Here is the first interview with this month’s special guest Elliot Koretz, talking about general aspects of his career.

How did you get started in sound design?

My first industry job was as an apprentice editor in the shipping room at Disney Studios. I was exposed to all types of editing (picture, music, and sound) but I was attracted to sound for not only what I saw as the ability to be very creative but for the autonomy of working independently of the director and producers who seemed to be always in the picture editors room. At Disney I met a sound editor who was also moonlighting at Neiman-Tillar, a leading independent sound house back in the day. He saw my interest in wanting to advance to editor a little quicker than what was the norm at Disney and offered to put in a good word for me there. I was offered assistant editors position and took it. While there I was first introduced to electronic editing. This was approximately 1980 and they had, as far as I know, the first system that was used for this, ACCESS. That’s really pretty amazing for so long ago. I think the first show I ever cut on electronically was a tv show, “Aloha Paradise” It was a kind of “Love Boat” on land and the sound needed was pretty straight forward fx. But I do remember one particular episode where the story line had a man who was interested in a divorced woman with a young child. The kid was opposed to this relationship and at one point bites the guy on the leg in kind of a comical manner. This lead to what I believe may have been the first “design” moment of my career. I layered a celery snap with some sort of other big crunch and………I was off and running as a designer.

After that I moved around landing at a number of post facilities for a while. I was an editor at Stephen Cannell, which turned out to be a great place to learn to cut action sequences. On shows like “The A-Team” you had a week to cut an entire reel (approx 12 min) of Dia, FX, BG’s and Foley. And inevitably you had a scene like this: Our heroes were in some sort of large vehicle, traveling pretty fast on a rough surface, being chased by a helicopter that was shooting at them. They meanwhile had constructed some sort of rapid firing gun that was shooting nails or some other projectiles……..and little to none of this could be created just straight out of the sound library.

These kinds of sequences needed multi-layered design and remember this was on film. Many units and also much of the final result of my work couldn’t be heard played together until the dub stage. On an old fashion film sync block you could only hear three or four “channels” at once. Anything wider than that and you had only your experience and imagination to visualize the combined sound.

I think doing this kind of design work way back then really helped me understand how to efficiently combine elements to get the sound I wanted.

I spent some time at Soundelux when the company was still pretty young and while there moved into cutting sound on features. (Still editing on film). I did return to tv editing and ended up working first as an editor then as supervisor on the show, “MacGyver”. It was another busy design show with the lead character always inventing something to beat the bad guys that required creative design work. After a successful first season the producers wanted to change to an all-electronic post. Soundelux at that time was not prepared for the huge investment in equipment and ultimately the show was moved to a newly created facility, Modern Sound. Over that summer they built a new mix stage, foley stage, and editing rooms using both Synclavier and 24 track editing systems. I was offered to continue as the supervisor of the show and accepted. After a very brief training period at the offices of New England Digital (the creators of the Synclavier) I jumped into the world of electronic post again.

The problems we faced were immense. This was 1986 and the technology was still in it’s infancy. There were not yet sound libraries that were “digital” and the decision was made to purchase a copy of the library of a leading sound supervisor at the time, Fred Brown. Then the issue was storage. The best we could do at the time was to digitize onto floppy discs. They could only hold a few seconds of sound each so you can imagine the challenges that caused. This was truly the bleeding edge of technology.

It was at times very exhilarating but often very frustrating to be at the forefront of this transition. There were times we struggled to achieve what was extremely easy to accomplish on film and other times we saw how cool it was to work in a non destructive environment with new tools to manipulate the sound.

After that season I moved around again to a couple of different facilities but then found what turned out to be a long-term home at Weddington Productions. The three owners at that time (Steve Flick, Richard Anderson, and Mark Mangini) were doing some of the most creative sound design anywhere. There is no question that was the turning point in my becoming a much more accomplished designer. Working with the talented people at Weddington constantly challenged me to step up my game and really think hard about what I could do to impact the movie sonically in every detail.

While there I made the full time transition to ProTools and it’s world of opportunities that cutting digitally has brought to all of us.

All these pieces of the puzzle have helped form what I do today. At Universal where myself and my crew have 5.1 editing suites and all sorts of plug in devices I reference all that experience from both the film and digital worlds when conceptualizing the design work I do.

How has been the evolution of your work and how your approach to sound has changed over the years?

Well, in some ways it’s changed dramatically and in others not so much. In a practical sense I mentioned the switch from film to digital. I really embraced it and all the flexibility it gave me while staying in my editing environment and not having to wait for a reprint of something or a specialist for processing. It’s just more efficient and much easier for me to experiment with sounds. In a more subjective perspective I think I grow after every film I do. I am a very hands on supervisor and I feel that one of the perks of being in charge is that I get to choose which elements of the project I will personally handle. I still try (time and budget permitting) to be very old school in my method. I like to pull and organize the fx and bg’s my editors will work from (I always encourage and give them the option of going beyond the pull) and give them a “cut list”. I think that method lends itself more to continuity and flow of the sound of the film. If I can’t do that then I meet with the editors, run the reels and give as much info as I can to them and review the work later. I think one of the bigger changes in my approach in recent years has been to make a concerted effort to co ordinate with the composer more. We all have been in the situation in a mix where we are fighting for the same sonic space with the music tracks. If I know where the music is working and in what frequencies and what type of rhythm I can attempt to compliment it and not fight it.

I wonder how sound design has changed the way you listen.

I think I listen and think about emotions. What are we trying to say to the audience? Like with music I don’t want to fight the dialog so I see fx, bg’s and design as a tool, sometimes very subtle other times not, to promote the directors’ vision. I listen for bridging opportunities to use sound to connect scenes. I always remember on the dub stage for the movie “Speed” Greg Landaker (not sure about spelling) the lead fx mixer suggested some great ideas to do just that. The frenetic pace of the film lent itself to fast whooshing elements to bridge cuts. It was just one more layer to make it a more finished and cohesive movie.

How has been your work with directors? any particular story on that?

You touch on a very important question. I think that just as important as my design work on the film or maybe sometimes even more important is my rapport with the director (and the picture editor as well). We as supervisors and designers need to be very politically astute and sensitive to the personalities we work with. Some clients like a “take charge guy” who they are counting on to lead the way in the sound post. Some want a person that gives them exactly what they ask for…and nothing more. I guess what I am saying is that we need to size up who we are working with and as early as possible give them what they need. As wildly creative as we are we can’t lose sight that we are a service. I don’t believe that one style will fit all.

I have been very fortunate to work with some amazingly talented directors. When people look at my resume they usually want to know about Michael Mann. In addition to working on and supervising some of his television shows I supervised and did the design work on both “Collateral” and “Miami Vice”. Michael is without question a creative genius and a visionary that has given us some amazing tableaus. The challenge is that he is so demanding of himself, often working 20 hours days for seemingly months on end and he expects his team to keep up with him at all times. I think he has his ideal of the visual and sonic harmony he wants and has little tolerance if you are not on board with him. If you understand that it makes your job less difficult. People always want to hear horror stories, the truth is that the hours were long and tough but as I was mentioning in the previous question when you understand who you are working with and what they expect of you then you as a supervisor can depersonalize challenging situations for you and your crew and keep everyone on point.

I did a film with the amazing Irish director Jim Sheridan. He was a very easygoing guy with me and my crew and regaled the dub stage with wonderful tales, as is the tradition for storytellers like him. His style was more to allow me the freedom to bring design ideas to the stage and then he would give input.

I love when a director really understands and supports what sound and sound design will bring to their film. I worked with Gavin O’Connor on the film “Miracle” a few years back. He wanted realism throughout his film. He wanted hockey players that could act as opposed to actors that could skate a bit and for sound he wanted the most realistic sounding sports movie ever. We did extensive recordings of skating and hockey crowds and then mixing with Mike Minkler and Myron Nettinga we got a terrific soundtrack. Gavin was so incredibly appreciative of the work we all did and that’s always refreshing and nice to have.

Another great collaboration has been with the director Thor Freudenthal. His name may not be familiar to everyone but I think it soon will be. He is a very talented young director. I worked on “Hotel for Dogs” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” with him. Both films presented unusual design challenges and Thor was very supportive to make that sonic space that we all hope for available in the final mix.

All these directors I just mentioned understood the value of doing field recording for their films. Whether it’s getting out to Miami and recording onboard speed boats at over 135mph (Yikes!), Directing a crowd of 5,000 people chanting “USA, USA” or dog ADR sessions (Story on that to follow), working with someone that gets the concept of what we can bring to the film by doing these things is always a bonus.

I wonder how you approach the different roles you can play on a film, such as sound designer or supervisor. Any preference?

I really enjoy them all. Unless a particular film is just too demanding a job for me to exclusively hold both titles I will try most often and handle those myself. To accomplish that I am fortunate enough to have worked with for almost ten years one of the best assistants (who also happens to be one of the best field recordists, great editor and also talented mixer) Bruce Barris. His wide range of skills allows me the freedom to be creative while he has handled some of the other aspects of the workflow. He has been an invaluable partner in the design process.

And speaking of that I do see the work we do as a collaborative effort. I am most definitely the point man with the client but it is the entire team that I count on. With the budgets so tight these days my crew is often small. Everyone has to be really capable. I try and spend quite a bit of time with each member keeping them up to date with as much info as I can.

On some of my films for one reason or another I have assumed the role of ADR supervisor as well. I do really enjoy getting the opportunity to work with the actors.

So I guess that although design is probably my favorite part of the job, as I like to say “it’s full service” and I’m good with hands on the other tasks as well.

What are your favorite tools to work with?

I think it’s rare that I use any effect out of the library without doing some sort of tweaking to it. I use quite a bit of the standard plug ins that are included in ProTools and also the Waves bundle, Izotope (particularly Trash), AltiVerb, and Speakerphone to name a few. Multiple layers of sounds addressing different frequencies are the key. I look for new plug ins and applications all the time as they are rapidly growing.

Do you have any special method for dealing with deadlines/creative challenges?

Well, that’s not very easily accomplished. It’s time management. I think one of the most important skills in that regard is having the dub stage experience to really understand what will play and what will be less important in the overall mix. Sizing up the key sequences and looking at how much time you have to spend on them is crucial. I find this does not come naturally to everyone and I help my crew know what areas to concentrate on.

Is there any of your projects that you remember for being the most challenging or favorites?

Which of your children do you like the best, eh? So hard to answer. I will pick out one but I probably could find examples in almost all my films.

A couple of years ago I did a family film, “Hotel for Dogs”. On the surface it seemed like a fairly simple movie to do. There were some Rube Goldberg like mechanical inventions to design but otherwise I didn’t at first see any challenges or possible difficulties. Was I off the mark…..by a mile. The movie had many dogs in it (it was titled Hotel for Dogs…..right?) a number of them feature performers. The conceit was that they sounded like normal dogs. Nothing comical or unrealistic in their performance. It turned out that in every single bit of production the tracks were filled with the sound of the various trainers urging on their dogs to perform with whistles, clickers, and other devices that basically made the original sound track unusable.

So now I was faced with the reality that I had to replace every single sound all the dogs made for the entire movie. There was no library in town that has such a variety and complete sets for all these dogs. I was in serious trouble until an incredibly serendipitous event occurred. Some of my crew members and I were walking to lunch. We were working at Universal and sometimes we would cut through the theme park to eat up above us at City Walk. As we walked through the park I noticed there was a stage with the sign that read “animal act”. There was a worker standing in front with a dog beside her. I told her I was a fellow employee and what I was working on and asked, “Do the dogs in the act follow commands to bark?” She assured me they did and led me to backstage to meet the trainers. Turned out they had worked on my movie and actually some of the same dogs were here in this live show. After discussing what was needed with the trainers we set up a date and brought the dogs down to the foley stage for a “doggy” ADR session. Each dog responded to silent commands and barked, whined, sniffed and growled as we recorded them. I now had my kits for each of the main dogs in the movie.

Cutting their tracks was like doing voice replacement for about eight actors throughout an entire movie. Dogs never stop making sounds. They are always panting and licking and doing something that required considerable thought. I would find the most evocative material while still “keeping it real”.

The satisfaction came that in the final product my work was truly invisible. The dog vocals fit perfectly (being from the same dog in many instances) and no one would ever suspect that what they were hearing was not production. The work did not call attention to itself but never the less was some of the best sound work I’ve done recently.

What are your favorite films for sound?

That’s another loaded question. There is such great work out there. I go all the way back to classics like “Shane” and “Forbidden Planet” as early examples. And certainly I used to try and destroy my speakers playing “Top Gun” and then “Days of Thunder” at dangerous volume levels. The work of Ben Burtt, Gary Rydstrom, Randy Thom, Ren Klyce….I could go on and on. When I worked with at Weddington the movies that we were doing, Die Hard, Apollo 13, Speed, all the Joe Dante films……..were so incredibly well done. And recently my colleague at Universal Scott Hecker has put out some of the coolest tracks (300, Watchmen, and Suckerpunch) with Chris Jenkins and Frankie Montano mixing. I thought Avatar was an incredible piece of work knowing the difficulties in having to conceptualize design when you may still be working against a storyboard. I love movies. Always been a film fan and it’s just too hard to narrow the field on my favorites.

This is a good point to mention mixers. To understand how to collaborate and help them do their job is huge. I can’t emphasis enough my belief that it’s a team effort and although I do plenty of premixing back in the editing room I love that another set of very talented ears listens to the material and can add their expertise to it. I always try and meet with the team as early as possible and include them in the process.

Is there any advice you’d like to give to other sound designers out there?

Well, I think the key is to think divergently. Outside the box. Don’t be confined by the laws of nature. That’s how little kids think and that ability seems to disappear as we grow up. I know that there are sounds that have to be exact and correct but emotional sound has a huge role in design. And the practical advise is to put your ego aside and listen to what the filmmaker is saying and present yourself in a manner that instills confidence that you are the right person for the job. One of my favorite stories that help bring that point home is this. Walter Murch and Randy Thom were participating in a forum about sound. When Randy was speaking he told a story of how when he meets with the director he regales him or her with visions of incredible design to come with all sorts of amazing nuance and the client is wowed. They know they have he right person. The the meeting ends, Randy goes into the privacy of his editing room and says to himself, “How the f*ck am I going to do it?”

So don’t let them see you sweat. Bring your best attitude to your meetings……and then go back to your room and start panicking!

Seriously, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for the opportunity to share some stories. I hope this has been informative and a little entertaining.

New year, new month, and of course, a new featured sound designer. This month our special guest is sound designer Elliot Koretz.

I was born and raised just outside Boston and got my start in the industry very early. I guess I was always fascinated with tv and movies. When I was fourteen a cable tv/public access facility opened in my hometown and I got a job there (sometimes volunteer sometimes paid) working in tv production. It was great exposure and training. A number of years later when my dad got a job transfer to the Los Angeles area I moved out to L.A. with the thought that this really is the ultimate place to be for the film industry. I had a degree in film and went looking for work. After what turned out to be a very short search I landed an entry level position at Walt Disney Studios. I worked in the mail room for and then I had an opportunity to get into the editing dept which started me on my my way to being a sound editor and designer.

I am married with two children, two birds and a dog.

Credits @ IMDb

Let’s get started with this month’s special. Below is an interview I had with our guest Harry Cohen, talking about the general aspects of his career.

How did you get started in sound design and what’s been the evolution of your career?

I backed into sound design by accident; I showed up at EFX studios in Burbank to do some piano overdubs on a new-age-y album, and met the staff. They were a music studio just getting into post production. The owner asked me if I would help with some sound effects for game shows they were posting, since I knew synths pretty well. Three days later he asked me out of the blue if I was interested in trying my hand at doing sound fx for a film. (a super low-budget film !), and for better or worse , I agreed. I stayed with EFX for about 12 years, and slowly we built a reputation and started getting better films. Looking back , it was like a rare alignment of the stars or something; so many talented people were associated with that place. (Paul Menichini, David Farmer, Ann Scibelli, Tim Gedemer, Tim Walston, Mike Kamper, Gary Rizzo, Mark Fishman, and on and on). Later, I accepted an offer from from Wylie Stateman and Lon Bender to join Soundelux. Except for a 6 month period where I was ‘on loan’ to Soundstorm, those are the only 3 facilities I have worked for. I’ve been with Soundelux for more than 10 years now.

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

Well , of course , all the great sounding films over the years, and, all the other sound professionals I have worked with. Many people are so open and willing to share what they know, and that is probable the greatest resource we can tap.

I think also that being a musician has had a lot of influence on how I hear things.

How you deal with deadlines and creativity? Is there any special method you have for staying creative?

Aha ! Deadlines and creativity… I find that fear and panic have great effect on your productivity ! But seriously, my thoughts on it are that when you are crunched, you tend to work longer hours, and that after several hours of working with the problem and your material , something ‘clicks’ in your brain , and you go into this mode of being focused and productive. So often we go back to the stuff we did in a hurry when under time pressure , and realize that it is good ! Unfortunately, this is not a great way to work all the time; it tends to take a toll on your life. But I am not one who can be creative all the time; it comes and goes, and I have to take advantage of it when I am ‘in the mode’.

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

In the field , I love my Sound Devices 722. The small portable Zoom type recorders are also super convenient for casual and ‘stealth’ recordings. I have been doing most of my recording with either a Sennheiser 416 or 418; I also love the Neumann 190i. This year I intend to try some larger diaphragm mics. In studio, pro tools of course is the main platform, but I also work in Logic, Max msp, Reason, and other standalone programs. Kontakt has become an important tool for me.

DS: What’s your take on technology and how do you think it has affected the way you design sound today?

Well, looking back, I used a synclavier and a rack of outboard gear. Complex patch-ups were often hard to re-create. Now, if I need 3 more eqs and 2 more compressors, a couple of pitch shifters and some reverbs and delays, the computer isn’t even breathing hard. Also , there are constantly new plug-ins and
new sound technology coming out. I try to experiment with new stuff when I can.

How would you define sound design? What is the essence for you?

Sound Design has really come to mean two separate things. In the larger sense , a sound designer can be someone who is involved with the whole sound of the film; the creation or supervision of all the elements,(except the music) and how they fit together, the arc of the soundtrack, actively working with the mixers to realize the directors wants and vision for the film. But, it also means the guy(s) (or gals) that are tasked with creating and organizing the cool sounds themselves.

Much of what we need does not exist in the real world; or there is a creative ‘re-purposing’ of real world sounds to be something else. Its hard to be both of those people; they are both very time intensive. In practice, my work falls somewhere in between the two, which is to say that I am usually present during the mix to contribute a voice to the shaping of the track , and to manufacture lots of last minute adds and fixes.I do a lot of work with supervisor Wylie Stateman , and we tend to see a lot of things the same way, in terms of what we are trying to accomplish with the sound.

Harry Cohen and Michael Keller

What have been your most challenging projects and why? Any favorites also?

Challenge can be lots of different things. Earlier this year I helped out on Green Lantern, doing the evil monster, his thrall, and any ‘evil energy’. My first day on the project was also the first day of predubs ! That was a particular kind of challenge. Each film presents its own challenges, and while that sounds like a cliche, it is very true. I once told Wylie that if I was really honest with a director at our first meeting, I would say that I have no idea what I am going to do for his film. The film will tell me what it needs……to which Wylie replied “You’d better let me do the talking at that first meeting !”

As far as favorites; the first ‘Blade’ and the more recent ‘Wanted’ are two films that sound very close to my intentions.

What are your favorite type of sounds or scenes to work with and why?

I like creature sounds; I love the subjective type of sounds that are somewhere between sound effects and music. I enjoy doing things that affect the audience emotionally.

DS: Would you like to give an advice to other sound designers out there? What would it be?

My advice to up and comers would be to seek out other people to learn from. One of the things that made EFX such a special place was the continual sharing of information and techniques; its hard to figure everything out yourself. Build your own custom library full of your own recordings and creations. When you are making new sounds, make more than you need, and save some for later. When you wander into an interesting area (design-wise), explore it and record some stuff, even if its not what you currently need. And when playing with processing or plug-ins, I always think ‘how do I know if I’ve gone far enough until I have clearly gone too far ?” Listen to stuff you like and try to figure out how to do some of that. Heck , email the designer , and ask him !

What are your favorite films for sound? Any special recommendations?

Well , I am old enough that Apocalypse Now , the Star Wars films and the first Indiana Jones totally re-defined film sound for me. But advances in recording technology have engendered a whole new era of ‘high definition’ sound that is equally as exciting.

DS: What are you currently working on? What’s next for Harry Cohen?

I am currently working on “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’ for director Timur Bekmambetov. Down the road for us is Oliver Stone’s ‘Savages’ and Quentin Tarrentino’s ‘Django’.

As far as sound in these two industries, both film and game sound brings us into the picture and stirs up our emotions.  It also helps make the images come alive. In film as the story evolves the sound is used to back up the story, and helps make us feel a certain way about the images. There are usually longer and more elaborate sequences to take the viewer through a story with film, and with game sound there is a far greater variety of generally short sounds.  Unlike films, these sounds elicit an immediate, active, reaction from the player.

I think whereas more time goes into pre-production sound work on games than most films, unfortunately for freelancers, an awful lot of this time can be spent dealing with contracts and legal issues instead of being creative. Though sometimes on high budget films there is a fair bit of legal back and forth that is needed, I find that there are way more contract negations with game companies over licensing.

You’ve mentioned previously that game audio is more complicated than film in some ways. Can you go into a little more detail?

There are far more sounds needed in a game than a film, and many more variations on the same theme. Take for example a film and a game that has monsters in it. In a film a creature dies once and the designer only has to create vocals for that one event.  In a game there can be many different possibilities of how and when that creature dies and a variety of subtly different death cries that need to be created. It’s often that way in a game with many many different creatures and emotions that need to be represented. Also, in a game there is more dimension to a scene, like when a player moves and sounds need to change as the image changes.

There are starting to be opportunities for creating new sound styles in 3D movies, but so far I think game sound designers are further ahead in that area.

What types of sounds have you been contracted to provide? And do you provide finished designs/assets, or are you providing component elements for the developers’ sound teams to work with?

With games I’ve been mostly asked to provide creature vocals. I have a huge collection of animal sounds that I, and to some extent my late husband, Alan Splet, recorded over decades. I’ve captured animals that have expressed a panoply of emotions across the globe.  Sometimes I’m also asked for nature sounds such as jungle, desert, and arctic backgrounds or city ambiances in exotic locals, but so far not as much as expressive animals. Once in awhile I’ll get contacted for my large collection of vintage cars, planes and weapons.

What are some of the questions you ask when you are approached to work on a game?

After signing an NDA, I try to find out as much information as possible about the nature of the game and what kinds of sounds they are looking for to enhance their project. I tell them about sounds in my library and generally what I have that can help.

My process of coming up with really useful sounds for the game evolves as I talk with the designer, send material, get feedback, and enhance the package as the process progresses. I choose material based on this collaboration and through suggestions of ways that it can be layered in various combinations, or slowed or sped up, and processed to get the effect needed.

Bears, horses, wolves, whales, lions, leopards, monkeys and alligators just to name a few animals that happen to come to mind, can be used in surprising and endless combinations. Sometimes I’ll find material from my library that isn’t an animal but has the right effect. For example, I have some amazing dry ice recordings that David Lynch and Alan created many years ago for Eraserhead.  Some of it sounds like wounded or angry animals and can be really useful in sweetening real animal vocals.

What reference materials do you commonly work with from developers?

Stills, video clips from the game and descriptions and explanations from the sound designer.

Are there any particular characteristics that help you define the sonic palette for a game asset? What structural and visual aspects help you connect a specific sound to a given game element?

The more information I can get and visuals I can see, the more I am able to come up with interesting and nuanced varieties of sounds.  Sometimes I find sounds that you wouldn’t think of for a particular image but really add an extra flavor or exciting dimension to it.

How does the overall look and tone of the game affect your decisions?

Just as in film the look and tone of the images in a game has a huge effect on what sorts of sounds are needed. For example, the sound needs to create threatening monsters for Hellgate London was very different from the adorable, young cats or bears that the guys working on Kinectimals were wanting.

You provided sounds for Spore, which was a rather unpredictable game. Players designed their creatures/races from the ground up, watching them evolve as the game progressed. I imagine that presented a very unique set of considerations when developing sounds for the game. Care to comment?

Spore is an incredible game! I worked with the local sound developers in the East Bay of San Francisco, for several months on the game. They were a great team and I enjoyed the communication, but I think I could have been much more helpful to them during the initial development if the nature of the game had been more clear. The problem was that they hadn’t received enough information themselves about the look of the creatures. We initially thought that the creatures were much more menacing than they actually were when the first images finally came in. I had helped them develop a whole vocabulary that we had thought would be appropriate given the information we had, but needed to be dramatically different once the images started coming in.  It was at that time that a different sound designer took charge, brought in new people, and took the sound in a different direction. I would have loved to be involved in that as well but alas, it wasn’t in the cards.

What is the feedback process like when working with the in-house audio teams?

I tend to get terrific feedback. I develop an understanding and rapport with my clients that evolves over time. I like talking with them on the phone (or Skype) if we’re in different locales. Sometimes I’ll play sounds over a speakerphone just to show them what I’m thinking and that’s an instant way to find out if we’re on the same track or where I need to go.

What’s one of your favorite moments from working on some of these games?

One delightful experience I had was last year when I recorded new animal vocals for Kinectimals. I spent a week at a big cat preserve in the Mojave Desert. I really got to know the kitties while I was there. I fell in love with a magnificent Tiger named Caesar that would come over to me and tell me his woes. He’d look into my eyes and talk right into my microphone. One day he put the back of his head against the fence and wanted me to pet him. I told him I wasn’t allowed and he was very incensed.  He like most of cats there seemed to understand that I was trying to capture their voices with those big mics. Once I convinced them not to be afraid, and showed I was interested in what they had to say, they were wonderfully vocal with me.  There was an adorable leopard cub that would hiss and snarl at the mic and then pull back, sit and smile at me.  I called him “tuff stuff”.  He was so proud of showing me how tuff he was. Then there were other cats that would grumble, and chuff, howl, hiss and sing.

One night I went out to capture a primal chuffing sound that the cats do in a group at night.  They evidently won’t do this around people so I set my rig up at the edge of Caesar. the tiger’s large compound. hoping that maybe I could capture him making that sound.  I turned the recorder on and walked away with my guide. We sat back under the trees and could hear a group of leopards start their chorus and it sounded like Caesar started to chime in.  When I listened to the tape, after the leopards provided the background vocals Caesar had walked right up to the mic and like a great jazz singer sang a wonderfully expressive solo. It took everything in me to keep from going over and hugging him.

You come from a very unique background within the audio industry; having worked on some of the most revered soundtracks for film, and now contributing to some of the largest game franchises in existence. Do you have any comments to the game audio industry?

It seems like there is a general feeling that film is where the most creative and serious sound work is being done, but games are now so much more imaginative and sophisticated than what they used to be. There are more resources and development time being put into game sound than there is on an average film, and the innovations being made are well… awesome.

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!

Among many award winning documentaries, Coll has worked on Restrepo (2010), Catfish (2010) and the Academy Award winning The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). For this interview, he shares some thoughts on all these films and about the general collaboration with documentary filmmakers.

Designing Sound: In the interview earlier this month, you mentioned how you really love documentary filmmaking. Could you elaborate on that?

Coll Anderson: I became interested in making films through the School of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard (I knew a girl who went there, go figure…). VES has really strong roots in documentary film making and through the people who I met there I fell in love with these films that studied life, real life… Sure we can all understand that having a film crew around affects the life of any subject and thus “document” is a bit of a misnomer, but the work of people like Dick Rogers, Robb Moss, Ross McElwee, not to mention the filmmakers of that community, naturally has an affect on you, and regardless of its ultimate truth, I started to love creating that seamless believability of documentary film in its most Wisemanesque form.

DS: It seems like there’s generally way more focus on documentaries now than, say, 15 years ago. Do you feel the focus on documentary sound has changed during that period, as well?

CA: Sure, ever have to deliver a fully filled M&E for a doc…?  Viewers become more sophisticated, more aware, every year.  That just naturally feeds into the stories documentaries tell. It becomes so important to keep the interaction between viewer and film on a subconscious level and sound is to me the plane where that connection happens.

DS: How is your usual workflow on a documentary? What’s your typical schedule?  And do you have any specific sound design philosophy for documentaries?

CA: Find me a typical doc and I will try to answer that one…  Really, they are all different shapes and sizes.

Usually I try to watch the film on my own, and then again with the director…  I have been doing this long enough that most directors let me go off on my own.  I try to get a few weeks to find bg’s and efx that fit the story while giving it additional depth.  I like to deal with the film on two distinct levels.  First the surface reality, that which is so “real” it is just assumed it is fact…  If you have no idea what I have done or who I even am, then I am doing a big part of my job well.  Then I also like to try and explore some more emotional and subconscious aspects of the story…  To sort of find and make sounds that might be in your dreams if you were to re-live the film in that state of mind… For instance, imagine you watched a film and had dreams about it.  Then if you told someone about those dreams, with all the emotion and flow that dreams imbibe, what kind of dreams would that person have about what you told them…  Well that is what I imagine I want to hear, that third person’s imagined experience.  It is a sort of way of finding sonic irony in extending the real…

DS: Realism, authenticity and location or time specific sound effects can be quite important to documentaries, I guess. Do you do a lot of research about the sonic palette of the film?

CA: I used to do more… Yes, authenticity is fantastic but we are still telling stories and that means what works for the story is often the most authentic thing.  People go crazy over two and three axle trains or the right motorcycle sound… but in the end, in real life, guns just go pop really loud.  Rather what I love is when you have no idea I did anything.  Seamless interaction between sound and story will always be the most authentic thing we can so.

DS: How do you prefer to work with directors? How early are you usually involved in documentary projects?

CA: This often comes down to trust…  Most of the directors I work with trust me enough to give me their thoughts and notes and then let me go to work.  That usually gives us enough to do before the mix.  Really when the cut is right we all know what the film needs… The road map is there, sometimes I just have to open my eyes and follow it and the directors that I like most, know that and let me do it.  I like to get through a pre on my own and then have them chime in.  That seems to work.  Plus it keeps them from having to bring up all sorts of little things that I am in the process of working on…  Like a scriptwriter, I need a little of my own edit time, a small draft or two before it is ready for peoples notes.  Which is not to say the notes are not super important and an essential part of the process, but I would rather help the director keep focused on the big stuff.  I think we sometimes forget that is an essential element of the job.

DS: You’ve worked with Errol Morris several times, both on the TV series First Person and on the Academy Award winner The Fog of War. How would you describe Morris? Is he very focused on sound?

CA: It has been a little while but what I remember is Errol loved irony.  I enjoyed that about his sense of what worked. Always finding sounds that were more than what was on the screen and never what was expected…  He always encouraged me to design, make and find things that went past predictable.  No hits or tones or “trailer” sounds.  Instead, he let me get into more “evolveative” things.  I remember I found this child’s toy…  Mr. Microphone.  I got it to do this wonderful feedback loop thing that when you pitched down became really measured in tempo like a dream click track…  Whop whop whop whop…  Very dark but not at all what you would think would work for dropping napalm.  He was always good with letting me paint with sound what I was hearing in my head.

DS: You also did the sound for Catfish. Whereas Fog of War is quite stylized, Catfish is much more rough around edges but also quite emotional. How did you approach that film? Please share some stories…

CA: I love Catfish.  I mean love…  First of all, great crew, one of the best.  Zac is a great editor.  Henry and Ariel are amazing and their sincerity is so refreshing.  We actually did a lot of design for Catfish you just don’t know it… We went to great lengths to make sure that the process was never too fluid.  It is already very hard to believe the story and because they are so understated with the drama and how they handle it, my crew had to go to great lengths to do the opposite and actually keep reminding you that the story is real.  We made sure you noticed cuts in the BG’s, made sure the phone conversations sounded gritty, made sure that the cars were loud enough or there was enough noise on the track.  Zac set up cuts that we could augment as being rough…  There are even places where using wireless hits and noise, really helped us feel the filmmakers process, how far away, the characters were from us, making us all the more aware of how much closer “they” were to the unknown elements of the story.

DS: Another recent documentary you did was Restrepo which was nominated for an Oscar. The film is portraying a US Platoon in Afghanistan for 14 months. What was it like doing a war documentary?

CA: That is a tough one, as you must know one of the directors, Tim Hetherington, was killed in Libya this year and that was a huge loss.  Tim touched so many people and his loss is a great weight… You know this thing, going about documenting some of the world’s darker issues, is a calling that for the betterment of the greater good, some people have to do… We as a society need people to do this for us.  The problem is that to report the world’s truths, not to over dramatize or sensationalize, but to tell of events with the most honesty that humans can muster, is a very dangerous position for any reporter/filmmaker to submit to.  With that in mind, the goal with Restrepo was really to be true to the film Tim and Sebastian made. They did not get into the political issues of war, but instead told the story of what happens when simple men fight.  What the reality of that mix between mindless boredom and pure violent chaos does to people. I think we wanted to use sound to help you the viewer understand the serenity of the quiet moments, to hear nature and the world continuing on, and then at the drop of a hat, hear the chaos and distortion of total violence…We tried to make sure you could understand the geography of what was going on, where shots were coming from or going to… Even as simple as where the soldiers were at every particular moment. I have to say, I think the real good stuff is in the Ambiences Matt Snedecor cut. I think he did a great job of connecting the war to the physical place and that for me makes it so much more of an experience.

DS: Do you have any advice to sound designers working on documentaries?

CA: Write, read, love what you do, love people around you…  In the film industry it is hard to have a life…  Make sure you don’t make that mistake.  No one ever said when greeting Death, “golly I wish I worked more…”  We enrich ourselves and our work when our lives are deeply filled with experience and understanding…  Go and make some shit, break some shit, record some shit and laugh doing all three. Promise it will do more for you than any plug–in on the planet.

Tim Prebble has released Blow Holes on HISS and a ROAR, opening a new catalog of ambience libraries.

Ambiences play a crucial role in every film: literally, emotionally and physically they define the world that the film exists in. Accordingly we endeavor to provide characterful multichannel recordings of dramatically interesting locations.

The ocean has an infinite range of moods, but when the power of an incoming tide becomes constricted it can lead to some awe-inspiring sounds. This library was recorded on a Sound Devices 744 recorder using a Sanken CSS5 stereo mic along with Sennheiser MKH70 and MKH816 mics. Four locations were chosen specifically for their unique sonic properties:

• Punakaiki Blow Holes – West Coast, South Island, New Zealand
• Alofaaga Blow Holes – Taga, Savai’i, Samoa
• CastlePoint The Gap – East Coast, North Island, New Zealand
• Muriwai The Gap – West Coast, North Island, New Zealand

Blow Holes Library | 24bit 96kHz | 1.52GB download | 2.17GB uncompressed

Here’s a Q&A with Tim, talking about the library and his projects.

DS: What was the inspiration behind this library?

TP: Ever since I first started working as a sound effects editor I’ve loved recording and editing ambiences for films. Its such a lovely subtle area to be working in, and is also somehow personal as you tend to draw from your own experiences and memories of how specific locations sound, how they affect you and how you can recreate them, while also retaining control so as to impart meaning and emotion to them. So it was inevitable I would start releasing ambience libraries. Living in a small island nation I guess it was also inevitable my first ambience libraries would be of the ocean. I’m not going to wax lyrical about the ocean but I love its many moods; there is nothing more relaxing than the gentle rhythm of a calm beach, nor more terrifying and life threatening than a storm at sea. The BLOW HOLES library is the first part of a trilogy of ocean ambience libraries that I am working on, the second library will be STORMY SEAS and the third CALM BEACHES, so that between these three libraries a vast range of situations can be catered for, with really unique & dramatic character.

DS: Tell us about the locations.

TP: Well the first location, Punikaiki I have been to literally dozens of times. It is on the West Coast of the South Island, only a couple of hours drive from Christchurch, where I grew up and went to University and then Film School. Punikaiki is always visually stunning, but sonically you need some local knowledge. Years ago I went there with friends during the day and it was impressive but the tide was out and it was calm, and I think my friends wondered what I had been so excited about. We were staying only a half hour way walk away so after dinner & a few drinks that night, we wandered back – I distinctly remember the full moon and the subsonic rumble as we approached the area. But the sound I will never forget is the first vented blow hole. This vent is maybe 200m from the sea, so there is no water, just a large hole in the ground surrounded by flax. You hear a distant boom and then a huge rush of air. The Maori of New Zealand have a term ‘Taniwha’ which refers to beings that live in deep pools or in the sea. Some taniwha are considered protective guardians while others are predatory. When we came across this vent, in the middle of the night, I could easily see how you might think only an angry sea monster could be creating such a sound! When we finally got out to the viewing area, the blow holes were blasting spray 20m into the air! It really is equal parts awe inspiring and scary! I’ve recorded at Punikaiki a few times, but I figured it was worth another visit armed with the tools I now have.

The second location was a side trip when I was in Samoa, recording ambiences for the film O Le Tulafale (The Orator) – I stayed an extra weekend & took my rental car on the ferry over to the larger island of Savaii. I had read of the Taga blow holes at Alofaaga, but again describing them is nothing like experiencing them. There were a few times when I had to really quell a surge of andrenalyn caused by being so close to such a powerful and unpredictable force of nature. As you can see in the video a local guy appeared out of nowhere and took a bag of old coconut husks, and would throw them in the blowhole just before the wave surged in, and the husk would fly like a cannonball such was the pressure (I had to ask him to stop shrieking with laughter every time he did it!)

The third location, Castlepoint, is a lovely summer resort for swimming and surfing, but also has a treacherous reef that has claimed the lives of a number of fishermen. I wasn’t quite aware of how dangerous it was until I went there to record a few months ago, and driving from Wellington I only got there an hour or two before high tide. I started to walk across the reef to the gap that I wanted to record and could instantly see how evil that sea was. It literally rose and fell three or four metres in a few seconds, a wave could easily sweep me & my gear off into the open sea in the blink of an eye. A little shaken I went home and planned to return, and when I did I rented a nearby holiday house for a weekend so I could stay and easily track the tide and choose my moment to record.

The fourth location was Muriwai, a vast open beach, on the west coast from Auckland. Muriwai is well known for its surf but also for its treacherous fishing spot: The Gap. The waves pound into a narrow rocky inlet and the containment really amplifies and focuses the powerful relentless sound of the ocean.

All in all, many fun and scary days at the beach were involved! And best of all, using a boom I could put the mic where it was completely unsafe to be… and listen.

DS: What’s next for HISSandaROAR?

TP: I’m half way through recording TORTURED PIANO which involves the total destruction of an old bora-ridden upright piano, along with some rather strange manipulation of my baby grand piano. Its going to be a multi channel library as I am recording with two contact mics as well as condensor mics. But it is not a music library – I am specifically after sound design elements: strange textures, resonant scrapes, cracks, hits, metal creaks & groans. While it is kind of sad to see a musical instrument destroyed, this piano was long beyond saving before I got it, so in a way I am paying tribute to its life by immortalizing its final sounds. After that will be a new creature vocal library – the SEAL VOCALS have been so well received that I am going to follow it up with a smaller, nastier creature, capable of some truly viscous sounds.

DS: How about THE DOORS library?

TP: Its definitely in the schedule, but the drives are literally still traveling around the world to all of the contributors. So it will be another month or so before I am able to release it. Its a little frustrating, we really need the speed and data limits of the Internet to catch up with our use for it, to make this concept more efficient.

DS: How are the film projects going?

TP: Great but very, very busy. We started predubs at Park Road Post for the Cirque De Soilel 3D film this week. So in 4 weeks time it will be finished, and then I start back into O Le Tulafale (The Orator) with another field trip to Samoa. After we mix it in July I’m taking a long overdue break and will head to Japan and hopefully South Korea. I’ve also started planning a field trip to Papua New Guinea for a film (Mister Pip by Andrew Adamson) that I’m starting near the end of the year. No rest for the wicked!

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!

It’s always a pleasure to announce a new guest on Designing Sound. During this month, Rodney Gates will be sharing with us a lot of his experiences in the world of sound design and audio direction for video games.

Bio

“I became interested in sound and music at a young age, making cassette tapes on my Yorx stereo with a crude electret-condenser microphone with old needle-drop sound effects on LP added in, telling crazy stories in this fashion, at the age of 13 in the sizzling-hot summers of Phoenix, AZ.

The teen years naturally led to an interest in the electric guitar, and after getting my first one at 15, I proceeded to learn every single Metallica song I could, with my brother on drums. I never went the band route though, like my brother did, but instead saved my money working in food service and wholesale printing to get a Tascam Portastudio 4-track cassette-based recorder. I remember vividly the moment I soloed a guitar part over a previously-recorded rhythm track and played it back. It was then I was hugely bitten by the recording bug.

This led to a class at Phoenix College, which opened me up a little to audio engineering. I ended up buying a lot of equipment I didn’t thoroughly understand, which included a Yamaha ProMix 01 digital mixer, an original Alesis ADAT, and a Tascam DAT recorder, plus a couple of mics. I remember buying Cakewalk 3 on a single floppy disk for $300 to use with my Alesis QuadraSynth and a Compaq PC running Windows 3.1 back in 1995, sequencing all kinds of crazy tunes, while recording guitars, bass and drum machines all by my lonesome.

Then I decided to finally jump into something that would hopefully prepare me to be a little more professional – the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe, AZ. What a great school. I sponged up the information they taught me there and couldn’t wait to intern someplace. I had really gained an interest in post production and Foley artistry, and I remember I wished I could have interned at Skywalker Sound when it was over. However, with limited placement there and the fact I didn’t know anyone up in the San Francisco area to stay with, I opted for New York instead. I briefly interned at the Soundtrack Group in Manhattan, whose focus was music production, working the graveyard shift of 12-8AM. The highlight, if you want to call it that, was making hot chocolate for Busta Rhymes and his posse.

Meh.

Let’s just say that it wasn’t my cup of tea. I could see myself spending years there, paying my dues, only to finally get the chance to assist on some sessions, and maybe one day become a house engineer. I didn’t think that was the path for me.

I moved back to AZ a little disillusioned and went back to work in printing, for several years actually. Phoenix was mostly a dead town for recording skills. It wasn’t until becoming so impressed with 2002′s Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on PC that I fully realized there must be people with careers in game audio – this seemed like the niche for me.

After spending a year creating a demo and mailing it out, I finally began my career as an Associate Audio Designer at Sammy Studios in Carlsbad, CA in early 2004, working on a fun vampire-western FPS, Darkwatch.

Sammy turned into High Moon Studios in early 2005 and eventually was purchased by Vivendi-Universal at the end of the year, as I began working on the title, Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy, as Sound Designer. Part-way through the title’s development, I was promoted to Senior Sound Designer, and once the title was wrapped, Lead (the dev cycle ran a little long).

When the Vivendi – Activision merger completed, High Moon fell under the new Activision | Blizzard parent and began developing Transformers: War For Cybertron. Unfortunately, the merger had stopped HMS’ development of two other projects, one of which I was the Lead of, so I began to feel redundant.

An opportunity arose at Sony Online Entertainment, and I started there in November of 2009 as a Senior Sound Designer, and shortly thereafter I became and currently serve as their Audio Director.”

Selected Works

• Free Realms (SOE – PS3, 2011)
• EverQuest II – Destiny Of Velious expansion (SOE – PC, 2011)
• Magic: The Gathering – Tactics (SOE – PC, 2011)
• DC Universe Online (SOE – PC / PS3, 2011)
• James Patterson’s Catch A Killer (SOE – Facebook, 2010)
• EverQuest – House Of Thule expansion (SOE – PC, 2010)
• Clone Wars Adventures (SOE / Lucasarts – PC / Mac, 2010)
• EverQuest II – Sentinel’s Fate expansion (SOE – PC, 2010)
• Transformers: War For Cybertron (Activision – Xbox 360 / PS3 / PC, 2010 – uncredited)
• Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy (Vivendi-Universal – Xbox 360 / PS3, 2008)
• Darkwatch (Capcom – Xbox / PS2, 2005)

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