Now, you have the opportunity to do your own questions our special guest Ric Viers. Please read the exclusive interview first. Maybe you can find your answer there.
There are several ways to make your questions:
- Leave a comment on this post
- Use the contact form
- Write to designingsound [at] gmail [dot] com
The deadline for questions is March 27th and the answers will be published on the last post of the special. Peter will choose and answer any questions he want. Note that all questions will be considered, but not all will have to be answered.
Hey Ric, i have to say I really admire what you do, not only for the quality of your work but also for the fact that you show a lot of what you do through videos which really helps to find inspiration.
Speaking of inspiration, my question is : You seem to always find something to record, no matter where you are, is there ever a day where you are just like ”Man today I have no clue what to record” and if so is there anything particular that helps to get you inspired?
Thanks
Erick
Dear Ric,
Thank you for spending time with us this month. Your articles and wisdom has greatly inspired me to continue to raise the bar in my own sound design and sound effect recordings. Here are a few questions I have:
Your studio is burning down and you can only carry 2 mics out of it to safety. Which 2 mics would those be?
Do you use acoustics to your advantage while recording? For example, if you were recording a loud animal roar, would you look to see where you could position it and the mics to best capture the sound?
What software do you use to create beeps/streamers and manage ADR recording in your studio?
Do you favor one microphone cable type over others?
What’s the worst microphone disaster story of yours?
I can never get my lapel mics to sound right. Do you have any tips from your experience on how to make a lapel mic mixable?
Do you have a trick on how to stay outside the frame-line of a shot with your boom mic?
Is it important for new sound designers to be educated in music theory?
When you find something interesting to record in the field like a prop or a door or something that has human interaction with and you don’t have a specific project you need the sound for, how do you record it? Do you record it in every possible emotion you can think of or exhaust all ideas of how it could be manipulated? I ask because I have had recordings I’ve done of doors and things in the field that I later go to use and I realize “wow, if I shook that door handle a little more frantically when I recorded it, it would be perfect for this horror film scene where the actor is trying to escape from the bad guy… It just doesn’t work the way I recorded it and I wish I recorded it differently.” Do you record in anticipation of that type of scenario?
How do you know when you are finished with a project? How do you know it’s good and will pass with flying colors?
I’ve searched for literally years for a solution to this and I have not found one yet after hundreds maybe thousands of hours of recording close-miked narration and that is: MOUTH NOISE. Do you know of any tricks or methods of reducing mouth noise during a recording session? A magic pill? An easy fix? Anything? I’ve almost given up on my search for a workable solution – Obi Wan Viers, you’re my only hope!
Can you please create more sound design competitions? Pweeez?
What are the qualities you look for when picking interns?
You’ve already shared a lot on the “Million Dollar Sound” article but how you get your sounds to sound so clean and commercial compared to some independent libraries?.