About three years ago, on a whim, I adopted a 6 month old kitten. I had dealt with cats before at friends’ and family’s houses, but had never owned one, and Luna (short for “Lunatic”) was full of surprises. After her initial "moving in” period, in which she hid under the bed for nearly a week, I discovered that Luna was an exceedingly outspoken individual that needed to make … [Read more...]
Dialogue on the move – panning in Gravity, Cars and Strange Days
When I saw/heard Gravity last year it set me of on an exploration of dialogue panning to such an extent that I experimented with some fairly extreme panning in the film I was working on at the time. My experiment proved to be, well, inconclusive at best. So I went back to Gravity to see just how the panning worked within the context of the film, then decided to look beyond it … [Read more...]
An Interview with John Roesch
In over 30 years working in sound, Foley artist John Roesch has amassed an impressive list of credits, including major films like "Inception" and "The Matrix" and games like "Final Fantasy X" and "Dead Space." With over 400 credits to his name, John was awarded the MPSE's Career Achievement Award earlier this year. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with John on his … [Read more...]
The Dialog Re-Assign Workflow
My first exposure to noise reduction processing was with Waves X-Noise, working clip-by-clip, finding a snippet of noise in the clear, setting the noise profile, then processing the clip before moving to the next one. This offline processing method, while effective, would end up taking a lot of time, especially on long-form projects. Similarly, if you had a processed clip that … [Read more...]
Happy Accidents: Embracing the Unexpected
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 … [Read more...]
Tunes and Tones: A Writer/Director’s Perspective on Sound
Guest Contribution by Pierce O'Toole Writer/Director Pierce O'Toole shares his thoughts on music and sound design, and how they play into his creative process. As a writer and director, my biggest concern on any project is the story. Every project has a story that you are trying to tell. When I approach sound, the lens I view it through - or the speaker I hear it through, I … [Read more...]
Separating Your Signal from the Noise: The Intersection Between Bit Depth and Branding
As a sound designer, there are many different thoughts that come to mind when considering a topic such as noise. Everything from using tone generated noise, like white noise in the designing of sound effects, to a technical discussion on different types of dither algorithms, but when I kept thinking about noise, one slightly different viewpoint of the word "noise" kept coming … [Read more...]