• Home
  • About
  • Site Policies
  • Contact

Designing Sound

Art and technique of sound design

  • All Posts
  • Featured
  • News
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • Resources
    • VR Audio Resources
    • Independent SFX Libraries
    • Events Calendar
  • Series Archives
    • Featured Topics
    • Featured Sound Designers
    • Audio Implementation Greats
    • Exclusive Interviews
    • Behind the Art
    • Webinar/Discussion Group Recordings
    • Sunday Sound Thought
    • The Sound Design Challenge

Happy Accidents: Embracing the Unexpected

October 28, 2013 by Samuel Ejnes

DSC_0172

Allow me to share a story with you:

It was the weekend before the holiday break. Our horror film shoot had been going on for a few days, and as was typical of December at the base of Cape Cod, the weather was frigid and rapidly getting worse. With reports of an approaching winter storm, we frantically worked in the freezing cold to finish our exterior shots as quickly as possible. After moving inside the little house and getting the final shots of the day, my boom operator and I quieted everyone to perform the always-exciting task of collecting room tone.

Typically, room tone recordings are unremarkable things, but on this cold December night, hidden behind the whine of the set lighting, the creaks of an old settling house, the distant buzz of the electrical system, was a soft and rhythmic ringing. The two of us glanced around the room, making sure someone on the crew wasn’t fiddling with their keys, but even they had puzzled looks on their faces: They heard it, too. After a minute or so, we cut the recording and everyone started running around trying to find the source of the sound. It wasn’t until someone opened the front door that we realized what it was.

The winter storm had finally blown in, bringing with it heavy snow and intense gusts of wind. Across the way from the little house, behind the trees, was a small dockyard with boats in dry dock for the winter. When the storm intensified and the wind picked up, the rigging on the sailboats began knocking around, colliding with masts and other metallic parts and generating a chorus of bangs and ringing. Mixed with the howling wind through the trees, it was an amazing sound. The two of us grabbed the gear, ran right out into the storm, pointed our lone shotgun mic toward the dockyard, and hit record:

That night, I learned that many times the most interesting sounds are usually the unexpected ones, sounds that are accidentally stumbled upon in doing something else. We had not gone out on this shoot planning to capturing the sound of a storm blowing through the rigging of dry-docked sailboats; we were there to capture dialog and a lot of chainsaw sounds (it was a horror short, after all!). However, thanks to timing, location, and New England winter weather at its finest, we were given the opportunity to capture a unique sound that ultimately became a major part of the film’s final soundtrack. These tracks have also gone on to find use in countless other projects, and I constantly reach for them when I need to create an unsettling atmosphere in a thriller or horror film.

These kinds of happy accidents happen all the time. They can either happen on location or even later as you edit the recordings. I can’t even begin to describe how many times I’ve listened to a “bad” take from the field only to find a gem of a sound that I probably would have never even considered recording by itself. Sometimes these sounds slip by unnoticed, only to come out later during the editing stage. Other times, these sounds demand to be noticed, overpowering the intended subject of the recording and forcing themselves into our tracks. Intruding sounds can be extremely annoying, but once you realize that you can take advantage of these annoying situations, you can turn the unexpected noise into useful and unique recordings.

Did a bus pull up in front of you while recording city ambience? Did a flock of birds take up residence in the only tree to be found at your remote location? Can’t get that rattling HVAC vent to stop? Don’t get mad: Hit record! You never know just how useful those little happy accidents will be.

Filed Under: featured Tagged With: advice, article, audio, dark and chilly night, exclusive, featured, field recording, field recording 2013, film sound, game audio, happy accidents, recording, sfx, sound, sound design, sound effects, storm, techniques, unexpected, wind

Comments

  1. Danijel Milosevic says

    October 28, 2013 at 11:57 pm

    Great recording! It’s irregularly repetative…. The banging seems like human hammering, but then you feel it’s not human because it’s too random, and so it’s somewhere in-between…. Which can probably work to confuse the viewers subconscious mind if played as a background.

    I wonder if you still have the original room-tone in which this is barely audible?

    • Samuel Ejnes says

      October 29, 2013 at 3:59 pm

      Unfortunately, the original room tone has been lost to time and drive failure (remember, make backups, then back up those backups!).

  2. George Vlad says

    October 29, 2013 at 9:12 am

    This is something I learnt while working with Rob Nokes. Unexpected things often happen when recording in the field, and you can’t just leave everything and come back at a later date. You need to embrace the unexpected instead, and make the best out of each situation.

  3. MG says

    October 29, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    Great story. Any cool gear on set?

    • Samuel Ejnes says

      October 29, 2013 at 4:01 pm

      Gear on set for this was pretty limited. We had a 744T and a single Sanken CS-1 shotgun to work with, but we made the best we could with what we had on hand.

Trackbacks

  1. Don’t Panic and Carry A Towel: When Things Go Horribly, Horribly Wrong | Designing Sound Designing Sound says:
    April 30, 2014 at 8:01 am

    […] written about expecting the unexpected and being able to roll with the punches before, but this month’s topic seemed like a great time […]

Social Media

  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Posts By Month

#sounddesign on Twitter

#sounddesign

tunepocketTunePocket Music@tunepocket·
26 May 2020

Download royalty free gunshot sound effects, incl. one shot gun sounds, gun cocking sounds, gunshot with silencer, machine guns, and more #gunshot #sfx #sounddesign #videoediting #gamedev #royaltyfree https://t.co/bTTDQkveKF

Reply on Twitter 1265206307927162880Retweet on Twitter 1265206307927162880Like on Twitter 1265206307927162880Twitter 1265206307927162880
Reel2MReel2Media@Reel2M·
26 May 2020

At Reel2Media we are harnessing the power of smart speaker technology, to deliver cutting edge skills that solve problems and add value. To find out more, click here https://t.co/VAAw7vTW1V #sounddesign #smartspeaker #alexaskill #amazonalexa

Reply on Twitter 1265206269255847936Retweet on Twitter 1265206269255847936Like on Twitter 1265206269255847936Twitter 1265206269255847936
SoniKSoundLibSoniK Sound Library@SoniKSoundLib·
26 May 2020

Listen to #soundcloud preview of our next release! #np https://t.co/S3bxxrnqrh #audiopost #soundlibrary #soundediting #sounddesign #ambisonics #spatial #surround #ambience #roomtones

Reply on Twitter 1265204382779559936Retweet on Twitter 12652043827795599361Like on Twitter 12652043827795599361Twitter 1265204382779559936
asoundeffectA Sound Effect@asoundeffect·
26 May 2020

Want to know what the independent sound effects community has been up to? Hear the very latest SFX libraries here: https://t.co/OUBM2SqMoP #sounddesign #soundeffects #soundlibraries #indieSFX #gameaudio #filmsound #filmmaking #gamedev #indiedev #indiefilm

Reply on Twitter 1265199255838511105Retweet on Twitter 1265199255838511105Like on Twitter 1265199255838511105Twitter 1265199255838511105
OblikLinesOblik Lines@OblikLines·
26 May 2020

Working on new tracks with many instances of Misty Valley ! ⁠
Misty Valley is free for all NI Reaktor users⁠
You can get it here: https://t.co/bb53Gtkw5e

#reaktor6 #reaktor #nativeinstruments #synths #vst #sounddesign #virtualinstrument #musicproducer #obliklines #mistyvalley

Reply on Twitter 1265198647307907073Retweet on Twitter 1265198647307907073Like on Twitter 1265198647307907073Twitter 1265198647307907073
Load More...

Copyright Info

All content on Designing Sound is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in