Designing Sound: While we all know about BOOM Library, tell us about yourself. What got you interested in sound?

Axel Rohrbach: I can not remember any day in my life without being involved in any way in audio. The reason is simple: my parents own a music-school. I started with early education in music when I was 3 years old, clapping, singing playing percussion and that sort of stuff. At the age of 5 I started having classical piano lessons. After that I became more and more attracted to music, took lessons in several instruments like E-Bass, Organ, Keyboard, Trombone. There was this Yamaha support programme for young composers. I first went into studios at the age of 10, recording my own compositions, organized by Yamaha. I played in bands, orchestras and solo piano for dinner in restaurants. My first creative tool was a tracker application on the Amiga. I recorded my own samples for that with really unbelievably cheap equipment when I was 12 years old. At the age of 15 I updated to Logic 3 with Audiowerk 8. This was the time I first got in touch with sound design, creating radio jingles and sounds for our school radio.

DS: Wow! That is really impressive. With such a strong musical influence, do you perceive the design of sound effects like just another musical instrument working in an arrangement? Also, does your musical knowledge allow for easier communication with the composers you work with?

AR: I guess it is the best of both. Creating sound effects is a bit like mixing a song. Every instrument has its role which should be featured, in a good arrangement all the instruments have a reason and are completing the other instruments in their sound characters and frequency range. The same goes for sound effects. Differently layered sounds should complete each other to build a sound effect. This sound effect however could be an instrument again, having a special character and frequency spectrum to build the “song” (= movie, game, scene) in combination with other instruments (= sound effects, music, dialogue).Talking to musicians is definitely easier when you understand what they are talking about. Also talking to clients is much easier, because I am able to talk about sound effects as well as music. The most important thing in my daily business is, that I am able to create short snippets of music like winning jingles, confirm buttons, gambling machine sounds, cell-phone ringtones and that kind of stuff.

DS: Tell us about Dynamedion and the role you play there.

AR: Dynamedion is the leader in soundtrack composition and sound design on the European computer game market. Credits include “Crysis 2″, “Alan Wake”, “Halo Legends”, “Darksiders Wrath of War”, “Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe”. I am currently lead sound designer at Dynamedion, but I am not sure how long I can handle the workload together with the Boom Library. Maybe in the near future I will swap to being senior sound designer. Being lead sound designer means that I am responsible for organizational things, budgets, style spotting and “vision” plus the communication inside the team.

DS: You primarily work out of Europe. Do you find the industry very different from elsewhere in the world? Are there any advantages and/or drawbacks?

AR: There are definitely different genres focussed in different countries. Germany for examples loves the medieval era. Games like Gothic, Sacred, A.D. (aka Anno), The Settlers, Drakensang, Battleforge; just some examples. From my experience there are definitely differences from country to country, but the goal stays the same: creating games that are somehow touching the players, using mostly the components story & character, gameplay, visuals and audio.An advantage of working in Europe is, that there are a lot of different countries and possibilities. Everything is pretty close together, so the travel times are low. Drawbacks of course are many different languages and laws. Being experienced in working with those drawbacks however is an advantage. We work on projects in whole Europe, in North America, in Russia and in Asia which is only possible because we are experienced in working with other countries.A drawback for us sound designers in Europe is that the population is extremely dense. Especially where Dynamedion is located, it is really hard to find a quiet spot without a busy road, without an airport approach corridor, without a windmill etc. Also the laws over here, best example the gun laws, are so strict, I can’t count how often I risked being caught by the police for recording things.

DS: If you have to describe what ‘Sound Design’ is to you in a sentence, what would it be?

AR: Sound Design is the creation of realities.

DS: Do you mean designing something that is believable for the audience/player even if it’s something surreal and might not exist in our everyday lives?

AR: This is actually meant ambiguously. What you mentioned is one of the meanings. I think sound design is done very well if no-one recognizes it. If you are sitting in the cinema and think “this was a sound effect” – something went wrong. Of course it is possible that sound design is the main focus and should be recognized, but this is seldom the case. It should feel real. In the real world you wouldn’t think “that was a tire squeal, followed by a sheet impact, glass impact and some debris”. You would think “that was a car crash”.  You wouldn’t think “this is a click clock click clack sound”. You would think “RUN! It’s a Predator!!!”On the other hand sound can be real in creating emotional reaction. Goosebumps is very real. Rapid heart beats are real, feeling queasy is real. Those are things that can be caused or at least provoked with sound.

DS: Have you had any mentors or strong influences?

AR: I had to think about that for a while. The answer is yes – and no. I had a lot of mentors, teachers, situations, friends, experiences that strongly influenced me. But there is no “main mentor” or “key-situation”. It is like a puzzle, tons of small pieces create a whole Axel (fill in your name). There are of course periods in my life in which I was focussing on some things. During my time at the university for example I was trained to be creative, to take my time to create art –  during my first job and here at Dynamedion I have learned how to work efficiently and how to achieve an output that is compatible with the world around me.

DS: Are there tools – both in the field and studio – that you can’t do without?

AR: Excel for organizational things and recording roadmaps for the field.

I am relatively new to Wavelab and it still is a bit buggy – but this quickly became one of the things I don’t want to live without anymore. Same for iZotope RX. I usually use it stand-alone. A real killer app.

It is hard to say for the field. I love the equipment we use, especially the SD 744T. I think there is lots of space for improvement in field related gear. Examples: having 4 mic preamps in the 744T would be a great benefit. My headphones (Sony MDR 7506) sound great, but they hurt after a while. The MKH416 sound awesome, but they are mono only and the MKH418 sounds different. And so on. Don’t get me wrong here: I really like the stuff and the results they bring, it’s just that I don’t want to recommend anything without  talking about details.

DS: If given a choice between time spent in the studio or recording outdoors, which would you prefer?

AR: This is a tough one. Would you define “studio” with editing, mixing and such vs “recording outdoors” which also means recording indoors? In that case nothing is preferred, or both. I enjoy recording things, trying out which wood has the best wooden impact sound etc. But after every recording I am so looking forward listening to it and editing in the studio, that I would say it really belongs together.Recording outdoors vs recording in a studio: In this case I prefer the outdoors. But only because I like to go out and breathe fresh air. Talking about the sound quality: there are a lot of things that I rather record in a studio or on a foley stage. You don’t have to clean the recordings too much and cleaning is always a loss of sound quality. But there are of course a lot of things that are too loud or too big for a studio recording or simply sound better outdoors.However, the best experiences so far were always going out to record for the Boom Library. Having a lion about 20 cm in front of me, smelling his terrible stinking breath, shooting an AK47 in a stone pit, smashing full bottles of sparkling vine against a wall or having a Tiger pee on me from 3 m distance will never go out of my head.

DS: How do you approach a new project? Do you have a methodical style of working or is every project treated differently?

AR: We do have a methodical style of working. If possible we try to make only minor changes to that per project.

However, some projects imply to be treated differently. The approach is as follows:

1) Talking to the client about the project, getting as much information, visuals, artworks, story etc as possible. This spotting session is very important and saves us a lot of time if done properly.

2) Defining timelines, schedules and content. We create a sound-book and a music-book containing every single sound and every piece of music, including examples if there are any, a description, status and a deadline per sound / music piece. The milestones should be defined thoughtfully. It makes no sense to constantly postpone milestones because the graphics are not ready or because we weren’t able to get the recordings done. At this state we also have to organize recordings if other people need to be booked.

3) Starting to design / compose. At this point everything should have been discussed. All the involved audio creatives should know what is expected from their work, all information necessary should be available.

4) Feedback from the client. The first packages should be delivered as soon as possible to get a first early feedback. This shows if topic 1) was done right.

5) Mixing, mastering, implementation (games). This last step is more or less clear I guess. For games: the implementation should not wait until all the sounds are ready but rather start right away when the first sounds have been created, probably even before that using, dummy sounds. But this is definitely the last step for a game. After the last sound is delivered, it has to be implemented and checked in-game.

6) Check bank account.
This works for all kinds of projects, no matter if it is a sound library, a game, a trailer or a movie. However, the duration of the topics may differ strongly, depending on the size and kind of the project.

DS: How do you overcome creative roadblocks?

AR: For the Cinematic Trailers library we had those creative roadblocks from time to time. My best chance to overcome this is to start working. If I am unable to think of ways to be creative I have to record all kinds of things or test new ways in the host sequencer. Most of the time that really helps getting new ideas or finding new approaches to create desired sounds. Another way is to set short deadlines which puts me under pressure. Sounds weird, but this often helps me. The last thing I do if nothing helps: taking two days off, doing something really different like visiting a funfair, reading a book, going to the cinema or doing sports to reboot the brain.

DS: A lot of freshers/students believe that ‘Sound Design’ is only about making cool sounds. But in reality it includes a lot more – including time, people and budget management. What are your thoughts on this? What is your formula for keeping clients happy?

AR: I think one of the most important things is service. Answering emails and phone calls as soon as possible (I am talking about minutes, not days). Service includes fair budgets, probably even helping to get the budgets down with ideas and solutions. This might result in less income for you for now, but a client who will book you again.
Late deliveries is a no-go. There may be situations in which it is better for the client’s project to deliver things later –  talk to them and discuss that, but there should definitely be a back-up plan to deliver on time.

Even if the client gets personal in his feedback or reactions: don’t get emotional. Stay calm and objective. You are not the only one being creatively and emotionally involved in the project, the client is as well. Fierce discussions only waste time for all parties.

From my experience, talking about quality is not interesting for the client. Creating outstanding sounds is your job. The client expects the best ever made anyway, no matter what they pay or how short the deadline is.

DS: What are you currently working on and what do you have lined up?

AR: The most hated questions ;-) I am not allowed to talk about current projects, even if I would love to, because as always the current projects are the best one has ever worked on. Anyway, there are some things I am able to say. We are still in production for Ubisoft’s “Anno 2070″. We do the music, sound effects and implementation for that. I visit the studio (Related Designs) from time to time to implement the sounds onsite, the sounds are created in our studios. ”Risen 2″ is nearly finished, there are only a few remaining sounds to do. There are two more major games currently in the making, one is a fantasy game (PC and next gen consoles), the other one is big franchise game (Xbox). Additionally we are working hard on the next Boom Library already. This is going to be a “Construction Kit” plus “Designed” library again and we a hard at work already.

(Field recording - Seatoun, Wellington, New Zealand)

Many of you may know Tim Prebble, sound designer based on Wellington, New Zealand. Maybe you’ve heard about him by reading one of his great advices on a forum or social network; maybe you’ve been inspired because of something he shared on his fantastic blog; maybe you know him for his great sound effects libraries, or his music/netlabel, and, of course for any of the +30 films that he has been part of, as sound recordist, editor and/or designer. As his website (and that great Beatles song) states: he is “here , there and everywhere”.

This interview is something that I always wanted to do. It’s not as easy to ask a limited number of questions to someone who has influenced and inspired me (and many of you, I guess) in the way Tim has done. His philosophy, creative methods, influences, his unique way of approach his work. Let’s discover what’s in the creative mind of Tim Prebble.

Designing Sound: Could you describe your sound design philosophy? What’s sound design for you?

Tim Prebble: I started my career as a sound editor back in the early 90s, inspired by the work of directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Akira Kurosawa, Sergio Leone, Francis Ford-Coppolla, Andrei Tarkovsky and many others. So any form of a philosophy of sound design originates for me from the active role sound (and music) play in the context of film making. Sound design for me is film sound design – that is why I do what I do.

(Toho Studios - Tokyo, Japan)

DS: How has this philosophy and approach to your work changed through the evolution of your career?

TP: Experience is a great teacher; over time it helps develop your instincts but it is equally important to retain an open mind & to find interpretations and solutions uniquely suited to each project. I think any creative vocation is inevitably influenced by your personal life and your experiences, so the older you get the more there is to draw from. Some aspects (passion, enthusiasm, commitment, desire to experiment & explore) are as strong now as ever, whereas others (clarity of vision, personal aesthetics) are constantly evolving and developing… In the very early days I was necessarily focused on HOW things are done, but it is so important to think about WHY – the motivation, intent & dramatic purpose.

DS: How do you like to start a project?

TP: Philosophically my approach has always been that budget is not the primary issue; the most essential aspect to determine is whether creatively I am the right person for the project, and vice versa. Film making requires an inordinate amount of trust & open collaboration. Writers & directors work for many, many years to get their project into production, so I am deeply respectful of that commitment & acknowledge the creative commitment they in turn expect from me. I like to start projects as early as possible, definitely before they have been shot. I often think the most valuable work that I do for a film early on, is thinking. By starting before the shoot it means I can think about the film, dream about it and collect ideas, research its themes and practicalities. And then discuss them before the shoot has ever started. So the first step for me is reading the script and meeting with the director and producer, and establishing that sense of collaboration from the outset.

DS: How much experimentation is present in your sound design process?

TP: Experimentation is a part of all creativity and there are philosophical parallels to travel: on the way from A to B many interesting things will be discovered, and some of them may well turn out to be every bit as important as arriving at the destination. Experimentation is partly a mindset, a freedom that requires you to be vulnerable & open, to delay judgement until the result has actually occurrred, and possible new contexts have been considered. It is also important to remember that doing the wrong thing can also be essential – it can provide invaluable insight into other possible approaches. While it is easier and potentially less risky to do all the experimentation early in the schedule, I think it is also important to be open to experimentation throughout the process, including the last days of the final mix, simply because the true dramatic nature of the final film does not exist until that point. Thankfully the technology we now have available when mixing enables comparative experimentation eg after the first screening of the final mix it can be a total joy to know a scene works as mixed, but to be able to put that version aside and try a totally different approach.

(Experimenting with pitched metal)

DS: How do you prefer to work with directors?

TP: One interesting aspect of working in post production is that we get to work with a lot of different directors, and each director has their own style, approach & priorities. But whereas I may have worked with 30 different directors in the last ten years, each of those directors has often only worked on their own films. So every film is a unique learning experience for me, establishing the directors main focus and which elements are subjective & will require the most evolution. I thoroughly enjoy providing temp sounds early in the process eg even during the first picture assembly. The sooner the director and picture editor are hearing material from us, the more they will include sound in their decision making. Early on I am often providing temp sounds before we have even spotted the film with the director, so I have no choice but to follow my instincts and I think that can be valuable i.e. for the director to hear an interpretation that is based on reaction to the image prior to any discussion about intent. This should be self evident but its also important to constantly remind yourself that directors like to direct, so establishing a process where they are constantly hearing work in progress and providing input is important, whether its in the Avid or during screenings in my studio or via temp mixes.

DS: How powerful do you think deadlines are for our minds/creativity?

TP: I have learned to love deadlines and to appreciate how important they are in terms of decision making. Deadlines provide a clarity of vision that may not otherwise be achievable, whether they are self imposed short term deadlines, or your final pass before predubs, or literally the final mix screening before print master. Accordingly I believe that attending predubs and the final mix is essential in the development of being a sound editor. There is a vast difference between getting a note for a fix from a supervisor, and being on the dub stage and seeing for yourself why some element is not working and needs attention. All of these observations inform how you might approach a similar situation in the future and it is very important experience to gain, because these are the most important decisions – they directly affect the final film.

DS: Do you have any methods or habits that help you getting and organizing ideas? How do you deal with writer’s block?

TP: Ideas can be fleeting so it is important to capture them when they occur – never, ever say to yourself “its ok I’ll remember it….” because ideas can be mercurial and may only exist due to the state of your mind at the time. Wait an hour or a day and that idea may be gone, forever. My favourite means of collecting & evolving ideas is via the humble Moleskin notebook. It doesn’t require batteries or wifi and its small enough to always have with you, wherever you are. I’m starting to sound like a luddite but pen and paper really work for me too.

When online I heavily rely on RSS, Google Alerts and Evernote (directly and via email forwarding) to find and collect ideas. I use VoodooPad, Scrivener and DevonThink to collate & organise them, maintaing sync between all my devices via Dropbox. When working to picture I tend to rely heavily on ProTools markers, both for listing and as a non-linear sync grid. They are easy to conform as picture cuts occur but AVID really need to develop markers into a proper relational database structure with import, export and tagging/metadata. Markers are so useful it is ludicrous that their functionality is so primitive – if you agree please vote for it on IdeaScale.

With regards to writer’s block I think it is important to be able to observe yourself & your moods and pursue the aspects of your work that is most likely to achieve the best result. If you feel inspired its important to acknowledge it & to be able to pursue ideas without distraction – you don’t want to waste that energy by doing admin or a painstaking conform. Whereas if you are simply not in the mood to pursue a particularly creatively demanding aspect then there are usually other tasks that can still make productive use of your time. I rarely suffer from writers block but I’ve always found a walk or a game of table tennis is enough to both rest & oxygenate my conscious & subconscious brain.

(Old school & new - Moleskin, Mac, iPad, Pen & Paper)

DS: I see on your blog that you’re constantly influenced by lots of disciplines and cultures. From sound art, to experimental short films, to Japanese culture. How do these and other fields affect the way you think about sound?

TP: As humans I believe we are the sum of our experiences, so I think it is vitally important to actively seek out inspiration. A simple example of fields interacting: mixing could be considered a reductive process, effectively you begin with every relevant sound imaginable as the source material and the options are carefully reduced through collective decisions as to what is considered the best dramatic form sound can contribute to the film. I am not a mixer but I attend every film mix I work on and so reduction as a general creative process is very interesting & relevant to me – both philosophically & directly. It therefore seems logical to me to study and appreciate reductive processes in many different mediums: minimalist architecture, music, photography, poetry. The following example might seem like a tenuous connection but for me it isn’t: the vivid memory of my first experience visiting a beautiful minimalist Tadao Ando gallery on Naoshima, Japan has had a direct influence on how I have approached the sound design for a number of scenes in films many years later, both literally and metaphorically. A great work of art alters your perception – changes how you think or see or hear the world. Whether its a Zen temple in Kyoto, an art gallery in Kanazawa, Naoshima, Berlin, Barcelona, London, New York or in your home town is less important than the experiential act itself. I really believe in the idea of putting yourself in the path of interesting experiences. Travel is deeply influential to me – it is such a privilege to be able to engage with another culture. It also teaches you many things about yourself and your own culture and environment which are often taken for granted. If english is your first language, I think it is invaluable to spend time in non-english speaking countries so that you truly appreciate the role language plays, in life and in art/film.

There is a saying by the poet Matsuo Basho that I refer back to often: “Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.” I am deeply inspired by the work of many film makers (writers, directors, picture editors, composers, sound designers, mixers) as well as artists & musicians, but I seek to be inspired by them, not to imitate them. I think it’s important to forge your own path & develop your own approach and aesthetic to your work, so it is personal to you. When its all said & done that is the most important contribution you can make as a creative human being.

(Minamidera by James Turrell and Tadao Ando - Naoshima, Japan)

DS: You’re also a musician, how does your work as a sound designer affect the way you make music and vice versa?

TP: It is the name of my blog but it is also a fundamental part of the way I hear the world i.e. the music of sound. Music is something I have always been passionate about, but I am as often fascinated with timbre and texture as I am by melody and rhythm. As a sound designer it is a great joy (& an amazing learning experience) collaborating with film composers; seeing their approach, process and the contribution music makes, especially when you consider that every film is an emotional world unto itself. But I’ve always been very interested in the area where music and sound overlap, regardless of whether that overlap is literal, physical or emotional. This year I am crossing a personal boundary for the first time by contributing to both the sound design and the score for a film and although I’m still two months away from officially starting, it is already a deeply fascinating process.

DS: How has living in New Zealand changed your approach to sound? Does Wellington gives you anything special in terms of creativity, vision, etc?

TP: I grew up on a farm in the South Island of New Zealand so I have always appreciated quiet. Living in a small island nation also means that you inherently have respect and awe for the ocean and the many moods of nature. Aldous Huxley once said “My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of church going” and I can relate to that philosophically.

One sound that Wellington contributes rather literally is wind, and lots of it. I read of people discussing “heavy” 70kmph winds but we regularly experience winds with gusts peaking over 140kmph! The strongest on record was 248kmph but that was back in 1959, a little before my time. It doesn’t take a huge leap of logic to appreciate that all the local sound editors have epic libraries of wind recordings. One house I lived in on the south coast was a great example; whenever there was a strong northerly wind you could open the doors on one side of the house and then perform & shape wind drafts by manipulating the wind exiting through the front door. The many forms & voices as well as the sheer power of wind are fascinating – there are wind turbines in Wellington that they regularly have to disengage due to the wind being too strong!

In terms of film, we are truly blessed to have Peter Jacksons film post facility Park Road Post here in Wellington. The fact that nearly every film director in New Zealand gets to work at Park Road Post, and on the same dub stage that films of such vast scale as LOTR were mixed, has a huge influence on the finished films and on everyone involved.

(Park Road Post - Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand)

DS: Your presence on the web is very active. From your great shares on Twitter and forums, to your great blog and the fantastic idea of HISSandaROAR, where you have inspired a large group of recordist to make the first crowdsource library ever. How does this community affect you in your life as sound designer?

TP: Engaging online is really a form of collaboration, which is a natural and vital part of film making, although as with mass mediums you have to learn to filter the noise from the signal. New Zealand is about as far away from everywhere else as you can get & the internet really helps to remove the tyranny of distance. It also helps overcome some issues of living in a young, small country – I can happily ignore the fact that sport is the predominant entertainment (and religion!) in New Zealand and engage with creative people and ideas online which are more interesting to me. But what intrigues me the most about the internet as a medium, is the future and where it is headed. I figure you have to actively engage with it to try & understand it, and to appreciate the opportunities it represents.

DS: In 2009 you started a project of virtual mentorship, where -during one year- you were the mentor of several sound guys from different sides of the world. I personally know about the testimonial of one of those guys, who told me that the experience was incredible. Now, how constructive was it for you? Why did you decide to share your wisdom in this personalized way?

TP: I deeply appreciate the support I got at many crucial stages in my development as a sound editor, so my motive for offering the virtual internship was altruistic; to give something back to the equivalent of my younger self. Choosing an intern was very difficult (which is why I ended up with four interns instead of one) as every person who applied deserved my support. Through necessity I had some unspoken selection rules, for example I asked each applicant to list five of their favorite films and another five film favorites for sound. And before I read a single application I decided to eliminate anyone who listed 100% Hollywood films. I was not being anti-Hollywood in this act, I was simply being pro global film culture and for good reason: if I was auditioning chefs for an intern role and someone said they only ate food from one culture I would be deeply concerned about their world view. This is of course also fueled by my own experience; the best films I saw last year were French (MicMacs) Thai (Uncle Boonme who can recall his past lives) & Korean (Mother). So I was also culturally interested in where each of the interns was coming from, an aspect that was easier to explore remotely than locally. The only downside to the virtual internship was the time involved, which is why I haven’t as yet repeated the process and it is going to be another six months before I can even consider it again.

DS: Finally, what would be your advice to any sound designer who wants to find/enhance his artistic vision and personal creative approach?

TP: It is difficult to offer anything other than very generalised advice because each person must pursue their own ideas and find the role that best suits them – I don’t want to offer prescriptive advice for something so personal. But some practical advice? What happens in front of the mic often has more bearing on the final sound than what plugins or processing you apply, so no matter what stage you are at, a very important asset to be constantly creating is your own personal sound library. Sounds you record yourself become an important part of your resources, and are part of what makes you and your contribution unique. Especially if you’re early in your career, think and plan long term, but as a part of your constant work ethic recording for your sound library is some of the best potential use of your time. There is a whole world of sound out there, go forth and experience it… and take a recorder with you!

(Field recording - Karamea, New Zealand)

Tim Prebble has published a must-read article about the relationship between sound designers and re-recording mixers, the importance of their roles, the creative challenges of each, etc. Very interesting and inspiring.

Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion this isn’t some weird game show based on the relative merits of these roles in the creation of a film soundtrack, quite the opposite. Brent from ProTools Professional blog emailed me a few philosophical questions about these two roles and how the relationship is influenced by technological and creative advances…

“I was wondering how you see the relationship between the sound designer and the re-recording mixer?”

In my humble opinion the relationship between sound designer and re-recording mixers is crucial and while both roles have the same motivation (i.e. to do what best serves & fully realises the film) the process and approach is very different. This may be stating the obvious, but its relevant to the discussion of the blurring of the lines between these roles. As sound designer I care intimately about how and why every element of the possible content exists, and its intended purpose. Rerecording mixers care about these aspects as well but their focus is more about context. I may have literally crawled through broken glass to capture a sound and sometimes my view of the merits of that sound may be swayed by the efforts involved in recording & evolving it, but the rerecording mixers have objectivity that I could never have. While I will have spent a minimum of two months working with the director, picture editor and sound editorial team creating the content and discussing the motives and intentions for each element of the soundtrack, the rerecording mixers are working in the immediate real world. Let me explain this with a little psychology…..

As humans we inevitably compare our actions against those of others (friends, family, total strangers) – when we see what we deem bad behaviour it is based on a judgement of that action compared with our own. But here is the point: that judgement is often a comparison between our own intent versus others actions – and the difference may well be HUGE. Intentions do not exist, they are only potential actions, and when the time comes our own reality may turn out differently than intended. Only then can we truly compare actions with actions. So while we record, edit & prepare all the material, we are focusing on intent ie on the intended context of the final mix (which as a concept is mercurial and different for every person involved) whereas the rerecording mixers are working in the actual real context, with everyone (& their associated opinions) in the room.

I totally appreciate & always aim to implement (depending on time & budget of course) the idea of theongoing temp mix, as this lets us regularly visit a form of final context. But as a sound editor there are also many, many times I must put aside the final context and focus solely on some tiny detail of the content, to insure it is as good as it can & needs to be. The time spent mixing is the most expensive part of the soundtrack process (other than recording orchestras or doing ADR with stars) so during the sound edit period is also the most expedient time to experiment.

But maybe I am focusing too much on process and the seperate roles rather than the relationship involved. What is the basis of that relationship? Primarily it is one of trust. We are all being trusted by the film makers to fully realise their project, the sound designer trusts the rerecording mixers to shape and focus their work into a highly evolved and dramatic form, and the mixers trust the sound designer that the necessary research, consultation, collaboration and preparation has been done to the highest level possible with the available budget & schedule. The relationship is also about respect. Both of these aspects can only really be gained the hard way, through experience.

Continue reading…

We had the opportunity to talk with the talented Ann Scibelli about her work as sound designer on Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Thanks to Ann for taking some time out to answer a few questions.

MIGUEL: How early did you start working on Robin Hood? What did you guys want to do different sonically than past medieval war films?

ANN: I started working on the film in its early stages, really as soon as they began assembling the first cut. As far as doing something sonically different, I think all the medieval films have the same elements really, like: horses, swords, and other weapons. I wanted this film to have a very accurate feel in terms of the backgrounds and I really wanted to concentrate my design on the bows and arrows to really create their own signature sound. I first started to develop all the background locations and the elements for the arrows. I did this even before I had any of the visual effects. I worked on the sounds for the battles, battering ram, swords, and horses. I also did some research on indigenous insects and birds in the Sherwood Forest. In the original cut of the movie there were a lot of scenes with the lost boys. The boys mostly communicated by vocalizing animal and bird calls. The boys were also sick and had coughs. We had a lot of the crew imitating vocals along with kids and used real animal vocals as well. Although, most of the scenes with the boys were cut out of the movie they still ended up playing a role in the soundtrack. One thing I also wanted to accomplish was creating a fresh sound for all the weapons and arrow whiz bys. We recorded a lot of the elements for the weapons. We actually acquired all the props that were used on the set. We had all the bows, arrows, crossbows, chain-metal, shields, clothing, and boots. Wylie Stateman had found a really cool collection of old bows and arrows on Ebay that we also had to work with. Although the props from the set looked really cool, some of them didn’t actually function well enough to produce good sound results. We also had some compound bows which we ended up using to fire the arrows. I can’t say there was an easy solution for the sound of the bows and arrows. It went through various stages. It’s interesting to hear the sound on its own when you are in the early stage of design. When you actually start to use it in context with all the elements, music, and dialogue it ends up evolving into something different.

JAKE: On a show with so much focus on bow and arrows, what kind of sounds did you experiment with as you started to work on scenes?

ANN: A combination of some of the props along with the Ebay bow and arrow collection. For the bows: I recorded different thicknesses of rope and string creating tension and snapping it against different things like wood, metal and leather. I used some recordings I had of exterior stick hits and scrapes. I recorded different sizes of mouse & rat traps snapping on wood, leather, rubber, plastic, and my finger…just kidding. I also used rawhide drums and some wood riccos. For the Crossbows: I used some of the elements recorded from the bows along with some old door latches, gun triggers, cable hits, and an old manual typewriter carriage return. There were also some elements that Foley did for the crossbow twang. For the Arrows: Charlie Campagna created a series of modified arrows using aluminum, wood, and carbon arrows. Some had different sized holes drilled into the shafts. Some were modified by attaching feathers, Brazilian whistles, duck calls, zip ties, and wire. We had Dan Kerr along with a professional archer, launching these with a compound bow in a remote exterior location. I processed them in Protools to further accentuate the interesting character of each arrow. There were also a series other things added to create the flaming arrows and some of the hero arrows. Drips from melting plastic created an interesting sizzle effect. If you don’t inhale it works the best. I used some cloth tearing elements as well.

MIGUEL: What new recordings did you utilize for the show? How much of that was done in the field versus the foley stage?

ANN: There was quite a bit of both. We recorded the arrow whooshes both inside and outside. The interior recording was nice for isolating the sound without any background ambiance but ended up being really short. The exterior versions were more useful since there was a longer distance and a wider range of microphones that could capture all the perspectives. The arrow impacts were all generated on the Foley stage. There was such a large variety of arrows hitting all type of surfaces: different size shields, dirt, mud, sand, stone, chain-metal, water, and flesh. The sword source was also generated on the Foley stage. The horse hooves were a combination of Foley and real horses. Gary Hecker did a lot of the horse breathing and it was combined with real horse vocals as well. Gary also did all of the tack & bridle. There were also some new elements for the fire. I recorded some fire by dowsing it with lighter fluid; I burnt various types of wood both dry and wet, pine needles and leaves. I used Kontakt with assignable filter sweeps, compressors and a reverb chain to create the big fireball whooshes.

MIGUEL: In a SoundWorks Collection video featuring Gary Hecker, we see some great stuff from the Foley stage. How was Foley used as a companion to your effects and design work?

ANN: There was lot of great Foley! Gary was very helpful in providing me with source for the elements. I made many requests, like arrows hitting dirt, wood, stone, and shields. Gary performed and recorded those sounds. I took those sounds, processed them and added to them. I used convolution reverb to put them in their proper space. That teamwork really contributed to the success of the soundtrack for the movie.

JAKE: The extreme close up slow-mo shots exaggerated the draw and release of a bow and arrow visually; How did you guys embellish this audibly?

ANN: It actually started with the developed sounds of the bow and arrow. Although, I used Elastic Audio to time stretch out the slow motion effect, I wanted to try to capture all the detail in a stylized way. I ended up breaking it down piece by piece featuring each element. For instance, on the string release, I created a variation starting with the original bow release and I added a pitched down water sizzle that created an interesting rippling effect. Then, I used water bubbles and water hitting wood. Last, I time stretched the sounds down, added reverb and panned that into the surrounds. I did a process like this with each element of those slow-mo scenes.

MIGUEL: A sound idea implemented in films with gun-play is that the good guy’s gun purposely sounds different than the bad guy’s gun. Did the sound of the weapons and soldiers in “Robin Hood” differ between the hero’s and villain’s?

ANN: They differ only slightly during the battles. Robin’s bow had a little more weight than the other bows. The hero moments were definitely bigger and more stylized. Most of the on camera shots during the castle siege were Robin and his men shooting bows and arrows. The French troops had the crossbows, which were unique to them only.

JAKE: In one of the first battles while King Richard is storming a castle there are scenes where the fighting is still going on but in the background. How did you cover these shots with such an active background?

ANN: We wanted to use native French and English Walla groups for a more authentic sound. It was also important to capture all of the different perspectives of the armies during the battle. When we are in King Richard’s tent we hear the battle cries more distant and his army more present. All of the army Walla for the French and English were recorded in England at Pinewood Studios in the back garden. We also created some distant artillery that you actually never see on camera but it certainly creates tension in the scene.

JAKE: How did you design sound for a mass of arrows like the one unleashed on the French in the final beach battle?

ANN: I used Kontakt Instruments for the incoming arrows. Some of the arrows were cut individually and panned from front to back. There was also some tonal wind and wood clattering as they were coming down. That scene was difficult in the mix. The incoming arrows were not cutting through the music score. I ended up having to create an overlay that would read through the music. I used a swarm of bees that were modulated and filtered. Then, I created spinning Doppler bys with that source. That ended up being the predominant sound in the mix.

MIGUEL: What else was challenging and fun about working on a scene as epic as the beach landing?

ANN: Any time you get to work on an epic battle scene it’s always fun. In this case, the challenge for me was to provide clarity and focus for what was on the screen without losing energy.

JAKE: How does your roll as sound designer integrate in with the rest of the sound editorial team? There has to be a bit of balancing between elements and a lot of communication between you and the rest of the sound team to insure a smooth transition to predubbing the FX. Did all of the effects work filter through you on its way to the stage?

ANN: For the final mix all the work filtered through Mark Stoeckinger, Hector Gika, and myself. Between the three of us, we handled most of the picture changes and visual effects updates. My role as a designer usually sets the tone of the film based on the pinnacle design moments; the rest of the editorial team creates effects which support those moments. In terms of communication, we had to make decisions on what effects to feature, Wylie Statemen often orchestrated these moments. The other communication challenge in this film was that Ridley Scott and Pietro Scalia liked the sound in the original temp dubs. We had to make sure that track was preserved in a way that it wouldn’t have to be recreated in the final mix. We ended up using some sections of the original temp stem where the picture hadn’t changed too drastically. The design, weapons, water, and fire were delivered as virtual pre-dubs. Although there were a lot of tracks they were all bussed out 5.1 outputs to the mixer. This gave more flexibility to allow for visual effect changes during the mix.

Game Sound Design has a cool section called “Anonymous Confessions of a Game Sound Designer”, where someone identified as “U.C” gives his personal thought of something related to sound design. In the second installment of the series, U.C gives an interesting (and constructive) criticism about FMOD. Let’s read:

It’s been three days since I last opened FMOD Designer, which is exactly the amount of time it took me to open my 250,000 lines of dialog in a new Wwise project – but I digress. I’m in the throes of some hardcore implementation and I’m trying to remember the reason I double-clicked on this shortcut in the first place. Could it be that I had finally given in to Audiokinetic’s purported “tight integration” and “robust sound engine”? It’s a possibility, but that simple answer would be selling my years slinging projects around with FMOD short.

I remember the early years fondly, entranced by your Sound Designer friendly interface and dark techno color scheme, where I spent my days endlessly tabbing between Events, Editor, and Sound Definitions in an attempt to realize the potential of the sound content. It was a special time, walking hand in hand; parameters, randomized values, dynamic ambiances, WYSIWYG layering of sound elements, bank management – all right there to discover and explore.

Continue reading…

Do you agree with this? … something to say?

Sound designer Tim Prebble has published on his blog some interesting notes and sound recording examples of his work on “Boy”, a Taika Waititis film that opens in New Zealand cinemas on March 24th.

Tim worked on the sound design during October and November, and also on the mix in December at Park Road Post.

One of the best aspects of being confirmed on a project early is it means you can start thinking about the creative challenges & what will be required long before officially starting work. When I first read the script I tagged one location as critical for sound, a corn field, as I knew by the time we were working on the film the corn would have been harvested & long gone. So I decided to visit Waihau Bay while they were shooting, and I am so glad I did. It is such a beautiful part of the country and while I have driven through there before I never had time to stop & explore it. And while my primary intention was to record ambiences I soon realised it made sense to try & capture as many of the vehicles in the film as possible, since they would all be there, available for the shoot.

Another bonus of visiting the shoot was getting to sit beside Ken Saville, the production sound recordist, and listen as he & his boom swinger Jo Fraser worked. After seeing some of the difficulties they have to overcome to record good sound I said to him, “Everyone in sound post should have to come visit the set & see what you guys go through” and he smiled wryly and replied “I think everyone in production should do the same with post!” Ken did a brilliant job on this film, recording genius multitrack coverage to a Fostex 8 track and also providing a huge range of ambiences & FX. I was so impressed when I listened to a dawn chorus he recorded, and about six minutes into it I heard the rooster wake up & start crowing. I surmised this was no accident, he knew what time the rooster started crowing & planned to get both a clean dawn chorus AND the rooster in one go!

Visit Music of Sound Blog for pictures of the recording session and details of the sounds of the film.

We have a new special guest on the blog: Erik Aadahl, a talented sound designer who will be with us during this month, giving some articles, interviews and lots of cool stuff. We hope you enjoy it.

Bio

Erik Aadahl was born in San Francisco, and graduated high school Valedictorian. He took a full-ride scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC) and studied Film Production in the Cinema Department.

His early television credits include the Dune and Anne Frank miniseries, which garnered him two of his four Emmy nominations.

Since, Erik has sound designed films such as I, Robot, Superman Returns and Transformers, and was supervising sound editor on Valkyrie, Kung Fu Panda, Monster vs. Aliens and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. He is currently working with partner and Oscar-winning supervising sound editor Ethan van der Ryn.

Awards & Nominations

• Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special – Children of Dune
• Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special – Feast of All Saints
• Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special – Anne Frank: The Whole Story
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film – Kung Fu Panda
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film – Transformers
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing in Sound Effects and Foley for a Feature Film – Superman Returns
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing in Domestic Features – Sound Effects & Foley – I, Robot
• MPSE Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – Television Mini-Series – Effects & Foley - Ready to Run
• MPSE Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – Television Movies and Specials – Dialogue & ADR - Introducing Dorothy Dandridge

Selected Works

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) – Supervising sound editor
• Monsters vs Aliens (2009) – Supervising sound editor
• Valkyrie (2008) – Supervising sound editor
• Kung Fu Panda (2008) – Supervising sound editor
• Transformers (2007) – Sound designer
• Superman Returns (2006) – Sound designer
• Fantastic Four (2005) – Sound effects editor
• Hide and Seek (2005) – Sound designer
• Elektra (2005) – Sound effects supervisor
• I, Robot (2004) – Sound designer
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) – Sound effects editor
• X2 (2003) – Sound effects editor
• Daredevil (2003) – Sound effects editor
• Undisputed (2002) – Sound effects editor
• Avon (2001) – Sound effects editor
• Dune (2000) TV mini-series – Sound effects editor
• Forces of Nature (1999) – Assistant dialogue editor

Erik Aadahl at IMDB

Designing Sound: Hi Charles, first of all, would be great to have an introduction about your career. How did you start, how you grow up in the sound world, and so on…

Charles Deenen: Thanks for the invite! We’ll have a fun month together with (hopefully) lots of usable info.

I’ve been called an old fella by some young folks in the industry, so am getting up there in age. I grew up in the netherlands and around 1983, attempted to start doing audio on a computer. That was the era of Commodore PET, so I tried to get tolerable sound out of a single-beep CBM-PET, and oh my, that didn’t go so well, LOL. Soon after acquiring a C64, I started to make music/graphic demos, through which I met Jeroen Tel. We wanted to make our own music, and wrote a music-driver for the Commodore 64. Well, this led to us having the “odd” idea that maybe we could make money doing this. You know, maybe just enough to pay for some gum and floppy-disks. There we travelled as young teenagers, all dressed up, to the european computer show in London where Hewson gave us our first paid gig. Apparently they liked what we did, and this led to many more jobs from a wide range of companies. Initially, I mainly provided the sound-effects for the titles which we did, but soon had to delve into doing music. Well, I knew nothing about music. I knew that a C major sounded OK after a D minor, that’s about it, LOL. However, funny enough the first music pieced I did wasn’t bad, and started doing more and more.

Early appreciation of cars

In the late 80‘s our company “Maniacs of Noise” had to begin sub-contracting, and at its peak had 5 people making musical noise at once. Considering those early computer-game years, that was huge. During those time, computer games were not nearly as main-stream as now. Zzap 64 was about the only magazine dedicated to gaming, and a game development team was 3-4 people. We provided music and/or sfx for over a hundred games on Commodore 64, 128, Amiga, Atari ST and Spectrum.

In 1990, one of the projects we did was “Dragon’s War” by Interplay which I’d taken on. They liked what I did, and asked me to move to the USA. Only 20 years old, I said “sure, why not”. After all Visa related items were completed I moved to Irvine, CA in the middle of 1991 where I started as Audio Director for Virgin Games and Interplay Productions. After doing McKids for Virgin on the NES, I moved solely to Interplay where I stayed for the next 10 years. Startrek, Baldur’s Gate, Ice-Wind Dale, Descent and others were some of the franchises I worked on while employed there. After a short stint at Shiny where I worked on the Matrix game, I went freelance to work on feature films. Thanks for Soundstorm, who gave me a chance on “Superman”, “Fast and Furious” and “2 Fast 2 Furious” were some of the first ones I worked on. This is were I fell in love with cars and emotionally engaging sound design.

Electronic Arts was in the process to re-boot their Need for Speed franchise a bit with NFS Underground.  During this, I received a call from a very nice gentlemen at EA who asked if I’d be interested to move to canada to work on this. My first reaction was “canada… oh man… that’s too cold… thanks, but no”. Through the generosity of EA, my wife and I visited Vancouver, BC and actually really liked it, so we ended up moving there.   We had the fortunate luck to find a house which allowed me to build a nice studio from which I do a fair bit of (non game) projects as well.

Since 2001, doing sound for Feature film trailers has been a side-job on weekends. Daredevil was my first one, and since then have worked on more than 60 of them including some recent ones like “Clash of the Titans” and “Salt”.

They are my learning cases. How to do great sound-design under an extreme tight deadline has you reaching for the most odd solutions, which in turn help with the production of video-game sound design.

DS: You’re creating sounds since the era of the Commodore and Atari ST… What do you think about the evolution of the game audio industry? What could be the next step?

CD: We’ve now reached a level of sound reproduction similar to film sound. The next era will not be about “more voices” and “more dsp”, it’ll be about creating emotionally engaging and believable soundscapes. 95% of games still break the believability barrier within the first few minutes, wether it’s through actor performances, character placement or odd pauses and gaps. There are many ways to take a player out of the experience, and that’s still our biggest issue today. Added technology will help, and make it easier again, but until we overcome this believability gap, all the technology in the world is not going to do it for us.

DS: You have worked as freelance and in-house… What would better for you? What you learn of each “status” and what do you recommend for all the sound designers out there?

CD: I was always freaking out a bit when I was freelance. Always looking for the next gig. It drove me insane at times. The insecurity of having a mortgage and family to sustain and the need for a constant stream of income worried me greatly. Oddly enough I never had to really look for jobs when I was doing freelance work, it was merely the “what if” factor that did it.

What I’d recommend freelance sound designers to do is become good and fast. Easier said than done I know, and it might be a simple statement. There are so many sound designers out there who haven’t been exposed to musical pacing, musical editing styles, or haven’t been exposed enough to highly demanding directors who crave for a emotionally stimulating and fitting soundbed. These experiences are needed to sustain in a demanding, volatile market-place to be able to rely on your experiences to deliver. Also, specializing in something really helps getting some sound design jobs. For example right now I’m hired a fair bit for car chases and any other vehicles. That seems to have become my “thing”.

The amount of games with large budgets is rapidly decreasing. The request for “cheaper and faster” not only is hitting the film industry, but also the game industry. In this situation though, cheaper and faster doesn’t mean “worse”. Industry peers are still expecting high quality work. The trick is how to gain the experience of doing something fast and good. This is only something you can learn mostly on your own, learning your own strengths and boundaries. Its critical you acquire honest feedback. If everybody keeps on telling you your work is awesome, there’s something amiss, unless your name is Randy maybe. You simply haven’t met the producer or director yet who has found some flaws in your work which requires improvement or adaptation. Now, make sure you continue to work for that person. He’s the one who’ll drive you further (or nuts in some cases :)

DS: I can see a couple of series of video games and films, such as NFS series, Star Trek and Fast and the Furious. What are the sound challenges on each sequel? The game/film is always different, but the essence is the same, so how you make to have a sequel of sound too?

CD: Sequels have indeed their dilemma’s. You’re asked to better the work you did which was last year was just considered “your best”. Now “your best”=old, and you’re faced with re-inventing the sound-design you did. In some cases you’re lucky and the movie or game has a new feel which will inspire this. For each project I always look for the single “it-factor”. Sometimes this doesn’t come to fruition until the last second, and sometimes it ignites the project. For example on NFS Shift we did these “in your head” driver experience sound-beds. This resulted out of an early teaser where I played around with non typical sounds, trying to emulate what a driver would hear in a race. This came partially due to the “driver experience” slogan the game just got. This stimulated the signatory sound for the NFS Shift FMV’s and menu-beds.

Charles at Interplay

DS: What kind of software you use to work with sound at EA Black Box? What are the technology to work with the implementation process?

CD: Some industry folks say that we’re spoiled at EA. I hear this often at GDC and such. Know though that the technology we use is build by a very small team, and often on the game-teams themselves. Technology is not the end all be all.  For me, it’s less important how the tools work, as long as the result can be obtained. For the past years we’ve worked with a MAX/MSP style tool where we can manipulate sounds in almost any way in real-time. This has been the work-horse for many EA games for over 8 years.

Then there are game specific tools. For Blackbox’s Skate, we build tools which were able to emulate the skate-boarding sound much more realistic than ever before. For our driving games, we build a car-engine technology which (until recent) hadn’t been done in any other game. Now, with Dice’s Frostbite technology it makes it even easier for Artists at EA to integrate flawlessly with the game itself. So, yes in one way, we’re spoiled, but these tools are driven by folks who know what they want to hear, and through team-work, get great results.

I recall when I started at EA in 2003 we were mixing in text-files, and had to restart the game everytime we made a single change. Now, it’s all real-time, thanks to a talented group of programmers and the artists who steered them  In hearing the many storeis from other companies, I do believe EA has some of the most advanced tools right now, and we’re making them even better every day.

DS: What you consider as the most important skill of any sound designer must have?

CD: Will-power. Never give up. Sometimes directors will ask the impossible of a sound-designer, and I’ve seen many give up. The ones that didn’t,  became the leaders in this industry. One story I’ve told many is one that happened to me during Descent; I wanted to make a very cool ship fly-by, and whatever I did sucked. Determined not to give up, I locked myself up in my sound-design room, not to leave it until I arrived at a result. I started off by mimicking some other ship fly-by’s from movies in order to learn. This was the hardest part; I had to create each element from scratch with a very limited library. Frustration set in rapidly, but got to know my effects processors (DSP4000, PCM80, DSP4, BBE, SPL’s etc. etc. at that time) very very well. After 3 days and nights I ended up with a set which I really liked, but that wasn’t the payoff. The real payoff was that I had just learned 100+ ways on how to make by’s, air-distortion, clean tonal whooshes etc. Those 3 days have brought me partially where I’m at today.

Another big part is real-world inspiration. Sound Designers who don’t get to hear the world and its wonderful plethora of sounds, and/or don’t expose themselves to other people inspirational work, will inhibit themselves of growing to their full potential.

Sound Designers also must find a mentor to learn from, people who inspire them to greatness. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You’ll be amazed how many people are very willing to help others, especially in the sound community.

Few more things I value in sound-designers; musical understanding, musical sensability, and rhythmic sense, as well as the ability to know every owned plug-in’s potential very well.

DS: You’ve worked in film and video games. If you had to choose just one, what would it be? and why?

CD: That’s like making me choose between Candy and Chips. Come on !! :) Each have their best parts; Game development has a real sense of team-work. You become part of the development from day 1, and get to adapt the game to make it work better with audio to enable a richer player’s experience. You get to play with a lot of technical tools, which is really fun, but the amount of emotional fulfillment isn’t nearly as high as film. With film or other cinematic experiences you’re usually working to make a director or sound supervisor happy. You work purely on sound and its emotions, with no worries on how to play it back. The amount of emotional connection to picture is a dozen times higher. I edit sound on picture based on feel, not on # of channels available or trigger mechanism. It’s a whole different paradigm, but I wouldn’t want to miss either one. Sound design for film speaks to my emotional side. Sound design for games covers a lot of my technical outlets.

DS: How you survive to “the crunch”?

CD: When you get older, surviving a crunch becomes harder and harder, and I can’t honestly say I survive it well anymore. I simply can’t do the 80-100 hour weeks I used to do. At this point its more important to me to get stuff done earlier vs. later. This makes the crunch at the end is a lot shorter. My job over the last 3 years  (through my own doing) has been close to a constant “crunch”, helping out several games during their final stages. It also had me travel quite a lot which, combined with late hours, can get a bit straining. But that said I’m not complaining about it. Will-power makes me overcome the crunch, and the end-result always is the pay-off. Lets say I like coffee and “beaver buzz” energy drinks :) But my real goal is to limit crunches by setting deadlines much sooner, and by distributing more of the work. The crew at EA is awesome. They all help out during needy times.

However I’ve had my downs too; during my first year at EA I was doing some late nights since I wanted to learn every tool quickly, and was drinking a lot of Mountain Dew. Now, nobody in canada had told me that you can artificially put caffeine in a drink, so the mountain dew I was drinking didn’t have the usual buzz I was used to. After 7 cans I was wondering why the hell I was falling asleep.. The next morning, there was quite a bit of chuckling going on when they explained the canadian non-caffeine rule… damn :)

DS: How many time you spend playing games?

CD: Honestly, fairly little since I have little spare time. I check out the competition of games we work on, and any games my friends work on, and/or highly praised sound-jobs on games. Usually I spend enough time with them to get the jist, but hardly find myself continuing to play for “fun”. Luckily through some peer judging panels I’m part of, every year I get to play 20+ games during december and march, and usually those are the best of the best that year, so it’s fun to check them out and talk among peers about what’s great etc.

DS: Someone you admire? Any special influence in the world of sound?

CD: There’s many folks I admire, either for their talent, their perseverance, their contributions to the industry or other. Whenever people ask me this question, the first person that comes to mind is Harry Cohen. For the last 15 years he’s been my inspiration for sound-design, and he’s always open to share some advice and/or techniques.
The other that comes to mind I John Fasal. Everytime we work together he remains calm, even under the greatest stress, and always delivers quality work. There aren’t many people who can do this on a consistent basis. I want to learn his “zen mode”, LOL.

Having known Tommy T for 19 years, ever since we worked together at Virgin, I admire everything he’s done to promote the game industry towards the outside world. We’ve had our differences for sure, but that doesn’t take away from everything he’s accomplished in those 19 years.

I also admire people who speak their mind, and don’t bullshit. Some execs in my past talked a good talk, but don’t always walk the walk. This in turn made them loose respect from the crew. A great visionary (exec) producer who knows what he wants is his weight worth in gold.

DS: Finally, could you tell us something about your current projects? And for the future?

CD: In January, I went back to work mainly on Need for Speed games, to help shape its bright future. At home I’m still helping out on an occasional ad, trailer or movie, but have tried to take more time off to enjoy life with my lovely wife. My hobby of photography (http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdeenen/sets/) is also moving a bit to the foreground. A few years back I noticed that a lot of fellow sound designers are also photographers, and have enjoyed sharing techniques with them on both sound and photography.   One of my biggest pleasures will remain helping folks excel at what they do, and succeed.

Seeing the plethora of young, very talented sound designers arise through the masses makes me realize our industry has a bright, but very different future.  Each person brings their own element to the table.  Too bad we don’t have a sound design museum. We should. There is so much great work out there done by all these folks to be enjoyed and inspire a whole new generation.

The future will also hold more relaxing time, I hope :)

Thanks for listening

A Pleasanton man who falsely claimed he was a three-time Oscar-winning sound designer was sentenced Friday to four years in federal prison for defrauding investors of nearly $4 million in an investment scheme.

Scene 1 – Lying

It was Brice Carrington who gave King Kong his roar, the T-Rex and other dinosaurs their menacing sound in the movie Jurassic Park, put the hiss in Snakes on a Plane, the swoosh in Superman’s flight and the swirling sound in Spiderman’s web-shooting.  Carrington is the man behind the pops, bangs, booms and blasts of the firepower in Miami Vice, True Lies, The Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, etc.

Carrington received 3 commemorative Oscars for “King Kong,” “Ghost and the Darkness,” and “Jurassic Park.”  He has created sound effects for 41 blockbuster films, including Jurassic Park 3, Blade, The Blood Hunt, Rush Hour 2, Van Helsing, Superman Returns, Spiderman, and the Mummy Returns sequels.

Scene 2 – Retraction

I am Brice Carrington. I am writing this note to address comments made about me and to state some facts about my work. All the statements made that say directly that I have NEVER worked on a film or have won an academy award for sound is absolutely true. I have never worked on a motion picture nor have I ever won an academy award. The fact is, I am a sound designer, and I make recreations of sounds found in films and sell them to the public through a brand called Ultimate FX. I am completely responsible for all the misleading or incorrect statements made about me in the press. My effort was to create press for the brand Ultimate FX, which I am the author. I did this foolishly. This is a library where I have made my OWN versions of movie sounds. I have no association with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I commemorate the Oscars by creating a version of the main characters in films that win Oscars. Like in Jurassic Park, we make a T-Rex using hogs in water, lion growls, a lawn mower and elephant roars. That is My version. I sell this and other sounds complete with the stems to consumers. This is a lawful enterprise, but misleading the public or allowing mis-characterizations is wrong. I am issuing an apology for making all of the misleading or mischaracterizations of my work. I apologize to those in the sound industry and the makers of the original works and studios that distribute them for this offense. To correct this, I will ask for retractions were appropriate in the press. I will also refrain from any further public comments and allow the brand and the product to speak for itself through traditional means of sales and marketing. To those in the sound industry and those specifically I have offended, you have a right to be upset, and I offer my sincere apology. I am sorry that you had to spend one minute of your time addressing this.

The End – Sentence

Carrington admitted that he had lured investors by spinning a series of yarns. He told people he had won three Oscars, had an extensive background in sound design and had ties to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Carrington admitted that he had received $3.6 million by victimizing 13 people. Almost none of the money went to designing sound effects; most went for such expenses as the mortgage on his $2.6 million Pleasanton home and fancy cars.

In 2006, Carrington paid $52,000 to Walnut Creek jeweler Davidson & Licht to create three fake Oscar statuettes, according to a civil suit that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences filed, claiming copyright infringement. He displayed at least one of the fake Oscars at his home, authorities said.

Carrington, born Antonio Wilson, has a previous forgery conviction in San Diego and a larceny conviction in Dallas, court records show.

His Twitts (I don’t know if this is the official account of Brice but is fun)

His Website

Moral: Be careful with your words.

Via: EURweb | San Fransisco Chronicle | The Music of Sound

For many of us, this time of year is about spending time with family and friends; the other “half” of the life balance. I jokingly put half in quotes because that “half” can look a lot more like a sliver on the pie chart during some projects. One of the dicier topics in our industry is “The Crunch”: the final weeks or months of a project where there aren’t enough hours in the week to get everything done to the quality bar you’ve set. Audio Pros are particularly vulnerable to this problem since sound production is finessed and finalized at a very late stage in the process. I’ve worked in TV, Film, Video Games and Commercials…as an in house sound designer and as an external contractor….”The Crunch” is universal.

The prevailing opinion in the biz is ‘deal with it’…’it’s part of the job’. I agree with this, and even embrace it…to an extent. To function well on commercial products, creative right brainy people need limits…especially time limits. Crunch mode helps focus your attention, cut ideas that aren’t paying off and commit to the creative choices you’ve made.

However, there comes a point in “The Crunch” where personal well being becomes an issue. In a generalized observation gathered from myself, my peers, my mentors and younger people coming into the business, we often go over the line. Yes, “The Crunch” is part of the job, but sacrificing your health and well being is not. In this article, I offer you no guidelines; only evidence that your personal health is supremely important. This line is always up to you to define.

Two Aspects: Health and Well Being.

Health – Stress while recording a lion is good. Weeks of stress during a crunch is bad.

The sustained and habitual stress of our work sets us up for what doctors call Chronic Stress. Stress in small doses is good. In fact, it keeps you from doing stupid things like stepping out into traffic. It helps us survive very dangerous situations. The problem is that our bodies can’t stay in that state very long without doing internal damage. Chronic stress is just that. This constant state of stress doesn’t allow your body to recoup, and your cardiovascular system, digestive system, weight and mental health are all at risk. Many doctors believe this to be just as bad as a serious addiction. Look it up.

Wellness - We can all learn a thing or two from Ben Burtt.

At the end of Ben Burt’s recent acceptance speech for the Charles S. Swartz Award, he warmly and sincerely says:

“And lastly I want to urge everybody that…we know in post production you’re in a very tough business that takes a lot of sacrifice of your time and energy. I’ve never fully solved this problem, but I’ve learned over the years that you have to make time for your loved ones. That you have to try to get home for dinner and be with those kids across the table at night if you can. And I know the business doesn’t favor that kind of activity…it doesn’t put an emphasis on that. But you find in many many years that those loves ones that you leave at home, that are waiting for you, matter a lot more ultimately than the films and shows that you do. So try to find a balance there. Try to find projects that allow you to do that, or make decisions that allow that to happen. Thank you for this award its really an honor.”

Ben opened huge doors to the wonders of sound that we’re all playing in. He has had an amazing career in doing so. Yet, in a lifetime achievement award he is saying…”loved ones are more important”. This isn’t the first time any of us have heard this advice, and on some level we know balance needs to be maintained to keep ourselves and our lives functional. The fact is humans need this practice of community, commitment and belonging to stay healthy and happy. To a certain extent we build these relationships with our coworkers, but spiritual leaders, doctors, and sound design visionaries agree… spending quality time with loved one’s is at the core of content happy lives.

Now for the hard part; making it happen.

I for one haven’t always been skillful creating this balance for myself. Ultimately this is your challenge, but here are some suggestions.

Start to notice your health and well being.

Think about the last year. What have been the good times and bad? How are you doing now?

Take really small steps.

Eat an apple today, and allow yourself to slowly graduate to better habits like regular exercise and leaving work at a specified time.

Learn

There are many forms of stress management…all with great side benefits. Be curious about what spiritual, philosophical, and health wisdom you can seek.

Encourage others to be healthy.

Altruism and compassion are the keys to happiness if you believe the Dali Lama. I feel we struggle against a culture that during crunch time manufactures a sense of duty that attempts to supersede our desire for personal well being. Showing co-workers compassion for their stress is not only a way to keep that in perspective, but a kind practice you will get benefit from.

Value Planning for great results and graceful execution.

You have to get the job done…and well. No doubt about it. Define the results you want to achieve on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and work as gracefully as possible to achieve them.

Communicate your intentions.

Be frank and honest about where your limits are, but also keep in mind that ‘negotiation’ needs flexibility. Sometimes just stating your preference not to work 120 hours this week is a good first step. There is a great state of mind termed: Equanimity Try to keep that in these situations.

Continually evaluate your situation.

Retain your power by continuing to evaluate your situation. This doesn’t necessarily mean look for another job, but that is certainly one evaluation you could make. The more ideal approach is the make many small adjustments from periodic evaluations instead of one big one. You may still end up looking for another job, but there may be other adjustments that will benefit you as much or more. Ask yourself, “How’s this working out for me?”, but there’s no need to freak out if the answer is bad. If you’ll notice this step is the same as the first.

Our jobs wouldn’t be any fun if we were punching a clock and stamping widgets. The challenge for us as individuals and as a community is to balance our open hearted love for what we do with the principles of healthy living. I hope you find this helpful.

Written by Andrew Lackey for Designing Sound.

image via pinksherbet