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: 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...]
Bruce Tanis Special: Using Accidents in Field Recording
Today, I'd like to share some observations about using accidents that occur in field recordings and things that sometimes get recorded unintentionally. No, I'm not talking about going back to the edit bay and finding out you've surprisingly recorded a talkative ghost. Although, that would be pretty cool. What I find interesting about field recording is that things often occur … [Read more...]
Inside the Sound of "Lost"
Avid has published a new episode of The Rough Cut, featuring a special event they had at NAB 2010 with Re-recording mixers Scott Weber and Frank Morrone and Film Editor Chris Nelson talking about the sound of "Lost". The video from the top is a preview of the complete episode, wich has a duration of 35:57. What does a sound re-recording mixer do? Why does the picture editor add … [Read more...]