Advice to New Sound Designers | Richard King Film Sound Design Master Class Excerpt

[@cinematicsounds]

🌟 Here is a summary to help you get the info faster, thank me later, you got this! 🎨 Broad Strokes First: • Start with Broad Strokes: Begin by addressing the broader aspects of the scene, such as the overall ambiance or the most prominent sounds. This approach prevents getting bogged down in details too early. • Focus on Key Elements First: For instance, in a car chase, start with the engine sounds before adding skids and other details. This helps anchor the scene with the most crucial auditory elements. • Iterative Refinement: After laying down the broad strokes, gradually add finer details. Revisit the scene multiple times to layer in additional sounds like suspension clunks or minor ambient noises. ⏳ Take Your Time: • Utilize Full Time: Given time constraints, use all available time wisely. The goal is to create quality sound, not just to finish quickly. • Balance Intuition with Revisitation: While working from intuition is vital, revisiting your work ensures that the initial impact and feeling of the scene are maintained. • Allocate Time Wisely: Prioritize scenes and sounds based on their importance to the narrative. For example, in a gun battle, focus on gunfire and bullet impacts before backgrounds or footsteps. 🎯 Prioritize Key Sounds: • Critical Sound Elements: Identify and prioritize the sounds that will have the most significant impact on the scene. In high-intensity scenes, like gun battles, emphasize sounds that are immediately relevant to the characters and audience. • Hierarchy of Sounds: Understand the hierarchy of sounds in a scene. Primary sounds (e.g., dialogue, gunfire) should be addressed first, followed by secondary sounds (e.g., footsteps, environmental noises). 👂 First-Person Perspective: • Character’s Awareness: Imagine the scene from the character’s perspective to determine which sounds would be most noticeable. This helps in creating a more immersive and realistic soundscape. • Focus on Key Auditory Cues: In a tense situation like a gun battle, focus on sounds that a person would be highly aware of, such as bullets hitting nearby or the direction of gunfire, rather than less critical sounds like footsteps. ⚙ Super Processing: • Avoid Over-Processing: Strive to maintain a sense of realism in your sounds. Over-processing can make sounds feel artificial and disconnected from the scene. • Real-World Sounds: Use sounds that are familiar to the audience, even if they are repurposed for different contexts. This helps in grounding the scene in a semblance of reality. • Synthesized Sound Integration: When using synthesized sounds, ensure they are treated with EQ and reverb to blend seamlessly into the environment of the scene. 🏠 Worldization: • Blending Sounds into the Scene: Use worldization techniques to make fictional or synthesized sounds feel like they are part of the scene’s environment. This involves adjusting EQ, reverb, and other effects to match the acoustic characteristics of the space depicted in the scene. • Consistency with Visuals: Ensure that the auditory elements align with the visual context, enhancing the overall believability and immersion. 💡 Additional Tips: • Bounce Around: Don’t hesitate to move between different scenes or reels. This approach allows you to come back to each scene with fresh ears and a new perspective, which can help in identifying areas that need improvement. • Intuition vs. Revisitation: While initial cuts based on gut reactions are important, revisiting scenes helps in fine-tuning and ensuring that the initial impact is preserved. • Context Awareness: Always be aware of the scene’s context and the relative importance of different sounds within it. This awareness guides your prioritization and ensures that critical auditory elements are given due attention.

[@jamwrightiam]

Very good advice for getting a good work balance to start here

[@ausdoug974]

very, very helpful. As a beginner, I learned so much from this video. Thanks for creating it for us.

[@jtavegia5845]

I wish they would all take your class as this is what I have found. I record music groups so I have some background. what is bothering me about film is terribly recorded dialogue. but even a that what is happening on DVDs is that the PCM sound is compressed to MP3 quality any where down to 224 kbps up to a whopping 448 kbps...nothing better than MP3 quality. The audio bit rate is better on Blu-ray discs. I have also found that not enough compression is used if any. I have cleaned up movie tracks that I have recorded about 5 min of audio on then applied compression of 3:1 to 4:1 at about -25db. This is because too many actors are talking Under their breath, so low that almost can't be heard. I also think that mic technique is not very good and lesser quality mics are used. Something is surely wrong when on my nice Yamaha S801 I have to turn the bass to -6 and up the HF to +4 to make it work.

[@mr.guzwee7695]

Is it advisable to get a background in sound theory, like the science of sound before venturing into Sound editing? 2. Apart from film, what other projects do sound editors work on?

[@Holy_logic]

Guzwee Bright tv shows, games, apps etc

[@rebirth4119]

Don't know if you need an answer but the truth of it is not at all. I would say to try out different audio effects(distortion, phaser, ect.) and first a general idea of what the effects sound like. Learning afterwards what the effects are technically doing will help give you a better understanding of it. Also you may not be interesting in making music but looking up tutorials for electronic genres heavily focused on sound design(like dubstep, hybrid orchestral, neurofunk, halftime) will also show some great concepts in sound design. After all, Michael Bay did hire Skrillex to do some of the sounds for a transformer movie.

[@Samuri5hit84]

@@rebirth4119 That's very interesting to hear considering my teacher (sound guy) used Transformers 3 as an example of next level or great sound design for it's time.

[@rebirth4119]

@@Samuri5hit84 That's pretty cool man. Yeah I know even other sound designers who have actually used electronic music as a form of inspiration in some ways. Mick Gordon(Doom composer) listens to a lot of electronic music and his use of distortion is influenced from the reese basses from neurofunk and Drum and Bass music. If you check out Koan Sound you'll see what I mean. Also the giant sand worm scene from the Mandalorian uses a slowed down version of a sample sample from dubstep musician Virtual Riot. I think the main difference in electronic music sound design is rather that they usually start with synthesizers than just pure samples.

[@bethanythedford9226]

This was very helpful, i want to do freelance sound design but i don’t know whare to start, also i’m having trouble finding particular horse sound effects, i heard them in various shows and films such as lonesome dove and other mini series, i found most of them but there’s about 12 seconds missing, it, low to mid high range and tuned from b flat to e sharp, i don’t know the name of the file but they’re all from the same horse, sorry this comment is so long, i just need help finding this sound file, it sounds perfect for a project i’m doing, does sound design for animatronics count too, does the soundStorm library have this spicific horse sound effect or is it somewhare else

[@jennifercraig9157]

How to take any type of sound and bring it in perfect tune for musically idea anytips thanks

[@gavinmagnus6607]

Thanks

[@Marauder1981]

If you can´t make your gun shots sound like in a Michael Mann movie, quit your job.