I think the bottom line here starts with education. Of course, that’s a long term solution, but we need more educators like Marie-Pierre BAI (commenter on this thread), pushing sound as an early collaborator from the get go on to film students.

I’ve been lucky to work with clients who take great pride in the soundtracks of their films and television series. It’s these kind of filmmakers (that see sound as an equal contributor to picture) that allow us to really explore our craft. If we can find a way, over time, to work the importance of sound into film education, I think we will see some really special things start to happen in our industry.

Thanks for getting the conversation started.

-Jeff

I totally agree Randy.

This is the way I’ve had the privilege to work on the last 3 of Ben Wheatley’s movies.
I’m on the production from the script stage and Ben and I begin designing sounds together early, before the shoot even starts.

The script informs the sounds and the designed sounds influence the shoot and the way that certain scenes are filmed. It means the edit can be smoother too, because key sounds for scenes are ready to just drop in. They help pace the cut and because they are already agreed on, they make it through to the final mix with no changes.
Preview screenings have a more ‘finished’ feel too and that has obvious benefits also.

I think its a great way to work and I agree that more Directors and Producers should realize the benefits getting the sound department on a film early can bring.

It takes a Director that has a love for sound as big as ours, but thankfully more and more new Directors seem to be aware of the awesome power of sound in their work.

Exciting times.

Martin.

The persistent myth that film directors know “in their heads” exactly what their films should sound like is such a crock. Yes, many directors have have a sound style in mind. They can list a few existing films as models, and refer to specific sequences and specific sounds in those films, which is helpful to us; but the notion that a director has the perfect sound for a given moment in his/her head, and our job is to somehow guess what it is, and give it physical form is… ridiculous. It’s the opposite of collaboration. Collaboration is about figuring something out together, and the result of collaboration is always different from what either of the collaborators imagined in the beginning, whether they’re willing to admit it or not.

Yes, Ben Burtt was involved in Wall E very early, and his sounds helped shape the visuals for the film. It’s a wonderful model to study. (By the way, when the story was first being developed one idea was that there would be no dialog at all in the movie. How amazing THAT might have been!) The kind of early sound experimentation Ben did on Wall E could help many, many films. His experiments were focused on the central character of the film. What motivated me to write this piece is a broader notion about the influence sounds could have on developing a story. Some sounds gathered in pre-production would relate to specific characters, locations, and objects; but many sounds in the “idea board” would be mainly useful in terms of mood. The more the storytellers listen to sounds early-on, the less they are likely to think that they need to fill every moment with words and/or music.

Randy

Maybe movie audio production can learn something about it from game industry :)

We try to teach our students (directors – sound crews) to collaborate in the best way. But they also have to experiment, to make mistakes as Richard Gould says.

Thank you, Randy. If you come to Paris, may be you can meet my students!

I think the idea is solid, any process that will allow a direct interaction between the sound team and the production team is always going to beneficial. I strive to interact and conceptualise with directors and creative leads as often and as early as possible, to ensure that we are both working to the same vision and maximising our time accordingly. Although a lot of pre production planning and processes I have suggested in the past will be ignored, even if the director/creative in charge is forward thinking enough to bring sound in early. I often find that the idea of additional time spent delving into audio in pre stages is not a priority and often gets overlooked, then the deadline closes in and the stress levels rise.

Obviously this is not the case every time, but it happens more often than not and it is a shame. really.

I would love to work on a project that had a sound storyboard, it would bring a lot of organisation into the recording/designing process and allow for early sounds and ideas to be heard and altered way before the mix process, resulting in less “revisions” and heartache later in the process.

I can’t remember who came up with this idea (I know it’s on designingsound.org somewhere though), but the idea of the sound bible, where everyone involved in the production can contribute audio examples or ideas to one book (or place) that the audio team can take direction from. I have been using this technique since reading that article (Sincere apologies to whoever wrote that article, my searches did not return any results, but thank you for it – it has served me extremely well).

I will often setup a dropbox folder and share it with the director and producers etc and encourage them to upload music, youtube videos, descriptive words, video games, film titles and scenes that they like the sound of and are influenced by. This allows me a greater insight into their vision for the project etc. It helps creatively, for the design aspects, but not so much for the hard facts like locations and particular field recording sessions that will need to be planned. If the storyboard and the “Sound Bible” were implemented together then the sound team would be unstoppable and able to deliver exactly what the film and director needs, probably first time too.

My next project (if brought on early enough), I will try and grab a storyboard and attempt this method, even if it just for my own benefit.

Thanks again Randy.