Sadly, the Bruce Tanis special has come to its end. This month was amazing, with a really great amount of sound effects editing master classes given by Bruce. Here are the answers to the questions made by the readers during this month. Hope you like them! Designing Sound Reader: As a student/future sound editor, I've been anxious about the fact that there is no prescribed … [Read more...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Cutting Weird Things on "Fringe"
I started editing sound effects at Todd-AO back in 19.......... Something-or-other! I started working on a show called "Brooklyn Bridge" produced by Gary David Goldberg. I worked in television for a few years and then moved over to working on features. With a few brief side trips back to TV, I stayed in the feature world ever since until starting in on "Fringe" in August, … [Read more...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Cutting Crowd Effects
Hello again. Over the years I've worked on several films and TV shows that required editing crowds for different sorts of sports, both indoors and outdoors, concerts, and, my personal favorite, panic, battles, and riots. Umm, just kidding there. Mostly. Crowds are actually a bit more difficult to cut than they might seem on the surface. There are two obvious problems to be … [Read more...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Editing Hand to Hand Fight Sound Effects
Fight sequences are a common event in many action films and they are often fairly straight forward to edit. See a punch, hear a punch. Unlike fantasy or horror scenes where you're trying to create a mood that isn't necessarily supported by visuals, for fight scenes, the action you see on screen pretty much determines what you need to cut. As usual, though, I tend to go a … [Read more...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Scale/Perspective on Cutting Sound Effects
Creating sounds for gadgets, machinery, and weapons beyond any mundane character they may have as ordinary objects is a core task of sound effects design. To be sure, there are many of these core tasks, or categories, that most of our work as designers falls into. Creatures and Monsters, Alien Planets, Future Tech, and Comic Book Violence effects are examples of some others. … [Read more...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Creepy Forests in Broad Daylight
Here's an example of a common scene from a suspense film or TV show: A woman walks alone to her car late at night down a long, dark alley. Shooting a scene to play as late at night or in a deserted location is common film language for creating suspense or tension. Sometimes, though, the opposite approach can be very successful as well. Creepy scenes don't always have to be set … [Read more...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Using Default Audio Suite Plugins in Pro Tools
I gave up a quasi-staff position nearly a decade ago in order to pursue a career as a freelance sound effects editor. Certainly, there are positives and negatives to both of these paths but, at the time, I was being offered a one-film job at a different facility from the company where I'd been working for a few years. I had pretty much reached the highest plateau available to … [Read more...]