Creating Realism
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 06:13PM 
Realism, that's what I want.When I'm working on a sound design for an audio drama or audio book my major goal is always to make the background ambiences and sounds effects sound real, sound like they are naturally part of the world of the story; and I want the story to sound like it's part of the world.
So, I was standing in my backyard the other day listening to the world, and unfortunately reality isn't nearly as interesting or arty as one might hope. Chain saws. What is it about Midwest suburbs, winter and chain saws that are almost ubiquitous? There's just a lot of noise out there. Jet planes flying overhead. Heating and air condensers moaning and rumbling. Trash trucks wheezing. Even late at night the constant backdrop of traffic on the Interstate three miles away can just be barely heard over the barking dogs. All this racket kind of wrecks the ambient effect of the outdoors or at least what one would want the outdoors to sound like.
So, what is the poor sound designer to do?
Award winning Skywalker Ranch sound designer, Randy Thom, has an excellent special features discussion about creating natural sounding backgrounds on the DVD version of CASTAWAY. He explains that his original intent for the film was to travel to a South Pacific island and record what they heard, the waves, the trees in the breeze, the loneliness. Instead when they got to the island they realized that all they could hear was not just the din of the surf, but the deafening unrelenting roar of the waves. No matter where they recorded on the island all they got was a giant overwhelming crush of noise.
So, Thom goes on with a marvelous explanation of what he had to do to give ambient "personality" to the each location on the island. He and his crew painstakingly created different sounds for each place on the island: Roaring waves out in the surf, gentling lapping water sounds on the beach, rustling tree leaves in the interior forest. It ended up being a brilliant soundtrack, because it was more than real, it was ultra-real.
A sound designer often has to build the story's reality by picking and choosing, by editing the world of sound.
However, sometimes you get lucky and you hear something perfect. The snow had stopped falling. The air was still. Three vees of Canada Geese approached from the north honking away and as they came overhead it was so quiet I could hear their wings flapping. That's the sound and presence I want to hear in audio books.
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Brian Price
920 Creekside Lane
Plainfield, IN 46168
317/203-5044
check out: http://www.greatnorthernaudio.com
our newest play "Jokes In Space" is just out
920 Creekside Lane
Plainfield, IN 46168
317/203-5044
check out: http://www.greatnorthernaudio.com
our newest play "Jokes In Space" is just out
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