You can make your own questions to this month’s special guest Ann Kroeber. Just leave a comment or send your question(s) to miguel [at] designingsound [dot] org. The answers will be published at the end of the month.
Art and technique of sound design
by Miguel Isaza
You can make your own questions to this month’s special guest Ann Kroeber. Just leave a comment or send your question(s) to miguel [at] designingsound [dot] org. The answers will be published at the end of the month.
Dear Ann,
In less than a week I’ll be 24 years of age and I’ve been a freelance sound editor/SFX recordist/sound designer for the past year since I graduated college and have only worked on independent projects, mainly short films and as of recently my first feature. My main focus is supervising sound-editor for film (or sound designer, whichever term one prefers) as I enjoy creating a sound track which not only supplements the image, but enhances the story’s theme in a unique way. Finally my question… In your opinion, what would you like to see/hear differently from movies of today’s age? What I mean is, do you feel movies (let’s stick to American films to keep it simple) tend to stick to a “safe” path for creating the sound track (ex. simply laying out sounds that match picture) as opposed to taking a different/unique approach, such as Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey utilizing silence throughout a scene?
Thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge, I find every interview from successful sound gurus extremely valuable as I start my career and look for opinions/guides.
As a side note to Miguel: I really appreciate everything you’ve done to put together this website, which is full of more information than I could dream of learning about. I find myself here at least once a day, sometimes more!
Dear Ann,
I really like the sound of Warcraft and Lord of The Rings. Could you talk a little about the process of creating the sound of monsters? Do those sounds mainly rely on the talent of voice actors? How do you deal with moments when your creativity went blank due to create a lot of unique monster sounds in a limited time and there are many other monster sounds left? Sorry for my bad english. Thank you very much.
Hi Ann,
Have been a big fan of yours and Alan’s work for quite some time. I am curious about the collaborative nature you had working with Alan on all those great soundtracks and was wondering if you had any stories to share. What were some things you learned about sound recording, editing, and filmmaking from and alongside Alan and what were some of the things you were able to teach and inspire him?
Thanks, Michael! I appreciate your words.