Cinema Seoul 2014

Sound Design: A simple Tool Box

by Bertrand Laurence                                        

I.  Practical Matters    

  Know Your Gear 

RECORDING: Understand your microphones by testing/comparing. Pioneer documentarist Dziga Vertov believed that the camera sees better than human eyes. Microphones can hear better than human ears.

Condenser mics are highly detailed and are more sensitive to volume than dynamic mics.  Be cautious with levels and placing your mics too close to the sound source. This changes not only the volume but also the quality of the sound, and the timber as well.  (The closer the more bass)Test and get to know the behaviors of your mics, by gauging distance, the sound source and ambient sound volume.

MONITORING: be very familar with your speakers, or headphones. Use reference monitors or headphones - not your laptop speakers - to listen to relevant, first rate sound designs from professional films. 

Listen to something you know sound great and perfect on your speakers or headphones so you have something to aspire to and copy.

Listen comparatively and critically to actual movie soundtracks and take notes to match your soundtrack as close as possible to the professional model (volume, contrast, dynamics, textures pace, etc.).

SOUND PRODUCTION with Editing/ Mixing software: Understand the following sound terms and applications.

Equalization is the adjustment of frequency responses. Stereos typically have adjustable equalizers to boost or cut bass (low) or treble (high) frequencies.

A balanced sound should be pleasant, comfortable to the ears. An unbalanced sound creates ear fatigue, causing disconnect from the audience. Most listeners will not realize that their apparent lack of interest of the subject may be simply caused by conflicting frequencies in the Sound Design.  Ear fatigue makes focusing difficult. Your sound should be warm and full, not muddy or muffled; “airy” and open with just enough ‘sparkle’ from the high range but not shrill or thin; scooped mid-range (the smiling EQ line) might add definition and create a sense of big soundstage and dimension.   

Final Cut Pro has some great, easy to use sound tools :

Compression: Evens out quiet and loud sounds by reducing their differences in volume. Creates a smoother, comfortable sound by reducing peaks. Over-use of compression muddies the sound. 

Limiter: Squashes loud sounds, puts a volume cap on the dynamics. A limited is a form of compression that acts on very loud sounds.  

Mixing: The Storyline and editing tools can help organizing sound files like video files with folders. A/B Roll can be organized for their sound content under a Sound Folder.   Bl ending your tracks: like film: slow, fast fade in/ out, cross fades, cut in/out. Trasiitons can be lead by sounds from the next scene. “B roll” material can be sound only, mixed in or cut in running footage.

 II. The Poetic

”... Music is the only language with the contradictory attribute of being at once intelligible and untranslatable...” - Claude Lévi-Strauss

Two sides of the documentary soundtrack spectrum. Generally, less is more.

The Naturalist, “Vérité,” raw style, concerned with the raw capture of the moment will contain little manipulation (Kim Dong Won).  A transparent, realistic, sound is needed for this approach. 

The Dramatist, while remaining true to facts, will use all poetic means necessary to depict an emotional journey. (Ken Burns, Patricio Guzman. The latter believes that objectivity does not exist and is therefore the filmmaker is free to use any artistic means.)

FILM CLIP: Our Disappeared by Juan Handelbaum.

Regardless of where you place yourself in the spectrum, ask yourself how can your Sound Design  best serve the film’s agenda. 

Sensitive Ears > Critical Listening > Sound Design

Outer Ear: Listen to The Listening Book by W.A. Matthew. Challenge your listening. Going deep inside a sound or sound scene is a form of contemplation.

Inner Ear: “Audiolize” is the audio version of visualize. Start by listening to silence and resetting your hearing sense. 

Sound Design is a self-sufficient art form.  Listen to great acousmatic Sound Design: http://silverasylumstudio.com/composersound-design.html

4.   Understand these terms: Diegetic and non-diegetic sound, acousmatic sound, ambient sound, incidental sound, found sound, film score.

 Shaping The Sound Design 

Just like A and B roll, categories of clips, your sound library should be clearly labeled and organized. For the sake of this very quick class, we won’t have much time to gather a huge selctions, but make the sounds you have count.:

urban/country, organic/artificial/ human/animal/.Add Key words in terms of intensity (from Mellow to engaging to bracing to aggressive, to violent)

Or atmosphere (Peacefull, Calm, reflective, Sorrow, Angry. )

Environmental; Nature: forest see, Urban: Bar construction site.

Final Cut Pro has a great way to attache many key words to a particular item.

Ideally, the dialog with the Sound Designer should take place during or right after the script is done. New ideas and perspectives can unfold by using sounds as “key words” or Key events. A sound can evoke a different place and can save you the time of a trip. 

In this fast class, of course, the earlier you know your topic and how you will present it, the earlier you can imagine your project and group both Images and Sound.

Draw ASAP a Visual Map of your film. What are the curves going ?

Above the neutral threshold of “normalcy”  

 Below the neutral threshold of “normalcy”

Life vs Death, Introspection (Passive, thinking, inside, dark light) Vs “Extrospection” (Active, doing, outside, bright light ). So Draw a curve, and 

group your “voices” , various sounds accordingly.

 CONCLUSION

Ultimately, all of the components of your soundtrack -- diegetic & non-diegetic sound, silence, acousmatic sound, ambient sound, incidental sound, on screen speech, narration, scored music, sound effects -- should work as a whole to serve your presentation without distracting from your focus. The unified Soundtrack should merge with the images into one perfectly integrated whole. 

Ear Awakening Exercises compiled by Bertrand Laurence

1. “Listen” to this Word Poem  (The Thinking Ear, M. Shaefer)

”Visualize” Sound. Tune into a sound and then reflexively draw: 

The Soundscape of your imagined, completed, project   

                 

Example:

          

       b. Your present Soundscape:                                                         

2.  Draw a Soundscape from a Sound Design by Wrick Wolff:

3.  The Soundscape of your locations          

                                                

     

4.  The existing Soundscape of your project. 

5. Make a 3 Minute Sound Design of your project. Collect and COLLAGE your favorites sounds, the most distinctives, “telling” ones.  Edit/”Splice”/ mix them  super impose them (Audio double, triple exposure)  fade in/out/cross fades, cuts, in Chronological (or not) order.

Then Draw it...

Listen to your Film

Does the Soundtrack carry/ follow your narrative and bolster your argument? 

Are silences “Pregnant” or filled by strong images? If yes, then Music might not be needed. If unsure, use music to accent, or tilt an ambiguous scene toward the direction of your vision.

7. EXPERIMENT!

Here is a quote from Composer Ned Rorem : Re: “MOVIE MUSIC; Cocteau's Recipe”                     Published: December 01, 1991

To the Editor: (of the   New York Times) “May I add a corroborative anecdote to Edward Rothstein's essay on movie music? [ "Need More Humor or Horror? Add Music -- Very Carefully," Nov. 10 ] . France's premier mid-century film scorer, Georges Auric, once told me about his first job: composing backgrounds for Jean Cocteau's "Blood of a Poet" in 1930. Dutifully, Auric wrote what is commonly known as love music for love scenes, game music for game scenes, funeral music for funeral scenes. Then Cocteau had the bright idea of replacing the love music with the funeral music, game music with the love, funeral with the game. It worked, like prosciutto with melon, while casting an unexpected glow on the already odd movie.                 Conclusion: Since the power of music -- at least of wordless music -- lies in an absence of any precise human significance, any music may persuasively accompany any image while inevitably dictating the tone of that image. Music may sugarcoat a tasteless film or poison one of quality. Yet most   viewers are unaware of what has ruined -- or salvaged -- that   which has bored or thrilled them. -NED ROREM New York

                                            

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