SOUND DESIGN EXPERIENCE
This might be a long post and I will be linking a video of my sound design. And if you're wondering why the Godzilla image, hold on, details will prevail!
Sound designing is no easy task especially if you don't own or have the access to a professional studio that has all the necessary resources especially a foley studio (I'm sure any sound designers here would certainly relate to this). Of course sound designers or foley artists can get away with the vast array of high quality sound effects packs that are available for download and purchase on the internet, but there will be moments where we need a particular sound for a particular scene/element which will eventually require live, on location recordings (That's where the fun is too...).
Coming back to my experience. When I was doing my diploma in audio back in 2012, in the 2nd year, we were required to do sound design for a movie scene of choice. The choice was not our own though. We were given 3 different scenes to choose from the movie Godzilla that was released back in 2014. All of them are less than 2 minutes long. One of it was the one I chose, "The Airport" scene. If you've watched the movie, you already know how much it would take to make the sounds for it.
We were required to do the entire sound design ourselves but without the proper resources of a sound design studio. (Testing us on how creative we could get to get the job done with minimal resources). During the lessons, we recorded the usual sounds in class ourselves such as the human elements (Footsteps, screams, panting, talking etc). That also gave us an experience on how actors in films would feel doing A.D.R (Automated Dialog Replacement) sessions after film shoots. Other sounds such as the explosions effects, ambient noises, Muto (the bad creature) and the iconic Godzilla, etc were all had to be done ourselves using our own creativity to bring them to life within the screen. At the end, the whole scene had to be mixed in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound. (5.1 setup was provided within the campus studio, thankfully).
Choosing the airport scene was a struggle but I enjoyed the process. My session ended with over 100 tracks of sounds and layered sounds which was then compiled down. Nothing was a huge challenge except for 2 particular elements of the scene. Muto and Godzilla. They are huge creatures and are not a common "animal" to rip an animal sound and slap on top of the scene. Above all, Godzilla has to sound right because of his iconic roar.
I ended up layering several animal sounds like bear, lion and alligator etc along with some random machinery sounds (I even had a garage door opening sound in the layer) to created the Godzilla's roar. As for Muto, I recorded a washroom door noise at my campus and a few chair dragging noises for the movement and a bird's sound as the main roar (with A LOT of manipulation taken place). All the sounds that I recorded were entirely recorded using my phone since we were not given the on location recording system to test our creativity. Manipulating all the sounds I had with pitching, modulation, distortion etc, resulted in the roars you can hear in the video. And finally comes the music part. Every scene in a movie has its emotional attachment with its audience through the background scoring/music apart from the actors'/actresses' performance. It doesn't matter what the scene is, without a good music to accompany it, it would not be as connecting. I simply did not have the time to custom compose a music piece so I ended up using a royalty free music piece for this scene.Initially, Godzilla's roar was created by composer Akira Ifukube by dragging a resin-coated leather glove along the loosened strings of a double bass which then evolved in the series and on the final release, the sound team decided to keep it a secret but they did mentioned that they recorded a usual sound using a scientific microphone which record sounds that are above the human hearing frequency range and then they transposed it down to normal hearing range thus, creating an unknown foreign sound. Smart huh? If only we knew what was the source which they recorded...
At the end, it was all worth it. I learned the amount effort that it takes behind sound designing. If it takes this much for a 1 minute worth of video, I could imagine for a few hours worth of films. The sound designers certainly deserve the respect and appreciation for their passion in this field. Even though it's very challenging, it's also extremely fun. Being a sound designer myself, every sound I hear around me, wherever I am, would be processing in my head into sounds that it can possibly manipulate it into. In way allowing me to hear the world differently. The experience also boosts your creativity a lot. But, just like any other specialized skills and job, sound design is not for everyone. It requires high level of interest, passion, patience, consistency and creativity to be active in the field. (But it's never wrong to try)
With that said, that's all for now, thank you for reading this far. I really hope you learned or took something with you from my experience. I will add the Dtube link for the video for you below (showing some love for Dtube). Keep in mind that this was done several years back as a learning process and assignment and if were to do it again now, I know I can do much better. But I wanted you to see what an audio student had to do and what he managed to do at that point of time. Feel free to share your comments. Till the next post, have a wonderful day #Steemians!
Feel free to contact me if you wish for me to work (mix/master) on any of your future projects be it songs or audio for visuals.
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Great to see u active on Steemit finally and sharing the dope shit that u do! Kudos n Steeem On bro!
Thank you bro! Have to give props to you and Vandal for endorsing me into this. Making sure I respect that! Salute bro!
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I remember watching this being done! Crazy!
Hello, your post was nominated for an upvote by a fellow within the Sndbox incubator. Thanks for sharing @illkrux. Steem on :D
Wow! Thank You! That means a lot!
Very inspiring post. Thank you also for the short video. I think one of the most important things mentioned in your post is, that it sets right the relation of studio techniques and real recorded physical sounds from the outside world. Both are necessary to get a great sound design. The best sounds are made/found by getting the right idea how to instrumentalize ordinary things or goings on from our all day life, record them as raw material and only then, coming "home to the studio" from our expedition, our field recording, the "electronics" the "IT" comes into function. Enjoy your day! Rolf from the Czech republic
Thank you @rofilm for taking your precious time and reading my post. Truly appreciate your knowledgeable comment. Very well said. I lke what you're doing on your blog as well. Very technical and detailed informations. I appreciate the love for sound and audio that you show. Respect sir! Cheers!
Thank you very much indeed! Have a great time! Rolf
Upvoted ☝ Have a great day!