"Ideally, for me, the perfect sound film has zero tracks. You try to get the audience to a point, somehow, where they can imagine the sound. They hear the sound in their minds, and it really isn't on the track at all. That's the ideal sound, the one that exists totally in the mind, because it's the most intimate. It deals with each person's experience, and it's obviously of … [Read more...]
Sonic/Temporal Ambiguity as Evidence of Psychosis in Martha Marcy May Marlene
"Where are we?" "Connecticut." "No. How far are we?" "From what?" "Yesterday." Directed by Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) centers around the damaged psyche of Martha, portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen. Martha is a young woman who, through the time spent living as part of a small farm commune, has lost nearly all sense of boundaries...from social through temporal. … [Read more...]
Sonic Centaurs: An Exploration of the Common Grounds Between Music and Sound Design
Guest Contribution by Carlos Alberto Manrique Clavijo "The vocation of the sound film is to redeem us from the chaos of shapeless noise by accepting it as expression, as significance, as meaning. . . ."[0A] "(…) When does sound become music? Above all, in the supreme states of pleasure and displeasure experienced by the will, as a will which rejoices or a will … [Read more...]
Audiovisual Correspondences
Guest contribution by Martin Stig Andersen The following is extracted from the author’s article "Electroacoustic Sound and Audiovisual Structure in Film" (supervised by Denis Smalley) originally published by eContact. Music Versus Sound Effects — Sound Designer qua Composer? Given sound’s ability to create temporal experiences unique to that of other media, it seems no … [Read more...]
Loudness and Metering (Part 1)
Guest contribution by Owen Green [This is the first of a two part series on loudness, mixing, metering and the new ITU loudness spec] Understanding the complex relationship between sound level and perceived loudness turns out to be very important to us as designers of sound for a number of reasons: Our perception of loudness is not constant (or even remotely linear) … [Read more...]
Panning Reverb Returns
Guest contribution by By Douglas Murray OK, here is the ugly truth for film post, or really any surround sound work… Most reverb plug-ins do not sound natural for applications using greater than 1 or 2 speakers. What you don’t want: a reverb that jumps to completely different speakers from the source. What you do want: a reverb that spreads out from the sound and helps localize … [Read more...]
Creative Uses of Reverb
Guest Contribution by Ian Palmer There are a lot of technical articles on Designing Sound so I thought I’d try to balance that with this month’s theme of Reverb. We all know that reverb is used to create realism. Adding the correct or appropriate reverb to ADR will instantly make the dialogue fit better into a scene and remove the artifice of the replacement. However, we can … [Read more...]