people who didn’t necessarily work like we did. That at the time technically what we were trying to do taxed the equipment and hard drive space and everything else to the point of near collapse. But of course that film will always have a special place in my heart for many reasons, getting to live in New Zealand, being a part of something that so many people enjoyed. And most importantly meeting David Farmer, who would become one of my best friends. Friendships that come out of projects like that more than make up for any challenges.

DS: What exciting things do you see happening in our line of work at the moment?

TN: There are two things I find exciting. The first, I mentioned already, is the amazing variety of good quality and low cost recording equipment. There just isn’t excuse now for someone starting out not to be building their own library right from the start.

The second is the proliferation of what I’d term ‘micro libraries’. I had thought of doing it years ago, and I will still probably enter the market myself at some point, but Tim Prebble is the one I remember starting it off first. I think it’s a brilliant idea, small cost effective targeted libraries. I just was a funding partner on www.kickstarter.com for a Tolley recording in Texas, and I think ideas like this are brilliant. For $50 or so, you’ll get a small but hopefully high quality library. I’ve found some great stuff there, and I know this site has been a big help for a lot of people to find those libraries. I’m sure we’ll see more and more of this, and I think it’s fantastic.

DS: What are you currently working on? And what’s next for Tim Nielsen?

TN: At the moment I’m working on a film called John Carter that Disney is making, and Andrew Stanton of Pixar fame is directing. It’s a blast, and is turning into a long project for me. As for what’s next, at the moment I’m looking for a show, so let me know if you hear of anything! I’ll probably take off a bit of time after this one is done, regroup and hopefully something interesting will come along. It always seems to. Or maybe I’ll just go spend a year recording!

As usual, below is an interview with this month’s guest, Rodney Gates.

Designing Sound: How did you get started and How has been the evolution of your career since then?

Rodney Gates: In 1996 I attended the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe, Arizona. At the time, the focus of the school was on audio / music production with a little bit of post and live sound thrown in, but nothing in the way of video game audio really existed back then.

I interned at a large recording studio in Manhattan for a brief time before realizing that it wasn’t for me. I didn’t wish to slug it out getting coffee for people and eventually serving as an assistant engineer for something like 5-10 years until finally “making it”, so with no other real options at the time, I left it behind and returned to my day job for a while, always thinking about what niche in audio could turn it around for me.

After years of playing Commodore 64, early PC, and pre-Playstation console games, I never, ever imagined that game sound design could actually be a career choice until popping the discs for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault into my PC, back in 2002.

Never before had I played a game that felt so richly-detailed in it’s soundscape and musical soundtrack. Though I’m sure they were out there, none really featured WWII, which was such a hot topic at the time with shows like Saving Private Ryan and the miniseries Band of Brothers around.

I was just awe-struck; it was then when the bug bit me. I needed to get into this industry.

I purchased my first SFX collection, Hollywood Edge’s “The Edge Edition”, a 4-disc library of general effects, to kick off my demo. Then I picked up a used stereo AT-825 on eBay with a Rycote windscreen, bought a Sound Devices USBPre and with my old crash-happy Dell laptop, went out into the world to record what I needed for three, 2-minute, audio-only “stories” that I used as the main portion of my demo reel. One story was science-fiction, one a jungle adventure, and one a monologue of a sniper preparing to take out a high-profile target.

This became a lot of fun, and took about a year to get everything I needed (while working full-time). Any sound effects I didn’t have or couldn’t be designed with my one library had to be recorded, so I planned field sessions like road trips to remote places in Arizona for ambience, or borrowing a friend’s hunting rifle to record all of the mechanical functionality in my clothes closet, etc. I remember one scene I was working on required multiple cars to pull up in the rain, let out passengers, then drive away, but since we didn’t get much rain in Phoenix, I had to get crafty with a 5-gallon bucket of water. A friend poured it slowly off of a 6 ft. brick fence onto the concrete below, which I later edited into the scene to mimic the sound of tires driving through rain-drenched streets.

These fits of creativity were necessary when faced with limited resources, possibly how Ben Burtt  might have felt when working on the first Star Wars film in the 70’s (although there’s no comparison between his brilliance and me). They definitely are some of the most precious memories I have.

So actually getting into the game industry? Luck of the draw, really. After reading one of the only game audio books available at the time, Aaron Marks’ The Complete Guide to Game Audio back in 2002, I started bugging the author with emails and MP3 versions of what I was working on. Finally, using Gamasutra’s developer lists, I mailed a slew of CD-Rs off to several studios, not really knowing one from another. This was before LinkedIn too, so I didn’t know anyone in the audio departments at these studios.

After a few months, I heard back from one person at a place called Sammy Studios (a developer I almost didn’t mail a disc  to, due to what I thought was a silly name). That person was Paul Lackey, working there at the time. He liked my demo and though they might have a position open up  eventually, and if I were still interested, he’d keep me in mind.I couldn’t believe it was as simple as that. However, it was one long 6-month wait!

I finally got an interview as the position became available, and fortunately, I was hired on as an Associate Audio Designer. I say fortunately because traditionally there are paths such as quality assurance and / or customer service positions that may eventually land a spot like that, but it typically doesn’t happen quickly. I was able to bypass those avenues and get right to work.

Since those early days, I have continued to learn and grow. Sammy Studios became High Moon, which was independent for a short time as they shopped for a publisher to release Darkwatch. Then, High Moon was bought by parent company Vivendi Universal and we produced Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy.

When Vivendi merged and became part of Activision | Blizzard, we started work on Transformers: War For Cybertron. When that game was nearly complete, I left High Moon for an opportunity at Sony Online Entertainment where I currently serve as Audio Director.

I am still very much in the trenches of day-to-day content creation, while managing several titles at once, with all manner of different requirements here at Sony. Some are Facebook games, some use Flash exclusively, while others may be live products that have been up for over a decade using older technology. With San Diego being our headquarters, many of the projects come through here in some fashion, so it is definitely a lot to keep track of and ensure they are being developed with the best soundtrack they can have.

DS: Did you have a mentor or any special source of learning early in your career?

RG: Like many of us in this field, even before we realized it, a unifying film captured our attention: Star Wars. George Lucas’ introduction of the instant-classic space opera saga blew me away, well before I knew anything about sound or how it could be used in such ways, completely out of context with it’s actual source or real-life reason for existing, to deliver a never-before-heard, yet entirely organic and believable experience, pulling me into the story like no other movie.

Before I ever heard the name Ben Burtt, on the playground I heard from some kid about how the blaster fire was recorded by tapping a rock or hammer on a metal support cable. This piqued my curiosity as I tried every cable I could find, finally finding one that was so similar it was eerie. I remember it like it was yesterday, with a big grin on my face, and I have always kept my ears open for sounds like these.

Once in the industry, I typically learned directly from guys like Paul Lackey, Gene Semel & Robert Burns, and indirectly with other great film and game sound designers / editors out there that I admire like Ben Burtt, Randy Thom, David Farmer, Charles Maynes, Charles Deenen and Scott Gershin, to name a few.

DS: What inspires you creatively?

RG: Well, there’s always the joke – deadlines! But seriously, I get inspired easily and it happens when I hear something unusual and imagine that sound’s use outside of its intent or reason for existing. I am always imagining what else a sound can be used for, or as an element for, and that sometimes has limitless possibilities. Nowadays it comes from things like odd little squeaky stick-‘em letter set my daughter plays with in the bathtub, or somebody vacuuming the carpet upstairs creating a weird, flanging-type whine, or the sound of spoon inside the cylindrical metal tin of cat food. All of these things make me grab my D50 and record / perform them to get some unique new material that I didn’t have yesterday, and though I may never use for 2 years, I know I have it and someday it will have a unique use.

I don’t always have a firm idea in mind when designing a sound for something, which leads to a lot of discovery. During the process of spotting source sounds to Pro Tools, sometimes you’ll accidentally drop them over each and they’ll playback in a way you hadn’t anticipated, and you end up designing the whole thing around that “happy accident”.

DS: Why do you love most about working on video games?

RG: Marrying the sound to the game. That last step of creation when you finally attach the audio you’ve been painstakingly working on to the actual game itself is very satisfying. It is also the moment you find out whether your “genius” creation actually works as intended, or if it gets lost in the rest of the game’s soundscape, or repeats too often and becomes annoying.

Some of these things are game-specific and are issues not shared by films, and may require you alter the sounds themselves, mix them better, create more variants, etc.

But above all things, this is the best part – bringing the worlds and characters to life.

DS: Do you have an sopecific philosophy for your audio direction role?

RG: I definitely try to lead by example. I do not professionally respect anyone in a leadership position who does not have their chops down, so every day I work with the team as just another sound designer trying to make things awesome, in addition to the more-administrative duties I am now working with in my supervisory role.

I do not believe in designing “temp” audio for anything. Unless there is a special recording trip coming down the pike for certain sounds in a given project, creating temp audio for something could put you into the corner with what is considered “temp love” by your colleagues. What happens is they may come to really like your temporary assets, so when they are finally replaced, you may face some opposition.

Besides, most game dev cycles don’t leave time for you to re-create the “final” assets for much of the game’s sound, and you may find that you are wasting your precious mixing and polish time doing so at the tail end of a project.

I am also a firm believer of an old motto carried over from High Moon: “Results Onscreen”. It doesn’t matter how much you toil away on your local computer to craft the perfect sounds for a game. If they are not in-game and set up correctly, they may as well not exist. This sounds like a no-brainer, but there is no better way to iterate on how your ideas are working unless they are in the game. You will most-likely garner some feedback on your work from the team (usually if it isn’t working), which is important for growth as well.

DS: What would be the best advice you could give to any aspiring/professional sound designer?

RG: One thing I always keep in mind is where I came from. If a student is interested in shadowing us for the day or taking a tour to get an overview, I try to set that up to expose them to the game side of an audio career that they might not see much of in school. Informational interviews are big on my list for helping and educating others.

I remember how eye-opening it was for me to learn how sound functions within a three-dimensional game world, and aspiring sound designers today have never had it easier to learn the basics of these kinds of skills before they even set foot in a development studio. Jump into one or more of the existing third-party sound engines out there such as FMOD Designer or Wwise, or even the Unreal Editor itself. These tools typically have a sandbox game space where you can practice placing sounds in a 3D world, which is invaluable practice. You can download all of this software for free. It didn’t exist when I was trying to get into the industry, so take advantage of that.

Additional advice would be to get out there with some equipment and record! Learn Pro Tools well, as it is the standard. Experiment with plug-ins and automation. Learn all you can about sound design and practice, practice, practice. It’s an art form, and you won’t get any better unless you practice.

If you’re in some kind of audio production school, USE the studio – as often as you can. You won’t typically have access to that kind of facility when you’re out of school (not for free anyway).

Watch special features on sound from DVD & Blu-ray discs, or featurettes on the web / YouTube, or read about other sound designers in both the film and game worlds on websites such as Designing Sound. Read audio blogs from guys like Chuck Russom, Tim Prebble, Frank Bry and others, and listen to their raw recordings, and check out their custom sound libraries they have for sale. Just because you are a student or aren’t working professionally yet doesn’t mean you can’t easily purchase many of their well-crafted, custom sound libraries which are very inexpensive when you compare them to the pricier heavy hitters like Hollywood Edge or Sound Ideas, which are older, overused and lower-fidelity.

Use your own custom recordings in the construction of the audio track for some linear movie or game trailers. This is all excellent practice and you will be better every time you do it. Leave the music out.

Use resources like Gamasutra to help you find interships or junior level positions, but don’t rely on just one or two websites like this. Research the game development companies and publishers and check their individual job listings as well. Do your homework and you will most likely find something that fits, if given a little time, but be prepared to move from where you live unless you’re near the major areas.

In addition, when you’re ready, bother somebody like me with your demos! Look me up on LinkedIn or Facebook. I’d be happy to listen to them and give you feedback, or if you’re showing great promise, refer you around to places that may be hiring, if we’re not.

DS: What are your main tools in the studio and the field?

At work I use a Pro Tools | HD2 system on an 8-core Mac Pro with 5.1 Blue Sky monitoring. The Waves Diamond bundle is my main suite of plug-ins. At home, I use Nuendo 5 on PC with 5.1 KRK VII monitoring. There are a lot of great plug-ins that come with Nuendo, including a convolution reverb, that are nice. This home system also serves as my gaming and movie rig, which I love.

In the field I use my trusty old “frankenstein” 2-channel rig that I put together with a Rode NT4 stereo mic and a Sound Devices MixPre feeding a 1st-generation Microtrack. It’s getting long in the tooth, however, so I’ll eventually make the jump to a Sound Devices 7-series recorder one day.

DS: Is there a specific project that you’ve enjoyed the most?

Transformers: War For Cybertron was my favorite project I have worked on so far. Not being a huge Transformers fan in general (I was into Voltron back in the 80’s), that quickly disappeared when I started work on this game.

I had really wanted to work in the science fiction genre, and we got to pull out all of the stops when designing sounds for this game. We joked that we also got to dust off some of those Waves plug-ins we hadn’t typically used much before. I had a blast with organic / synthetic ambiences, creating futuristic vehicle audio based on real cars from today, as well as coming up with my own transformation sounds that paid homage to the classic one. It was absolute fun.

DS: What are your favorite games? Any specific that you like for its sound work?

I particularly enjoyed the latest Medal of Honor, specifically the single-player campaign. I felt that game possessed some of the best weapon & character sound design and dialog distance treatment I have ever heard.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has excellent sound design work as well, and is a much-less frantic multiplayer experience than what you’ll find in the Call of Duty / Modern Warfare series. The real-time obstruction / occlusion, along with the beautiful blend of variably-distanced weapon audio transitions are awesome and add a LOT of depth to the game.

Red Dead Redemption has a beautiful soundscape, with well-written dialog, and a cool interactive music system. This brings you into the world effortlessly and makes it feel just as big as it actually is.

Alan Wake ranks up there for me for it’s uniqueness in sound, gameplay and music. The game really feels like episodic miniseries and can be quite frightening. The sound of the searing strings as you use the flashlight on the Darkness in the game is awesome, as it blends in so perfectly with the horrific music that swells when you are about to be killed by apparitions. LOVE this game. It’s hard to play at night as it’s just too freaky.

Dead Space – my second all-time favorite game, ever. Never before have I experienced such a perfect blend of game and sound design, raising the hair on the back of your neck and delivering an awesome storytelling and horrifying gameplay experience. I have the sequel sitting on my desk now and cannot wait to jump in.

Half-Life 2 and its episodes rank as the number one game favorite for me, though, not particularly for the sound. The pacing of the story and characters involved have a special place in my heart and I cannot wait for a new chapter in this story. Genius.

DS: What’s next for you, Rodney? What are you currently working on?

Always! As I mentioned before, unlike the normal console game development studio, we always have multiple projects brewing at Sony Online. Be they expansions of existing products, weekly updates for some of the newer live games, or early pre-production and development for new titles, they definitely keep things interesting on a day-to-day basis here.

We are one of the very few departments in development here that are responsible for each product that goes live, so managing our time and resources are of the utmost importance to maintain a forward-moving workflow, while building solid relationships and maintaining good communication across all of the teams.

I am very excited about the work we will be doing over the next couple of years with the new games we’re working on, as some of them are new genres to me that I am looking forward to.

My continuing goal is to keep creating the best experience I can with my team, across all of our titles, while improving our technology to extend our capability even further!

I bet many of you have seen Ric Viers featured in this blog several times. But do you know how he get started? What are thier influences? Philosophy?Here’s an interview I had with him, where we discussed all those things and more!

Designing Sound: How did you get started and how has been the evolution of your career?

Ric Viers: That’s a funny story. I started off as a location sound mixer for television. This was not my intended career path. I graduated from Full Sail University with the intention of being a writer / director. I moved back to Detroit, but couldn’t seem to find any work. So, I looked for ‘back doors’ into the business. Despite the fact that sound was not my main focus at Full Sail, I felt that I could get a job as a sound engineer because their film curriculum had a strong concentration of sound courses.

I knocked on a few doors. Actually, I knocked on a lot of doors. No one was hiring. I quickly found out that freelance work was in abundance at the time, so I looked for companies that were willing to let a newbie on their shoots. Fortunately, a great company called KDN was willing to take the risk on me. This led to several years of location sound work for me.

I was constantly trying to better my craft and would often borrow equipment from KDN on the evenings and weekends to really understand the gear and thus, make me a better recordist. In the mean time, I was producing my own film shorts on Mini DV cameras and cutting them on my home computer. This is very common today, but back then this was a brand new concept. Digital video and audio was just starting to empower the little guys and began to level the playing field.

The one thing that I realized was missing from my productions was sound effects. For Christmas one year, my wife bought me several sound effects CDs. These were consumer-level CDs and weren’t very good, but it gave me something to start experimenting with for my films. I received a sample CD from a ‘professional’ sound effects company and was very disappointed in the quality. These sounds didn’t meet my expectations for what I thought should be professional and I certainly wasn’t going to spend any money on buying them. What to do?

I remember saying to myself “If this is what is considered to be professional, I would be better off recording my own sound effects.” So, that’s what I did. I borrowed a shotgun mic (Sennheiser MKH-416) along with a DAT recorder (Sony TCD-D10) from KDN and headed out into the field. I had no idea how significant that decision would be. It was an impulsive decision that led to a lifelong career.

I absolutely loved recording! It was sonic photography! I recorded for about a year, until one day my hard drive became full (which was hard to believe, since I had a whopping 2Gb hard drive.) I was cleaning out my hard drive when I discovered that I had over a thousand sound effects that I had recorded. I figured someone out there would probably be interested in buying this stuff.

I jumped on Yahoo (Google wasn’t around back then) and searched for “Sound Effects Companies”. The first company that came up was a sound effects company located in Canada. So, without even thinking about it, I sent them a demo. I received a call the next week from the owner. He was very impressed with my work and told me that the stuff I sent was “cleaner and better produced than the work he gets from guys in Hollywood”. I was shocked. I was using a spare bedroom in my apartment to create material that would impress a mega sound effects company! He commissioned me right on the spot to record a library of impact sound effects.

And so I did. Keep in mind, I was still trying to pursue a career as a filmmaker. I figured I could create sound effects libraries on the side until the right opportunity came along. But, something happened the day I received the final product: a professionally manufactured CD that had my name in the credits! I felt empowered. I thought to myself “Maybe I can do this?” “Maybe I could become a sound designer?”

To date, I’ve worked on over six hundred different sound effects products for companies around the world including Blastwave FX, a sound effects label that I started back in 2007.

DS: What was your first gig like?

RV: I was paranoid. I was completely freaked out and had no confidence in what I was doing. I was scared that the sound effects I was producing wouldn’t be up to par with what they were looking for. In hind sight, this was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I was very meticulous during the recording and editing processes. I made sure that every sound was perfect – no defects, no background noise. I wanted each sound to be only the sound effect, nothing else. After all, if the work wasn’t the best it could be, I might not get another gig!

I sent in my first draft or preliminary master. A week later, I received notes on some changes and additions they wanted. I followed their directions and learned a lot based on their comments. Two rounds of changes later, they went to print with the project. Upon receipt of the final product, I received a contract for the next project. Thus, began my career.

DS: What/who inspires/influences you?

RV: That’s a big question! I grew up on the Star Wars and Raiders films, so Ben Burtt was probably the first sound designer to give me an understanding of cool sound effects. There are certainly other big influences. I’m a huge Gary Rydstrom fan. I love all of his work. His approach is very thought out and calculated, but he has no reservations about using simple props to make great sounds. His work is sophisticatedly simple.

Continuing with the Skywalker greats, I’m a big fan of Randy Thom as well. He’s very purposeful in his work and seems to do everything for a reason. Plus, he’s very wise and knows his craft. I’m the grasshopper to his Master Po. Scott Gershin, Alan Howarth, Mark Mangini, Charles Maynes and Ren Klyce have also been big influences.

Nowadays, I’m pretty blown away with the undiscovered newcomers. The sound design challenges that Blastwave FX started has led to a new fad of challenges that allow the new guys to take a crack at design work. Some of the results are amazing! I listen to the entries and think to myself “why aren’t these guys working at a major studio?” It’s always nice to hear new and fresh perspectives on sound.

I can’t really put my finger on what I think good sound design is. I think you just know it when you hear it. It’s kind of like music. There are tons of artists out there but only a few have the “it” factor. You can’t define “it”, but you know “it” when you hear “it”.

DS: Could you tell us more about your approach to field recording?

RV: I’m certainly a boy scout when it comes to field work, in that I’m always prepared. I always bring extra recorders, mics, cables, etc., especially when I’m working great distances from the studio. I guess the idea is that I want to focus on the creative process and not the gear. For me, gear should be transparent. If you have to deal with equipment issues, then you spend less time on what is important – recording.

The guys at the Chop Shop will tell you that I suffer from severe OCD, especially in my work. Background noise drives me nuts, so I try to find the quietest locations to work. Smart phone apps that have map software with aerial views are a big help in finding spots to record that are far from traffic and factories. Of course, even there you’ll have planes!

Despite all of the headaches, field recording can be a blast! It’s always an adventure and there’s always something new to discover and record. At the end of the day, if you’re not having fun, then you’re doing something wrong!

DS: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from your vast experience in that field?

RV: Everything I know about field recording I learned from the U.S. Marine Corps mantra “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome”. There’s so much unpredictability in field recording that you can easily go crazy if you don’t learn to roll with the punches. Most of the time, you come back with lots of stuff you didn’t plan on finding and very little of what you intended to record. That’s okay, as long as you come back with something.

DS: What are your favorite tools for working in the studio and the field?

RV: The Chop Shop has about eighty microphones, but we always seem to gravitate to about a half dozen or so. Microphones are like guitars – everyone has their favorites. I’m a huge Rode Microphones fan. I think it’s funny that people automatically assume that expensive equals better. I have friends in Hollywood that work on major films that are shocked at the quality and price difference in Rode’s products. No, this isn’t a Rode commercial. The point is to listen to the microphone (regardless of the brand or price point); don’t just read the specs on the box.

In the studio, I master everything in Sony’s Sound Forge. I absolutely love this program. It’s very robust and allows me to shape, trim, process, and save the file anyway I want. Plus, it’s fast! The latest versions allow for multi channel files which make surround sound work a breeze. You can load it up on a laptop and use it as a multi track recorder in the field, but of course, you have to deal with the sound of the laptop’s fan.

I can’t stress enough how technique is more important than gear. You can create great sounds with “okay” equipment if you use great techniques. But, you can’t create greats sound with great equipment if you use poor techniques. Of course, if you start off with poor gear, you will almost always get poor sound.

Studio A @ Detroit Chop Shop

DS: What do you love the most about sound design?

RV: For me, it’s about creating. I love the creation element. It’s an art form, like music. I’m passionate about finding new ways to make sound effects. I’m always amazed at the impact sound can bring to a scene.

I certainly have a fetish for science fiction and horror sounds. I’m not sure why. It could be because these sounds don’t occur naturally and have to be created using mental elbow grease and a healthy does of plug-ins. But, it’s probably because these are the types of films I grew up watching. I’m also a big fan of larger-than-life sounds like crashes and production elements.

While it can be fun to record cars, planes, door bells and sirens, I’d rather be in the field recording elements that I can use to create something that no one has heard before. Building, layering and shaping the sounds of creatures, haunted environments and space stations is what gets me up in the morning. Nobody sits in the studio listening to door bell sound effects and says “Wow! That’s cool!” I like to go for the “wow” factor in my work.

DS: I heard you’re going to release another “Bible” of sound, after the successful Sound Effects Bible, which I personally love. Could you talk us about that next book?

RV:Nope. My publisher won’t let me. Sorry. And no, it won’t be called the Sound Effects Koran.

DS: You do a lot of production sound as well as dialogue recording, Foley, sound design, etc. Is there any favorite for you? What you find interesting about doing all those different crafts?

RV: I’m a rolling stone. I hate sitting still and I don’t like doing the same thing for too long. Working on a project that allows me to dabble in all of these various crafts during a project is a breath of fresh air.  The finalization of a project is my favorite part. Whether it’s creating the demo for a sound library or sitting with the director during the final mix, I love watching all of the elements come together.

And what about Blastwave FX? Could you tell us how you get started with it? What’s coming this year there?

RV: Blastwave FX is basically an independent sound effects label that got big fast. We are now one of the top three publishers of sound effects in the world. The vision is to provide higher quality and more useful sound design tools. I was frustrated with the ‘standard’ sound effects libraries and wanted to shake things up a bit. Up until Blastwave FX, my team had created sound libraries for virtually every company that puts out sound effects, including the majors. I knew there was room for innovation, but the big dogs didn’t seem interested in moving forward with new ideas. Most libraries out there are ‘stock’ sound effects libraries. I don’t want that for Blastwave FX. You can buy a picture (stock sounds) or you can buy paint to create your own work of art (Blastwave FX).

It’s humbling to find that major film studios, television networks and video game companies are using our libraries. We’ve certainly caught the attention of some of the other sound effects libraries out there and it’s kind of funny to watch the old guard try to keep up. But, I’m not worried. My goal isn’t to be the best sound designer in the world; my goal is to educate and empower up-and-coming sound designers so that they can be the best sound designers. Hopefully, The Sound Effects Bible and Blastwave FX will give them some of the tools they need to achieve their vision.

DS: What are you currently working on? What’s next for Ric Viers?

RV: No rest for the wicked! We’ve got a couple of things in the works for this year. Stay tuned for a big Blastwave FX announcement this month! Also, you can check out The Sound Effects Bible’s Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/sfxbible) for the latest.

Let’s get started with Tim Walston’s special month. Here is an interview I had with him, talking about general aspects of his career, his favorite tools, techniques, creativity methods, and more. Hoep you enjoy it!

Designing Sound: How did you get started? How has been the evolution of your career until today?

Tim Walston: **SNOOZEFEST ALERT!!**  The last thing I wanted to do was start this month off with a big long article, but in the off-chance any of you are interested, I’ve accidentally done that.  Still reading?  OK here we go…

I love movies.  Since I was a young kid, my earliest passions were movies and music.  When other kids played with toy boats, I had a plastic shark, an unfortunate scuba diver, and a small film canister filled with red food coloring!  I’ve always been especially interested in special effects:  model spaceships, visual effects, prosthetic makeup, and animatronic creatures.  Remember, these were the days before CGI.  To this day, I prefer practical special

effects to CG, because I think you can always tell when something is a REAL thing.   I mention all this because I think my appreciation for realistic things applies to my sound work.  The value I place on handmade things and the merits of hard work permeate my approach and work ethic.

So I grew up making models and 8mm stop motion movies, and special effects experiments… and also playing music.

I built a small MIDI studio at my house during high school, writing and recording songs and musical ideas.  I realized I had a technical interest when I found myself spending as much time programming a drum machine to sound real, as I did writing lyrics.  I was spending creative energy on the sounds and production values as I wrote.  This crystallized my desire to study recording engineering and maybe get into the music business.

I was a music composition major at UCLA (should have been film!).  After graduating and playing in a band (like everyone else), I worked for Digital Music Corp., aka Voodoo Lab – a small company manufacturing MIDI accessories, professional guitar switching systems, and great retro style guitar effects pedals.  After some personnel changes left me without a job, I figured it was time to follow my dream – music engineering!

After interning at several L.A. recording studios in 1996, I quickly got the message:  There were only a handful of engineers in L.A. doing all the big records, and the rest of the guys struggled.  I was going to have to get coffee and clean up the lounge for a year or so (for free) before they’d let me into the real studio to wrap cables or something.  By this time, I was 27 and engaged… I needed a real job.   Several of the burned out engineers told me they were thinking of crossing over into post production, saying “the hours were better and the work was more steady”.  Ha!  If they only knew!  If I only knew!

This was, however, the beginning of a new chapter of my life:  one that I had been unknowingly preparing myself for, for years.  I sent out a new round of resumes, to post production places this time.  I spoke on the phone to David Yewdall – a man I have still never met in person, but who helped me get my foot in the door.  THANK YOU DAVID!!  He recommended two names of people in post with music backgrounds, who “might take pity on me”:  Steve Flick and Harry Cohen.

I made appointments and walked in to each – as green as can be.  I didn’t know anything about sound editing.  I just bought the sonic illusion like everyone else outside the industry.  “You add the background birds, too??”  I was amazed that the sounds we hear and take for granted, are so carefully crafted to sound effortlessly real.

Steve Flick showed me around Creative Café (where I first met Charles Maynes), and he talked about film theory, light and shadow.  My head was spinning.  Why hadn’t I taken any film classes in college!!  Unfortunately, he didn’t have any openings at the time, but he invited me to stay in touch.

Harry Cohen and some annoying newbie in his design suite in 1999. Note the outboard gear (before Pro Tools). A sticker on his DAT machine said “leave at 48k or I will kill you”.

I met Harry Cohen at EFX in December 1996.  He invited me into his sound design room immediately, and I spent the next 4 hours watching him work.  He described his job, his process, his equipment, his choices… and wow, I was amazed. This is the same EFX Systems that you’ve read about in David Farmer’s interview.  It was a magical place, at a magical time.  As a newbie, I met and worked alongside Harry, David, Ann Scibelli, Jeff Whitcher, Michael Kamper, Andrew De Cristofaro, Mike Payne, Marc Fishman, Marshall Garlington and many, many other talented people. THANK YOU HARRY!!

Shhh - I worked in David Farmer’s room at EFX in 1999. Those pieces of paper are hand written cue sheets. I don’t know who that guy in the chair is

I knew right away I wanted to focus on sound effects.  I worked for 8 weeks as an unpaid intern, and then I was lucky enough to get hired in February 1997 to work on a small feature.  At EFX in those days, all sound effects were cut on a Synclavier – basically an early super sampler/keyboard/MIDI sequencer/audio editor.  We worked to ¾ video tapes.  Timecode from the Video tape drove the sequencer, and we recorded the FX back to DA-88.  Wow – thinking about all these old methods is a trip.  It seems so primitive now, but compared to slicing up film, it was hi-tech digital audio!  In the early days, I “pulled” sound effects:  that meant pulling a DAT off the shelf, fast forwarding to the correct ID, and listening, to see if the effect was going to work or not.  Whew!

Here’s a picture of a Synclav system I found on the internet. Note that it required 5¼ inch floppy disks to boot the system.

I loved the Synclav.  Any sound could be auditioned instantly on any key.  It was so easy to sequence and layer sounds – so easy to perform sounds.   I’ve always said that I felt that sounds on the Synclav were clay and I had my hands on them, to shape them into what I wanted them to be.  (Later, using only Pro Tools and a mouse, I felt like I was trying to sculpt that audio clay with oven mits and 6 foot long barbecue tongs!)  I found the sequencer aspect of the Synclav to be very familiar.  Instead of a cymbal crash on the downbeat, I put a door close or a gunshot at the right timecode.  My musical technology hobby had prepared me for a career I never knew existed!

I worked my first year at EFX during the night shift, and stayed extra hours to get more practice, to try to achieve the results I was looking for, and to experiment.  I have hours of DAT recordings, still unloaded to this day, of various crazy noises, created with the Synclav, outboard gear and an analog mixing board.  I eventually moved into a daytime slot.  We worked on films, TV and video game sound.  I met Charles Deenen when he was at Interplay and I designed sounds for various titles for him.  In those days, I never worked as hard as I did for Charles, but I learned a lot from him.  And made revisions.  And more revisions…

My next big break came when I worked for Lance Brown on a show he supervised.  He liked my work, and in 1999 brought me to SoundStorm to take his place as the in-house sound designer, as he transitioned to feature film mixing.  What an honor!  SoundStorm had academy awards!  They worked on real movies!  THANK YOU LANCE!!

Academy Award winner Bruce Stambler helped me get into the union and now I was in the big leagues.  At SoundStorm, I was lucky enough to work with Bruce, John Leveque, Becky Sullivan, Jay Nierenberg, Tony Milch, Kim Secrist, and many other talented people whose names escape me right now.  As staff sound designer, I was called in to provide special sounds on everyone’s films.  Working this way allowed me to focus on unique sound creation and not on the more traditional sound work like doors, and backgrounds. I was also the only one using Pro Tools at that time – everyone else used the Fostex Foundation editing system.  With time, the tools, and my tenacity, I developed my techniques and created a lot of new material.  This was another great learning experience and a period of creative growth for me.

SoundStorm closed its doors in 2004 while we were just starting work on “Stealth”.  The show and crew officially moved to Soundelux, and the next phase of my career began.  I’ve been based there ever since.  With a huge pool of passionately talented people, and a multitude of sound supervisors, it feels like the future is wide open.  The variety, and sheer volume of projects moving through Soundelux means an endless supply of creative challenges and opportunities.

I am fortunate to have been helped along the way by many generous people.  And if any of you are still awake after reading this, then I hope that something I write this month will be helpful to you.  Thank you Miguel, for extending this honor to me.  I hope I can live up to it!

DS: Did you have a mentor early in your career? How was your “training” in order to enter into the industry?

TW: Harry Cohen was a key mentor to me in the early days, and he’s still an inspiration, a collaborator and a friend.  Many of my colleagues from EFX and SoundStorm are now based at Soundelux, so it’s been quite a reunion.  In general, I try to learn something from everyone I work with.  The thing I appreciate about creative work is that there is never only one right way.  I try to understand the approaches of people I admire, and then filter that information through my own methods to see what resonates with me.

My training was on-the-job experience.  My musical background informs my choices, and my audio technology background enables them.  As a rookie sound editor, my work was reviewed by a supervisor and then ultimately judged by the mixer and the client.  If something wasn’t right, I heard about it and had to fix it right away!  Working alone in the facility in the middle of the night, I had to solve my own problems.  In the early days, we had no budget for custom recording, so I had to make something out of what I could find in the library.  This limitation forced me to be creative with the tools and resources I had on hand.  All of these experiences, and the many sleepless nights of “brute force” problem solving, have constituted my “training”.  It’s important for me to note, however, that the training never stops.  I never want to stop learning, and trying new ways to achieve better, or fresher results.  This drive to continue my self-education and to keep growing is what keeps me coming back year after year.

DS: What do you love the most about sound design?

TW: I love the sense of creative fulfillment I get from contributing to a film.  We’re making movies, man!  I love to turn a silent scene (or nearly so) into one with a soundscape that brings it to life, supports and advances the story, and involves the viewer.  Whether it’s a featured sound design moment like the Enterprise blasting into warp speed in “Star Trek”, or creating believable and vibrant offscreen New York city backgrounds (one car by at a time) for “P.S. I Love You”… I put the same care and effort into my contribution.  When the scene plays, and the sound melts with the image, I can say – “I did that”.  As the license plates around town say – I feel like I’m “part of the magic”.  It’s ironic that I was so interested in special effects and monster makeup as a kid – now I get to give a voice, to those effects.  Now I get to help sell those visual effects and monsters to the audience.  It’s the greatest job in the world.

DS: From all the sound crafts you do (recording, editing, design, etc) what’s your favorite and why?

TW: I think pure sound design – creating new sounds – is my favorite.  I love to create new sounds to put against the picture.  Whether I’m trying to create a sound I imagine in my head, or whether I’m trying some crazy process or tool to see what happens, it’s all fantastic fun.  Editing and mixing would be a close second, because they’re really intertwined in my workflow.  I’ve always shaped the levels of my elements, and often place them in the surround sound field.  The purpose here is twofold: to see how they work with each other and also to present my complete audio idea as accurately as possible.  Recording is also great fun, but I don’t do it nearly enough.  I guess I like them all then!

DS: How do you stay creative? Do you have any kind of methods to organize ideas and get inspiration?

TW: Tough question!  Look, everyone has bad days.  Creativity is not something you can always summon at the appointed time.  When I am struggling with something, my only “trick” is to keep working on it.  If the road you’ve chosen seems like it might yield results, then stay on it and create what you can.  (I’ll discuss this in more detail later this month).  If you hit a creative dead end, then try something new.  Giving up will get you nowhere.  I’ve found no shortcuts around creative blocks… you have to blast your way through.  As they say, “Good enough, isn’t” (unless you’re out of time).

That’s not to say there is nothing you can do to help yourself.  I am a creature of habit.  I always start with one of the Pro Tools template sessions I’ve made.  After watching a scene or a film, the next thing I do is start listening to material and pulling sounds.  I create a library of sounds I think are right for the project – whether I can drop them right in, or use them as source for processing.  I keep a pad of paper nearby and write down the keywords I think I should search for among my own sounds, and then the company’s library.  (I’ll cover this topic in nauseating detail later this month too).  I’ll also write down sounds I think should be recorded fresh, or source I’d like from foley.

With all that said, my biggest method to stay creative is not really a conscious one.  It’s my internal drive to explore.  I don’t want to do the same old thing on every show, that’s why I’ve sought out a creative job.  I like to try new things, and to try new ways of doing things.  10 designers would give you 10 different sounds for the same thing on screen – and they could all be great.  So, another habit I have is, time permitting, to try to avoid my usual methods and try something new as often as possible.  I’m never 100% satisfied, so I’m constantly trying to grow.

DS: What are your favorite tools to work in the studio? Any “secret weapon”?

TW: Ahhh… gear: the thrill and the bane of our audio lives.  There’s always some cool new plug-in, some new update that calls to us with its siren song and promise of sonic nirvana.  I have succumbed to these temptations over the years, but I resist more often than not.  Who can afford to buy every new thing? Here’s a question:  Are you really a master of all the plug-ins you already have?  Can you say that you know everything they can do, and that you’ve exhausted all their possibilities already?  I know I can’t.  So that means there’s much more to explore with the tools I have, before I lust after something new.  There is a LOT you can do with just pitch change, EQ, and reverb!  There – rant over.  My wife won’t believe any of it, though!

As I mentioned earlier, I started at EFX on the Synclav.  Then we added the old Digidesign audiomedia card with like 4 tracks or something.  Then maybe 8 tracks, but we still recorded elements back to DA-88’s.  At SoundStorm in 1999, I moved to Pro Tools (version 4 or 5?) exclusively.  I really missed having my hands on the sounds, but I had access to an E4 sampler.  The hassle of loading something into it from DAT made me do without most of the time.  Currently, I’ve settled on Native Instruments’ Kontakt as my main sampler.  It’s so deep I’ve only just scratched the surface.  I don’t use it everyday – I don’t need to.  But I have dug into it from time to time during the last few years and I’m starting to feel the audio under my fingers again.

A good library program like Soundminer is crucial to me.  A convolution reverb like Altiverb, and my newest tool, iZotope’s RX have become essential, alongside the standard array of eq’s, delays, and compressors, etc. Every task requires it’s own tool, so some days I’ll reach for the vocoder, some days for the transient processor, some days for an old bit of outboard gear.  I use various plug-ins from Audioease, Digidesign, GRM Tools, McDSP, Sonnox, SoundToys and Waves – nothing too exotic.  Remember, it’s not about the gear – it’s about what you do with it.

Finally, my answer would be incomplete if I didn’t mention… everyday objects.  Things around the house, especially kids toys, can be a wonderful source of interesting sounds.  I recorded a broken music box and toy cymbals for “Nightmare on Elm Street”, a rubber bathmat for large creature movement in “Slither”, and an old trash compactor for the ship’s thruster engine room in “Poseidon”.  Your most useful tools are your own inventiveness and tenacity.

DS: What would be your advice to any sound designer today?

TW: While there are more outlets for sound in media today than ever before, it seems to me there are fewer “inlets”.  I started at a non-union facility.  The downside was the minimal wages, but the plus side was that I got to start working on a feature very early in my career.  Sometimes I’m asked for advice by beginners, and I don’t know what to say.  Everyone I know has gotten into the business through a different path.  I don’t know how a new person can get started today.  If there are institutional apprentice programs in place today, I haven’t witnessed them myself.  I’m not sure how a new talent can transcend their entry classification and move up the ladder. There’s a lot of competition out there in the form of talented, eager people.  The best thing you can do is practice your craft and try to network.

<Cranky Old Guy Rant:  In general, I have a problem with someone saying they just want to be a “sound designer”.  It’s my opinion that anyone creating sound for picture needs to learn the fundamentals of sound editing, and the general post production workflow.  You need to know the rules, before you can break them successfully.  If you are going to deliver your material to another editor, or a mixing stage – you need to know what you’re doing and how the system works.  End of rant.>

In summary, you’ve got to know your stuff, and understand the post production workflow and your intended place in it.  This is a team sport!  You’ve got to be reliable and professional.  Most of all you’ve got to work at your craft:  practice, evaluate, research, learn, and dedicate your energies towards your goal.  If you work hard enough and follow a true passion for film sound, then you’ll find your own path in.  Good luck!!!

DS: What is the most challenging project you’ve worked on, and why?

TW: It’s really hard to say, since each project has its own unique challenges.  Generally, the most common challenge is time and budget.  Lately, a lot of shows are lacking the time to do the job properly, yet I still strive to deliver work I’m proud of.  The next most common challenge is late delivery or radical changes in CG visual effects.  The final common challenge is chasing picture changes.  Who am I to complain, though?  These are common everyday situations and will continue I’m sure, into the future.  To one degree or another, they have been part of the filmmaking process for a long time.

I will share a few experiences I’ve had on films:

“Miracle” is an incredible movie that still gives me chills.  My job on that one was all the arena crowds for the various hockey games.  In the first cut we received there was about 40 minutes of hockey game action!  Sports crowds are very dynamic, reacting constantly as the game play ensues, and the tide turns quickly.  Every player crash and turnover, each thrilling drive and disappointing miss generates a reaction.  It was all painstakingly pieced together from wonderful material recorded by Rob Nokes and his crew for the film.  I cut front and rear reactions, so the sound would surround the audience.  There was on-camera chanting also, that had to be in sync and had to connect from one shot to another.  I also staggered front and rear stereo pairs so chants would start small and loose, then gradually shift to unison as the whole stadium shouted together.  The dramatic peaks and valleys of the crowds built to the ultimate roaring climax – the final game win!  My virtual predubs gave the mixer lots of control if he needed it, but the shape and spatiality I intended was working really well – it was visceral.  Then, they cut the game play in the film down by half… and then added the game play-by-play commentary by Al Michaels.  This meant the crowd effects had to come way down to accommodate the featured dialog.  Crowds in the final mix?  Not so much.

“Semi-Pro” was challenging because it was just a lot of editing.  I cut all the basketball action, using great wild source effects from the foley team that were recorded in an empty basketball stadium.  I covered all the throws, catches, ball slaps, bounces, baskets, feet scuffs, squeaks and even the players’ run bys.  It was a million little events to sync with production.  It was a lot of labor, but it was very rewarding to hear the result in my room.  In the final mix?  Alas, not so much.

On one show, I was asked to “make it funny”…  I can only do so much!

DS: What are your favorite films for sound?

TW: There are too many films!  Like everyone else (and in no particular order) there’s Star Wars, Wall-E, The Incredibles, The Matrix films, Jurassic Park, The Lord of the Rings films, The Conversation, Saving Private Ryan, Amelie, Pitch Black, District 9, No Country for Old Men, Mimic, Contact, The Fifth Element, Minority Report, War of the Worlds (2005 and 1953), Transformers, Master and Commander, How to Train Your Dragon, etc.

And here’s some great sounding films that don’t get mentioned as often as they should:

Wanted, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Stranger Than Fiction, Signs, Butterfly Effect, The Core, Silent Hill, House of Flying Daggers, Blade and Blade 2, Session 9, Drag Me To Hell, Kill Bill, The Strangers.

DS: Are you currently working on something? What’s next for Tim Walston?

TW: On January 3^rd, I will start on a new feature film that I haven’t seen yet.  I will also be working with an experienced supervisor that I have not worked with before… everything will be a new adventure, and a new challenge.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here is an interview with our special guest Aaron Marks, talking about general aspects of his career. Hope you like it!

Designing Sound: Tell us about your career and how you got started with sound.

Aaron Marks: Career? You mean this is like …a job?!? Well, I never thought of it that way but yeah, I guess it’s a living. If you had to put a label on me, I’d say I’m a composer, sound designer, field recordist, voice over artist and author. My focus, as you know, is creating audio for games through my company, On Your Mark Music Productions, but I have done some film work and am always open to other opportunities. I’m also on staff in the audio production department at The Art Institute of California – San Diego, currently teaching the art of field recording. My ‘career’ has definitely had some variety but I love the mixture which I think is what keeps me creative and fresh.

I became interested in all-things audio during my teenage years. I played guitar and eventually bought a 4-track recorder to dabble in songwriting. Because of that, I pursued audio engineering as a ‘must-have’ skill while I continued my musical endeavors, also learning to play drums, keyboard and bass guitar along the way.

As we all know, music is an expensive hobby. It actually took an ultimatum from my wife to either “make money and have my hobby support itself or to stop buying gear!” So, not wanting to miss out on any cool new toys, I got organized, decided how I was going to do it and ran full steam into the unknown. I started off scoring local public service announcements, radio spots, music libraries, whatever I could find that paid – with eventual sights on television and film. Along the way, though, I bumped into a neighbor who had just started his own game development company and the next thing you know I’m doing music and sound effects for their first game!

Sound design was a new concept to me back then but I love sound effects and recording. And since creating sound effects wasn’t really any different to me than creating instrument samples and patches, I relished the new challenge and suddenly found a new calling!

DS: Did you have a mentor or specific source of learning that helped you along career path

AM: For the most part, I’ve been relatively self-taught. I did have a guitar teacher for a few months, took a couple semesters of recording arts at the local community college, have various friends and colleagues who have been willing to share their knowledge over the years, but other than that, it’s basically been trial and error and years of doing it the hard way first. That has its obvious disadvantages, of course, but I’ve found the advantages to how I started far outweighs a formal education and allows for a unique perspective as I approach each new project.

For example, I spent the first 5 years of my sound design career creating sounds on a 2 channel audio editing program. ‘Non-destructive’ editing hadn’t made it’s way on the scene quiet yet so every time I layered or changed a sound I was working on, I had to either save the new version each time or keep my fingers crossed that the changes I made were acceptable. It hit me like a ton of bricks when a friend showed me a sound design project he was working on using a multi-track program. That was one of those moments I can put my finger on that made an immediate difference to the way I do business – but because I’d done it so long the other way, I think my ear was more tuned to what each new layer or step did to a sound, so now I didn’t have to spend so much time experimenting and could do what I heard in my head quickly.

I also never owned a sound library until a few years into my sound design career and I think that was the best thing I could have ever done to learn the art. From the very beginning, I created every sound from scratch, either generating elements or recording sounds myself. Talk about stretching your mind and really pushing yourself to think, think, think! It’s so easy to grab a sound you need from a library but in the end, it really doesn’t allow you to go through the mental process, to experiment, to maybe find a sound no one has ever heard before. I think starting with the initial building blocks, creating your sounds from scratch and encouraging creativity is the key to being good at sound design. Not everything sounds like you would expect and learning that you don’t have to actually break someone’s arm to get a good bone snapping sound is an important part of the process.

DS: What was your first gig like?

AM: My first sound design project was actually the very first game I ever worked on. I was initially hired to compose the music but since I was the ‘guy with the microphone’ the developer tasked me with sound effects and recording voice overs as well. And to add to the pressure, one of the actors was an established film actor with well over 25 major films to his credit. So there I was, minimal sound design experience, in charge of creating all of the games audio and an incredible character actor attached to the project – I definitely had to ‘step up’!

I think I was very lucky to have a developer who was willing to work with me as well as allow me total creative freedom. They set me up with an early copy of Sound Forge and left the rest up to me, so it was definitely trial by fire. I had to learn a new program, figure out how to be creative with it and keep everyone happy which was quite a challenge since I was responsible for 1/3 of the project. I really think my musical and engineering background helped. After all, sound effects are just really small songs, right?

“I, of the Enemy” was a space strategy game with several cinematic tie-ins between levels. Not only was I creating sound effects but now I was also synchronizing them into the mini-movies and doing post production as well. The good news was every weapon, vehicle and alien creature were entirely fictitious so they could sound like anything. The bad news was that people already have pre-conceived ideas of what space ships, lasers and explosions sound like so I sort of had to be true to their expectations. Not having any sound libraries was a bit of a limitation, but it’s surprising what kind of space sounds you can make with vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, lawn mowers and power tools. I manipulated, layered and tweaked for months and in the end was very happy with how everything turned out. I became very excited about sound design after that project and now I’d say 75% of my business is field recording and sound design. Not bad for a ‘composer’!

DS: What do you love about being a sound designer?

AM: I’m a big fan of ‘sound’ and always seem to be actively listening to everything around me almost nonstop. There are some really cool sounds out there in the world and because I’m always creating, I’m always looking for something unique. Of course, this is a good and bad thing. Because I am always listening so intently, I need a big box fan to generate white noise so I can sleep at night! But during the day, though, it’s game on!

I think what I love most is being able to take a game character or an object or a scene and breathe life into it. It doesn’t matter how amazing the artwork, animations or cinematography are, they don’t come alive until the sound is added and that’s when the magic happens. The creativity involved is definitely what keeps me coming back and having an unlimited palette of sounds, tools and ideas really makes it rewarding!

DS: Where and how do you find you are most creative? Is there any technique or method you implement for that?

AM: A looming deadline or a really fat paycheck are two great motivators, of course, but aside from those obvious things, I find I’m the most creative when I feel like part of the team and am able to take ownership of my creative duties. We’ve all had projects where you’re under someone’s thumb and having to please them specifically, I think, takes away from what the project needs. Being trusted and allowed to do ‘my thing’ unencumbered really unleashes my creative juices and that’s when I find myself working at my best.

Over the years, especially having a musical background, waiting for inspiration isn’t an option in a work for hire situation. You’ve got to be able to turn the faucet on instantly, work at your best and do justice to the project – and I’ve learned to do exactly that. But, in a perfect world and left to my devices, I’m usually the most creative during the late morning and then again late afternoon until about midnight. Knowing that, I try to plan my day around those times to take full advantage of my muse.

Inside a Marine Corps LAV-25 (Light Armored Vehicle) recording turret and weapon system sounds for Operation FlashPoint: Dragon Rising.

DS: What would be the best advice you’d give sound designers both young and experienced?

AM: I see an interesting phenomenon in the academic world that is having a real impact on creativity. In order to teach concepts and ideas, students are exposed to rules and techniques which serve a specific purpose, but I think really gives them the wrong impression about creating and recording audio. It’s all well and good they have the ability to use the tools correctly but this can really be limiting. Once you get the basics down, I think it’s essential to throw all of the rules out the window and allow yourself total creative freedom. As an example, just because you’ve always used a specific microphone on the snare drum, who’s to say you couldn’t get an even better, fresher, more unique sound by using something else totally out of the ordinary? By not limiting yourself with ‘rules’, you’re opening yourself up to some incredible possibilities – so don’t be bogged down by them.

Another pearl of wisdom would be to always keep your ears AND your mind open and actively listen to the world around you. I’m not saying that so nobody gets any sleep like me, but by always listening, you don’t have to waste a lot of time looking for that perfect sound because you’ve already heard it somewhere before and you remember where to find it. I really think that active listening helps my sound design, even when I’m just using libraries. Paying attention to the various elements that can make up a sound give you a real advantage when you have to create them from scratch. And when you’re in a time crunch, that can make all of the difference in the quality of your sounds.

My best advice would be to encourage everyone to do what you have to do to stay enthusiastic, creative and working. We all get tired and burned out – so schedule time away from your work and do something completely different. When I’m feeling the grind, I don’t go anywhere near my studio, even if it’s just for one day. When I do finally head back in there and fire up the computers, I’m ready to roll. I usually feel recharged and reinvigorated and that makes being creative a whole lot easier! As long as you keep an eye out for those creative lulls and get away even for an hour, you’re allowing yourself to relax and unwind – and that can be incredibly important for creative people. I remember times where I’ve stared blankly at a slot machine symbol animation playing over and over and over again and not ‘hearing’ anything. That’s when I walk away completely and stop forcing it. Within a half hour or so, an idea usually just hits me. So, time away is a good thing.

Of course, we all have to work and finding the secret to ensuring we can make a career out of it is probably the most important part of what we do. Do outstanding work, always give them more than what they ask for, make their job easier, be professional, treat everyone with respect – all key ingredients to a lifelong career. Make sure you do what you have to do to keep working – something that can be easily forgotten when you get so focused on creating sounds!

DS: In addition to your sound design work, you’re also a music composer. Where do these disciplines intersect? What are the pros and cons of having both a music and sound design perspective?

AM: From my perspective, I can’t even see being a sound designer without having a music background! Apart from all the really cool sounds musical instruments can provide for sound effects creation, having a musical ear is a definite plus. One of the essentials to effective sound design is the ability to layer and manipulate various elements to create a workable sound effect. Sound design often takes on a ‘musical’ quality and the construction of sound effects, at least in the way that makes most sense to me, follows the same path as recording a song would. I treat sound effects as mini ‘songs’ most of the time, selecting a tempo or pacing, a note or key which I sometimes either match to the background music or purposefully make it out of key for a different impact. By having sensitivity to what the music might be doing, it allows me to create sound effects that complement the rest of the audio. Of course, there are times when being a composer isn’t an advantage at all but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

I think good sound effects should make some sort of emotional connection with the listener – just like really good music does. As a composer, I’m always looking for that emotional angle and it tends to spill over into my sound design as well. Whether you’re creating sounds for pure, guttural entertainment or just adding a touch of realism to a scene, there is an opportunity to really make it shine. Any skill you can bring to the table, whether it’s being a composer, an engineer, a field recordist or sound designer, will make you that much more able to do a fantastic job and ‘wow’ the audience.

DS: What are your favorite tools to work with? What would be your “secret weapon” to use in the studio or in the field?

AM: Most of the time, my favorite tool is whatever gets the job done, but I do seem to have some things I use more than others. I’m still an avid user of Sound Forge 4.5 – the batch converter is just too perfect, plus the CPU doesn’t even know that version of the program is running. That’s not to say I use it every time but on audio that doesn’t have to be super high resolution, like for iPhone games or audio streamed to a cellphone, it’s perfect.

For field recording, the Neumann RSM191 stereo shotgun is my ‘go to’ mic for most of what I gather. There is just something about the sound of that mic that resonates with me over other mics out there. It’s not perfect for every occasion but I’ve had great luck with everything from tanks and vehicles to weapons and general Foley – so I like to start with it unless there is a compelling reason not to.

My other favorite tool is, believe it or not, my ears – I depend on them every day and they’ve yet to let me down. That’s not to say my ears are any better than anyone else’s, but I’ve learned to use them correctly, to actively listen and not just pay attention to what I’m recording or creating, but to noises in the background or how each sound element is working together, for example. Just this week, I was out in the field with a team recording weapons. My task was to gather all of the non-firing sounds; dry firing, magazines inserted and ejected, slide and bolt action, etc. Once I found the sweet spot and had my levels set, my ears shifted to what was happening in the background. Was there an airplane flying overhead? Was there wind noise? Where there foot shuffles or clothes rustling? Because I knew the sound was being captured OK, I wanted to make sure the takes were clean, since we weren’t going to have the ability to run back out and try it again if they weren’t. So, out of all of my ‘tool’s, my ears are definitely my most treasured instrument!

Recording exhaust sounds of a classic Ferrari 328 GTS

DS: What are your favorite sounds to record/design?

AM: I like recording pretty much anything, but there are some things because of the experience involved that makes it a bit more fun. Exotic cars, military vehicles, weapons and aircraft are by far my favorite things to point a microphone at – not just because of the sounds they make but having the excuse to hang around and play with some neat toys is a big plus. The M1A1 Abrams tank we recorded for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising was one of those memorable moments as well as the numerous Ferrari’s, hotrods and other exotic cars I’ve done over the years – each one was a treat! I also really enjoy capturing those ‘difficult to plan for’ sounds like thunder claps or a pack of yelping coyotes. There’s something about having a recorder going in the right place at the right time that makes this job pretty neat sometimes.

As far as sound design, that’s a tough one. I love creating sci-fi sounds, explosions and weapon shots but I think my favorites are the stuff I do for video casino games. I’ve been providing audio for casino games for over 15 years now and it’s still a lot of fun for me. The variety of themes keeps things fresh and the sounds are mostly happy and fun – it’s all about winning and keeping the excitement level up and it’s definitely been one of those jobs that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed! It’s also been great working with some very creative and talented animators and programmers, and keeping up with them is always an enjoyable challenge.

DS: Why did you decide to write a book about game audio? Is there a third edition coming?

AM: One of my ‘life’s goals’ was to write a book and have it published. Of course, my intention was to write a best-selling novel but the game audio opportunity presented itself and I jumped at it! Early on in my game career, I had been writing for Gamasutra.com, Game Developer Magazine and Music4Games as a way to organize my thoughts and share the findings. I found out quickly that it was also a great way to market myself and get my name out there to potential clients. Before long, I had enough material for a head start on a book and a publisher actually approached me with the idea. While I was considering the undertaking, my editor at Gamasutra connected me to his company’s book publishing arm which gave me a good comparison. They were also very interested and I ultimately took the best deal and company who I thought would best promote the book – so, The Complete Guide to Game Audio was born. After CMP Books was bought out by Focal Press, they quickly approached me for a 2nd edition and that’s where we are today. The book has had some pretty good success and I’m very happy with that. As for a 3rd edition, the publisher is very supportive and I’m pretty confident that when the time comes, there’ll be an updated version indeed.

Not many people know that I’m also the lead author of another game audio, Game Audio Development, which is part of Jeannie Novak’s Game Development Essentials series. This book was written to complement my first book with minimal overlap and a more academic approach to the subject. It’s used in many game audio courses and very popular in that field.

DS: What’s next for Aaron Marks?

AM: I have a general ‘direction’ I tend to pursue but I’m always open to other opportunities. Looking back, I started playing guitar to be in a band and wandered into songwriting. Songwriting lead to recording, engineering and producing in order to work out my ideas. I found I really enjoyed being creative behind the scenes and wasn’t really ‘stage’ material so that lead me to composing. Composing for games brought me to sound design (which naturally progressed to field recording), voice overs and being an author. Book writing opened the door to speaking, lecturing and teaching. Who can really say where it will go from here.

I enjoy being my own boss and contracting my services but, who knows, I could end up working in house somewhere in the next couple of years, depending on if the offer is right. I know I’ll be working on more game projects, one will have a large variety of military aircraft in it, and there is a possibility of a new book which I’m discussing with my publisher. I’ve always got my eyes and ears open and ready for the next challenge, whatever and wherever it might be!

Some sounds must be very difficult to record/create. Are there any particular sound effects you have had to make that stand out as problematic and what was involved in creating them?

Designing sound effects is relatively easy – not super easy, but easier than the recording process. This all hinges on the ingredients, just like baking a cake. The fresher the ingredients you have, the better tasting cake you’ll make. So, the ingredients are paramount. You have to work hard to record the best source material. The problems I encounter are almost always isolating a sound from its environment. Studio recording is less troublesome because you can control the environment, but in the field – anything goes! Choosing the right location to record is a critical decision when planning. That one decision will determine the outcome of your recordings. No matter how expensive your mics and recorders are, if the background is noisy then the recordings will be noisy too.

Ric Viers Interview

Some sounds must be very difficult to record/create. Are there any particular sound effects you have had to make that stand out as problematic and what was involved in creating them?

Sure, often times you come across various things that are challenging. I must confess though most of my challenges haven’t been nearly as cool as some of the big name sound designers. One that was very bitter sweet for me was working on the film Wild Ocean 3D. It was an IMAX film that told the story of one of the last big sardine migrations that happens off the coast of South Africa. It showed how all of these different animals would converge to prey upon the sardines and the climax sequence of the film revolved around these birds called cape gannets that dive into the ocean to eat the fish. The underwater footage they shot was just breathtaking. We’re talking huge schools of sardines, like tens of thousands all swarmed together in what they call a “bait ball” and then probably hundreds of cape gannets dive bombing in to eat them.

My job on the film was to cut everything that was underwater. I knew there was no way I could use stock library sounds to cut this sequence so I went out into the creek behind my parents’ house in some hip-waiters and began experimenting with splashes. I needed something fast and percussive and ended up finding that an axe and a hammer were my best props. So I would throw them as hard as I could straight down into the water, micing it from above and below the water and making sure not to hit my toes! I think I recorded like 50 or 60 splashes of each the hammer and axe cause I didn’t want the sequence to sound loopy. I would use these recordings along with a pitched down/subsynthed version for the bird’s impacts. Then I recorded myself skimming my hand, brooms, brushes etc. across the water very quickly to use for the bubble trail the birds would create once they were in the water. Any sort of swimming whooshes and moves I then recorded in a neighbour’s pool. I’d do the old trick of putting a condom over my mic and dip it into the water a couple inches and then swish my hand or various props in front of it. Once it was all said and done this sequence rocked.

The bitter part came when the directors decided to favour the music pretty heavily during the mix meaning you could barely hear any of my work…oh well. That’s unfortunately one of the things you have to get used to in this line of work. Thankfully the music for that film was off the charts amazing though.

JR Fountain Interview

The guys at Sounddogs Blog has published an interview with sound designer Rob Sephton, talking about general things of his sound design career.

S.B.: What would you say is the best part of being a sound designer?

R.S.: Well that’s it, the best part of being a Sound Designer is the design of the sound of movies. That’s the fun stuff. As with everything else, there’s the application side of it, the management side because I do both, sound supervising and sound design on my movies. So I still have to sound supervise the overall project. I have to answer to post-production, keep an eye on the bid, have to worry about people and working longer days or overtime on the dub stage. Now when I get to go into the sound design mode I just get to sit in my room and that’s where I get to work with sound and come up with ideas and variations on sound to work towards the picture I’m working on which hopefully of course appeases the director and producers and the film editor. It’s not just usually one person, the director has definitely the lead on it all, but producers and picture editors also chime in. So you’re trying to appease a lot of people, however, the director is whom I actually work for and although everybody else’s ideas are welcome, it’s the director’s opinion I go with.

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