Great interview at Thirteen with Alan Howarth, talking about scoring and creating sound for horror films, his early influences and experiments, anecdotes from works with Hip-Hop artists, and more.

RC: What’s the craziest contraption you’ve used to capture a wild effect?

AH: When I was developing sound effects for The Hunt For Red October I wanted to record underwater sounds, I rented a hydrophones for the take, but it sounded too tinny for my needs. So I wound up using expensive studio mikes with condoms stretched over them to make them waterproof. It worked great. I went recording in swimming pools and off Long Beach [California]. I got some great tanker ship propeller effects from an underwater perspective that got used for the submarine propeller cavitations effects.

The craziest place? Recording effects for Star Trek, I was recording sounds for starships and shuttles at the Skunkworks for Lockheed. I was in top-secret facilities recording hypersonic wind tunnels and advanced aero devices. A few times they would allow me to be in the hallway, but not in the room were the sound was being made. I would hand them a mike on a long cable and one of the Skunkworks guys actually went into the area.

Thanks to Matteo for the link!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DS: What are your favorite films for sound?

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

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

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

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

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

Alan Howarth will be giving a free Workshop on Sound Design for Horror Films on October 22 at Unsound Festival 2010. The place is TBA and the tickets are free.

A horror sound design workshop with one of the masters in the field, Alan Howarth, who has worked on countless movies including the “Star Trek” series, “Poltergeist”, “The Thing”, “Raiders of The Lost Arc”, “Exterminator 2″, “Robocop 2″, and many more.

Also, he will be hosting a Q&A Session on October 24 at Krakow Music Academy Concert Hall.

UK horror soundtrack expert Joel Martin speaks with Alan Howarth about working with John Carpenter on seminal horror soundtracks for films such as “Escape From New York”, “Halloween” 2,3,4,5,6, “They Live!” and “Prince of Darkness”. Also discusses his role as sound designer for the “Star Trek” movies, “The Thing”, “Poltergeist”, “Raiders of The Lost Arc” and many more.

More info at Unsound

Via @usoproject

The first one is from MPEG, with comments of some of the sound editors with best sound nomination:

Though the movies they worked on were all unconventional, the 2009 Academy Award nominees for Best Sound Editing are all veteran names with long lists of impressive credits. Only two––Star Trek’s Alan Rankin, MPSE and Avatar’s Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, MPSE––are first-time nominees. However, in a far more unique situation, a pair of Guild members are up for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing Oscars—Paul J. Ottosson, MPSE, for The Hurt Locker, and Christopher Boyes for Avatar—two films at opposite ends of the budget spectrum. We talked to a group of nominees to get their takes on what made their projects special, how their teams worked and, well, how it feels to be invited to the party.

Read it on MPEG Site

The second one is a nice article at The New York Times:

“The Hurt Locker” is a bomb movie that mutes its booms. It derives suspense by withholding the expected “boomala, boomala,” as an Iraqi kid puts it in the film while taunting an American bomb-squad soldier about the “cool” soundtrack of Hollywood war

“The Hurt Locker” is not cool. It’s hot and dry, a heaving desert parable with a mounting sandstorm howl at the center. The internal explosions matter more than the fireworks. Explaining the dynamics of roadside bombs in Iraq, Paul N. J. Ottosson, the film’s supervising sound editor, told Variety, “You die not from shrapnel but the expanding air that blows up your lungs.” The top notes in the soundtrack are arid metallic clicks, snips, squeaks and creaks, the chatter of wrenches and wire clippers, as bombs are defused in air so parched as to seem combustible itself. Men can hardly summon the spit or breath to speak. Much of the dialogue — which was almost all recorded on location in Jordan (and not looped in a studio) — is delivered in headsets, as soldiers hiss into one another’s helmets across desert expanses. To listen is to enter machinery, rib cages, ear canals and troubled lungs.

Continue reading…

Via: lydrummet | Yahoo Sound Design Group

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

We have already seen several info about the sound of Star Trek. If you were expecting more, here it is an interesting new “Star Trek” sound for film profile.

In this sound for film video profile we answer the question, “Is there sound in outer space?” and “If there is sound in space, what does it sound like?”

The “Star Trek” sound team including Supervising Sound Editor Mark Stoeckinger, Supervising Sound Editor Alan Rankin, Sound Designer Scott Gershin, Sound Designer Ann Scibelli, and Sound Designer Tim Walston talk about the approach and sound design behind the eleventh film based on the Star Trek franchise directed by J.J. Abrams.

Thanks to Michael Coleman for his hard and amazing work with SoundWorks Colletion.

Great article at MPSE with some of the main ideas about the sound of Star Trek exposed at Special MPSE Show, which we talked about earlier.

The sound effects of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek were a perfectly crafted mix of both original effects as well as sounds that remained true to the original series.  The exciting, trial-and- error process of how that soundtrack was constructed and mixed was the subject of the MPSE’s sixth annual sound show, held in October before a sold-out house at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theatre.

Gathered together on the stage were co-supervising sound editors Alan Rankin and Mark P. Stoeckinger, music editors Alex Levy and Stephen M. Davis, picture editors Maryann Brandon, A.C.E. and Mary Jo Markey, A.C.E., re-recording mixers Andy Nelson and Anna Behlmer, and director Abrams.  While Rankin and Stoeckinger acted as informal moderators, Abrams tied the group together by detailing his overall creative vision of Star Trek––which was released on DVD and Blu-Ray November 17 by Paramount Home Entertainment.

Through ProTools session files from the original effects stems, as well as film clips, the team explored a range of the movie’s set pieces—the initial reveal of the Enterprise in space dock and young Spock’s arrival on the bridge, the first jump to warp speed, Kirk and Sulu’s sky-dive to the enemy drill platform, the Delta Vega ice planet sequences with Kirk being pursued by the “Big Red” creature and his encounter with Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock, and the final destruction of the Romulan ship.  For most of this endeavor, there was little in the way of starting points to guide what each environment should sound like, a process which opened up a lot of creative freedom and gave free reign for everyone to bring their ideas to the table.  Resistance, as the Borg say, may be futile, but on Star Trek, every sound mattered, as these excerpts from the panel illustrate.

Continue reading…

Last Tuesday (October 20), Motion Picture Sound Editors presented a new Sound Show, an exploration of the sound of Star Trek, with the award winning Supervising Sound Editor Mark Stoeckinger (Mission: Impossible III, The Last Samurai) and Co-Supervising Sound Editor Alan Rankin (Windtalkers, The Amityville Horror). In the show they demostrated the process for the creation of the soundtrack for the last Star Trek film.

Allison Loring has published on Gordon and the Whale a sneak peek about he event, with info, topics and more:

Since this is a sci-fi film, creating the sound effects for the Starship Enterprise, the creatures encountered on alien planets, and the combustible red matter allowed the sound designers free reign to create, but it also gave little in the way of a starting point of what these different elements should sound like. Abrams has a little-known talent in that he can make or mimic most of the sounds he is aiming for, giving his sound crew a base to work from. Markey and Brandon revealed they kept a recorder in the edit bay so that Abrams could record his sounds to then be passed on to the sound designers and editors as the film came together.

The crew paid particular attention to the reveal of the Enterprise and the first moments spent on the ship. They wanted to make sure they used sounds that original fans would recognize, but they also wanted to make it exciting and interesting for new fans. While getting ready to take off at warp speed, Lt. Sulu (John Cho) punches a series of buttons and, if you listen, the last button he hits makes an almost “uh-oh” sound as a little nod to those paying attention that maybe he did not hit the right sequence. This is proven true when all the other ships warp and Spock points out Sulu’s error before they are able to take off as well.

The roars and growls of the intimidating creatures Kirk (Chris Pine) encounters on Delta Vega are loud, but also alien. Recordings of bears, wolves, and (my favorite) the roars of a speed boat engine were stylized and layered to give the full, piercing effect. Playing each recording individually was certainly loud, but it wasn’t until each were combined and played together that the true impact was achieved.

Abrams really wanted to hear Kirk, Sulu, and Olson (Greg Eillis) breaking through the atmosphere during their skydive to the enemy drill platform. This was achieved through stylized wind whooshes and clothing flaps edited in quick cuts to sound like violent popping as the atmosphere was broken through. It is a sound you probably don’t immediately notice while watching the film, but playing the scene without it is almost like having a scene of people walking without hearing footsteps, proving that every sound matters. In a sound effect-heavy movie like this, you want lots of options, and it is the responsibility of the re-recording mixers to make sure the impact of the scene is not lost because every sound option is used.

Read more…

Previous Sound Shows:

• Gary Rydstrom – Jurassic Park
• Dane A. Davis – The Matrix

Did you attend the event? How was your experience!

Sound Designer Ben Burtt talks about the elements of the original Star Trek TV show that he tried to emulate in the new movie…

Two things in the original Star Trek effects were revolutionary: Roddenberry had his team create lots of detail. Every room in the ship sounded different. Every button made a noise, when you pressed a lever or a switch. Not only were there sounds articulating all these things to make them sound like they were real, but they were very musical sounds. Somebody pressed a button, there was a little melody. That was not in the movie at the point I came on: you’d just hear a little beep. If it was Star Trek, it needed to sing a little bit and feel like it was alive. You really felt there was a complex operation going on and it was fun to listen to. The ships and the weapons and the ambiences of the places they went to were a form of music. When they went to planets there was always a tone going on, like a ringing bell, or chimes in echo. I tried to create sounds in that style.

The other thing that was used a lot in the original show a lot was shortwave radio recordings and sounds off of transmissions and Morse code, things you can pick up in-between the dials on a shortwave radio.

I love that sort of thing and I’ve collected it for years. There’s some of that in the original Star Trek television show – and the whole beginning of the movie, that first minute or two where the Kelvin is coming into view, is all short wave radio sounds. It reads to the audience that you’re way the heck out at the edge of the universe, barely in contact. Things are far away: there’s these disembodied sounds that are being transmitted back and forth. That’s not the way the sound was, but I wanted to make it seem like the ships were way out there. They’re supposed to be encountering something new so I tried to capitalize on this legacy in science fiction of using radio.

Motion Pictures Editors Guild published an interesting terview with Ben Burtt, called “More Sound Trekking: Ben Burtt’s Further Explorations of Audio Frontiers“. Let’s see:

You’ve been a sound designer, picture editor, mixer, writer, producer and director. How did that career path evolve?

I think it was the constantly evolving filmmaker in me, which started when I was a child adding sound to my family’s home movies. When I began my career, I was recording sounds and said, “Now, if I was also the sound editor, I could control what sounds were used.”

So I became a sound editor; but that wasn’t good enough. I then figured that if I was the sound mixer, I could really completely control what the movie sounds like. Well, that still wasn’t good enough, so I then looked at the influence that the picture editor had, and thought that if I could do that, I could inject a lot of ideas about how to use sound correctly in the first cut of a picture. Then I felt that if I was a director, I could tell everybody what to do, including the editor, and get it exactly my way [...]

We’ve talked about the library of sounds you created for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek. Can you talk about how you re-created some of the iconic effects for the movie? Let’s start with the hand phaser.

In the original series, the steady blast of the phaser was derived from the hovering sound of the Martian war machines made for the 1953 version of Paramount’s War of the Worlds. The original was made with tape feedback of an electric guitar and a harp. You can achieve a very similar sound on a Moog synthesizer by modulating a steady sine wave with pink noise. The phasers in the new movie are more like the blasters in Star Wars in the sense that they are flying bolts or tracer bullets, rather than a steady beam. The steady sound just wasn’t the right way to go because the visuals are so different, so I made something that recalls it, but features a Doppler effect and is shorter and sharper. My sounds were added to those that had already been supplied by Mark P. Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin.

Which recent films do you admire for their sound design work?

I loved Saving Private Ryan; I think it was one of the best sound design jobs ever. It was a film with quiet and loud segments and left plenty of space for music and sound effects to have their turns. Steven Spielberg and Gary Rydstrom made excellent choices as to when to let sound tell the story. For much the same reason, I loved Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Richard King did a sensational job of recreating the 18th-century world of great ships, starting out with all those great ambiences. I also thought Gladiator, Cars, and The Matrix were outstanding.

Are there still new worlds for you to conquer?

I’ve always been associated with big tentpole sci-fi and action films, which I love. But I yearn for challenging new assignments, such as Munich (2005). WALL-E (2008) was a sound designer’s dream. I would like to have a few projects with more realism and historic or social significance. However, I am delighted to be at Pixar because I know they are committed to entertainment that is both wholesome and hopeful. I’m always looking for ways to create voices and sounds for things that have never been heard before—to entertain, to escape and to give life to the magic of the moving image. There is always a new audio frontier for me to explore.

Read the full interview…

Star Trek Ofiicial Website

Star Trek at IMDb