I recently came across the Frictional Games blog and have spent the last few weeks trawling through it’s archive. It provides a wealth of informaiton on game design, and in particular discussions on the point of game narrative. One particular post, 4 Layers, a narrative design approach, written by Thomas Grip, Frictional's creative director, raised the concept of the mental … [Read more...]
Art of Surround
Acousmonium, INA-GRM, 1980. Photo by Laszlo Ruska. Surround (Oxford Dictionary) (verb) [with object] - Be all round (someone or something) (noun) - A thing that forms a border or edging around an object. (adjective) (Surrounding) - All around a particular place or thing. Based merely on a technological approach, one might think that Surround sound is just the … [Read more...]
Remembering Alan Splet
One of the main reasons to start this site back in 2008 and also one of the things that keeps me motivated to do this is the impact that some people had in my life; curiously, people who I haven't met in person, but I've deeply met with my ears. I'm talking about those sound designers who created initial routes for all of us and started to develop a truly amazing way of … [Read more...]
DSDG – Noah With Craig Henighan and Coll Anderson
We'll be starting our web chat with Craig and Coll in just a few minutes! Head over to our Google+ page if you want to ask questions when we get to the Q&A. We had a great conversation, and the recording is now available, and remember that this and all of our other previous Designing Sound Discussion Group presentations are archived here. … [Read more...]
Designing Sound Discussion Group – Noah and Atmos
We're happy to announce that we've got another Designing Sound Discussion Group coming this Sunday! We'll be hosting a live chat with Noah's Craig Henighan and Coll Anderson. Given this month's theme, we'll be focusing in on a discussion of the impact of Dolby Atmos on their work for the film. Of course, we won't be restricted to that, so make sure you come with your questions … [Read more...]
Don’t Panic and Carry A Towel: When Things Go Horribly, Horribly Wrong
As April comes to an end and we wrap up our topic for the month, “broken”, I wanted to take a moment and share something that I learned when I was first starting out, and something that I find myself having to remember quite often: how to react when everything starts to break. We depend on a lot of complex technologies in our day-to-day lives, some more intricate and … [Read more...]
Harvesting Anomalies
Guest Contribution by Ivo Ivanov Take a moment to think about the magnitude of all the rejected material that disappears during your editing process. Material with unwanted artifacts, discarded without much further thought, as it is rendered useless due to a number of auditory issues or location-specific problems. Now imagine if those discarded bits of audio were actually what … [Read more...]