SOUND AND MOTION

Someone once told me that as sound editors one of the most important, if not THE most important, asset we have is our personal sound library as well as the ability and desire to collect original and unique sound content for each and every project we work on. Commercial sound libraries are a valuable part of our toolkit but we know that those same sounds have been used by numerous other people in many varying projects. Also, many of those commercial libraries fail to provide the amount of repetitions and varying performances of sound events we might need in our films. Therefore recording your own sounds for your work will ensure you are providing something unique and fully tailored to whatever project you might be working on.

When I started this blog some months ago my main desire was to share recording sessions and experiences with the wonderful online community of sound designers and enthusiasts who are so generous with their experiences and ideas. But for one reason or another I have not been sharing anywhere near as much as I would have wanted to and want to change that. More specifically, I want to document and share as many of my recording sessions as possible as I always find such posts of great interest!

Anyways, this week I had a vehicle recording session which is always a fun experience so with the blog in mind I remembered to take my camera with me and take some pictures and as well as record some video! The car we were recording was a Ford Fiesta ST which is the sport version of that car.

LOCATION:

One of the very important aspects of organising a sound effects recording session is choosing the right location! For those of us living in cities we are constantly bombarded by noise all around us whether that be traffic, airplanes,sirens,etc… We are so used to it that we often do not think about it but if you turn your recorder on and plug a microphone in you will be surprised as to how much noise pollution surrounds us! So though we could have gone further away from the city for an ideal location we decided to use a large empty car park near the Old Trafford stadium and the docks in Manchester. The location wasn’t ideal (especially on a Wednesday morning) but apart from the occasional seagull and some distant city hum the place was accessible and not too far away so we decided to use it.

EQUIPMENT:

For this session I brought my trusty Sound Devices 744T with my  collection of microphones and a bunch of accessories like a boom pole, several windjammers, some cord and cable ties for attaching and securing microphones to the car as well as some fire resistant cloth to wrap the microphones in to provide protection to both heat and vibrations. However, as I have not yet acquired a mixer to go with the recorder which would give me access to four record tracks I only had the two onboard mic pre’s at my disposal meaning we would have to break the recording into smaller chunks and record several angles or events at a time and then reposition microphones for the next recording.

THE SESSION:

For the first part of the session we decided to begin with the onboard recordings of the vehicle. So to provide us with enough sonic variety that will allow us to tailor the tone and sounds of the car  we proceeded to capturing the different sound elements and textures the car offered.

For the low frequency content of the vehicle which will provide a sense of weight and size we placed a microphone on the exhaust. In this occasion we decided to open the trunk of the car and attach a boompole onto the back seat. We then placed a Sennheiser 416 into the windjammer and pointed the windjammer to the exhaust but off axis to avoid the intense gusts of gas/air that come out of it and could distort our recordings. Other than the winds emitted from the exhaust the back of a car is a quite decent place to place a mic as the suction created by the car moving forward create a small space right behind the car were even at higher speeds the wind is not an issue!

For the next microphone we wanted to get the more mechanical and metallic grinding sounds of the engine. We originally tried to use a dynamic microphone that would handle the high SPL levels of the engine but the Shure SM57 we had brought was creating a weird whine so we decided to go for a small diaphragm pencil microphone (AKG Blueline modular with a cardioid capsule). This instantly sounded better so with the headphones on we proceeded to moving the microphone around different parts of the engine looking for a sweet point that would provide the cleanest and most interesting sound from the engine. It is important to listen to what your mic is capturing and not just at what your ears are hearing as ultimately what is getting recorded is what the mic hears and you might often be surprised as to what and how differently the mic sometimes captures sound. After finding the sweet spot we wrapped the microphone in a small fire resistant kitchen towel that would provide not only protection of contact and heat to the microphone but also absorb some of the vibrations. Also, after realising how much the vibrations of the engine were affecting the sound the mic was capturing we decided to secure the mic tightly to the engine and thus vibrate with the engine and not capturing the nasty sounds it was originally getting.

So you’ve heard the recordings of the engine and exhaust separately.On their own they sound weird and seem to be lacking but the idea is to record these isolated textures and sounds which when cut together in your project will provide the right blend of sounds required for each shot! Here is a listen to both sounds being played out once (exhaust on left engine on right) but gives you a good idea of how the sounds blend together to create a more complete and true sound.

We recorded all kinds of performances of these onboard sounds such as:

Start, Idle, Stop

Start.Idle,Pull Away

Approach, Idle, Stop

Constant driving at 1,000 RPM (30sec)

Constant driving at 2,000 RPM (30sec)

Constant driving at 3,000 RPM (30sec)

Constant driving at 4,000 RPM (30sec)

Accelerations & Gear shifts

Etc…

INTERIORS:

After recording the engine and exhaust perspectives we proceeded to record the same actions again but this time with a stereo recording of the interior of the car. Ideally these would have been recorded at the same time as the onboard engine and exhaust takes but due to a limitation in tracks on the recorder (only two mic pre’s) and not having another recorder available on the day we had to record separate. For the interiors I failed to take picture. We used a small diaphragm pair of condensers mounted on a T-bar and positioned between the two front seats!

TYRE:

We also wanted to capture the sound of the tire on the gritty asphalt so we set up for it. Instead of attempting to attach a microphone under the car near the tires we decided to boom it from the window!

EXTERIORS:

Finally after covering all actions from an onboard perspective we got out of he vehicle and recorded exterior driving and pass by’s.

So all in all a good and fun Wednesday morning

Ford Fiesta ST Recording from Enos Desjardins on Vimeo.

This week has seen the  129th AES Convention take place in San Francisco and though it is always an interesting occasion for everyone in the media industry with many companies announcing their new software and hardware releases this year has been special one especially for those of us working with audio. AVID, who now own the ProTools software we all use in our daily       work, have announced their latest version: ProTools 9!

Now the big news is not that it is just a new version which usually means a few little new features and functions. This release is probably their biggest release in a decade totally changing the philosophy of the company and incorporating many of the biggest requests we have been asking for since a long time!

So.. What’s new?

• Pro Tools now works with Core Audio and ASIO drivers (no more interface limitations)

This means we are no longer tied to using Avid hardware (MBox,003, etc…) but can use pretty much any bit of

hardware we want!

• Supports OMF/AAF/XMF
• Includes the Timecode ruler by default (no need for any paid options)

For us audio post guys this is a very welcomed addition which alone will save us having to buy additional toolkits!

• Adds native ADC

This is another major upgrade! Now we can have this important feature at home without having to splash out on

a large HD system.

• Adds EUCON support

This will allow us to to work closely with ProTools and all Euphonix (now owned by Avid too) hardware from

the Artist range of controllers up to the larger System 5 setups!

• Supports up to 96 tracks natively, and 192 tracks with Complete Production Toolkit 2

The older amount of 48 tracks was a bit limiting all but forcing you to buy an expensive toolkit. Now we have

a standard 96 track by default which is a large upgrade and can take that up to 192 tracks with an additional                                          Toolkit!

In addition to the new software, AVID have launched a new Complete Production Toolkit! This addition, though still not a very cheap option, gives any ProTools user at home the same features as a fully professional HD system!

• Exchange sessions with Pro Tools|HD users without ever losing session information
• Create huge mixes with up to 192 simultaneous audio tracks
• Get full VCA mixing capabilities and support for up to 64 video tracks
• Mix in 7.1 surround while monitoring in stereo with the Neyrinck SoundCode Stereo plug-in
• Speed up your workflow with advanced automation, audio, and video editing tools (Preview Mode as well!)
• Shift time and pitch with natural-sounding results using the X-Form plug-in

All in all a massive step forward by AVID taking their software into the 21st century and really establishing ProTools once again as the industry standard software for any audio related work (my personal opinion anyways).

What do I think of all this?

If I had an HD system I had spent loads of money on, I might not be so happy with this release as I could feel that all the money I spent on having a system that would put me apart from the rest was now undervalued as pretty much anyone can now have those same features at home for a fraction of the cost!

However, though working on HD systems for mixing and in studios I might work in on a freelance basis, much of my editing is done on an LE system and for me, this upgrade now makes a MASSIVE difference. It allows me to have the same features in my own smaller edit suite than what I can find in the larger and more expensive studios out there. At the same time it allows me to push my edits even further and incorporate more detailed surround panning in editing and premixing stages that will speed up the time in mixing and allow us to spend even more time being creative with much of the rougher work already laid down!
Anyways, I am glad to see AVID taking a step in the right direction and am now eager to see where this new mindset takes them and us!

ProTools 9 appears to be shipping from November 12th (in the UK that is) at approx. £500 .

Find out more about ProTools 9 here:http://www.avid.com/US/products/Pro-Tools-Software?intcmp=AV-HP-S2

Right, I realized it had been quite a while since I had posted any updates on this blog so decided to show some signs of life. The thing is summertime is that time of the year best spent outside and enjoying the many activities that can be done wether that is sitting on a terrace sipping down some nice cold beer, enjoying outdoor festivals as well as very often wandering about looking for interesting sounds to record!

As I mentioned in previous posts, I spent six weeks in Canada earlier in the summer and am planning to share some of the sounds I was able to capture over there. But I realized I had not uploaded even one sound sample on this blog so far! A blog about sound for film and no sound samples???  So I checked out  for the best way of uploading samples to share with everyone and after  checking how Tim Prebble and some of the other great bloggers out there were doing it I registered for an account on Soundcloud and have uploaded my first sound file as a test! I am leaving to Barcelona in a few days for a bit of sunshine and more recording so will not upload anything before I get back but stay put for some cool sounds including the moment I was scared by a bear in the wild…live on tape (or should I say hard drive).

Anyways, this little sample is a recording I did earlier this year of one of the many local trams that move people around the city here in Manchester,UK. I selected the right time of day (evening) and a tram stop a bit more remote and silent and set up my gear. I have a nice selection of recording from all sort of perspectives and different performances regarding trams but have only uploaded one for this soundcloud test. It is a very close perspective of a tram starting and taking off. I actually dropped the mic stand in the small cavity next to the track on the groud  which was literally about 10-15cm from the edge of the tram! After letting a few trams stop and take off I found the position where the trams would stop and placed the mic at the front end of the tram where the small whistle/air release made a nice sound whenever it took off.  Anyways, enjoy and stay tuned for a larger collection of sounds coming up soon!

Well my holidays in Canada are advancing nice and slowly and I must say I am enjoying ever minute of them! For those working in postproduction we are often submitted to extreme deadlines which mean we often have to work extremely hard and long days to complete films in time! This obviously isn’t too beneficial to our health and even less to our creative freshness! So I do believe that as sound designers we  must make a special effort to rest between films take time to rest the mind and get our creative juices flowing again! We owe it to filmmaking and ourselves!

Anyways, a few days ago I went up to the northern forests of Quebec to spend a few days in the wild. My uncles have a handbuilt log cabin there next to a river so we packed the truck and headed north! Though I have not brought a laptop or similar work related tools with me I have ofcourse brought my Sound Devices 744T! For me sound recording is like taking pictures and as picture taking is almost a must during holidays so is sound recording for me! Not only does it mean I can capture sounds that can be used in future films but I am capturing memories I can later return to ( I also photograph the locations which can later make for a very complete return to those locations as we can both see and hear the places!)

Anyways, one of the main things I wanted to record considering I was surrounded by it was forests! The sound of the forest and its wildlife. I have worked on a few films over the last year for which I was never too happy with my raw forest material I would grab from libraries so having a chance to capture my own at high resolutions sounded exciting! So with an ear wide open I noticed that the best time to record forest ambiences full of birds and wildlife was either the early mornings or the evening (or after a bit of rain). So on the first morning at about 7am we jumped into the car and drove off. The cabin was next to a river which had some rapids right near the cabin and made noise so any recordings around the cabin would include the river sounds which was not always desired.

Anyways, we drove to a first ocation and got some good recordings there and then moved to the next place. The car stayed on a small dirt road on the edge of the forest and I took all the equipment and ventured about 20 metres into the forest, set up my equipment and with my headphones on began recording! Beautiful forest sounds with birds that made all kinds of noises! 

Suddenly, with my headphones on I hear the car door open in the distance and then I hear someone shout ” Enos!! There is a bear!!!”

Now I grew up in southern Spain and bearws is one thing we don’t have down there! I first thought it was  a joke but it only took me a split second to realize I should not hesitate and grabbed my stuff and ran through the bushes and trees back towards the car! As soon as the bear had hea rd the shout it dashed into the forest exactly in the direction I was recording! So it was a close call! Just as I entered the car the bear walked out of the forest onto the dirt road and into the forest on the other side! Phew!

You can imagine how paranoid I was for the next few days everytime I was recording the forests with my headphones on and would hear a twig snap or a bird leave a branch!  But hey its a great sound recording story! The good thing is I was recording and never stopped the recorder until I was in the car so I have the whole moment caught on the recording!  Another reason to always be in record mode! You never know what will happen!

I will be sharing many of the recordings I have made over here once I get back home but until then I still have another few weeks to keep capturing beautiful moments and resting the mind!

               An amazing sunset on the way back to the cabin after a long day out!

Walt Disney Studios Post Production Tour from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

In my previous post I mentioned I was heading to Canada for 6 weeks of holidays! So after a long day of flying which included my first experience in US soil as I ventured into New York for a quick tour I finally landed in Montreal. I spent the first 3 days at a relatives house and though the first day we enjoyed brilliant weather, by the second day it had started raining! So what else can one do on a rainy day than record the rain!

With my Sound Devices 744 here with me I set up the rycote and mics and after setting myself up in a  little shelter in the back garden I proceeded to place the mics under different surfaces to capture the varied textures of the raindrops impacting on different surfaces from large rhubarb leaves to a PVC canoe boat.

One problem when recording sounds like wind, rain and water is that it is often hard to get nicely textured sounds and often end up with something hard to identify and closer to white noise than anything else! So often the best way to get around this is to break the sound into pieces and record separate elements which can later be put together in orchestrating a nicely textured track of wind or rain or water. On this occasion I proceeded to record rain so in order to be able to create a nicely textured layer of rain I knew I wanted to record very specific sounds which I could then layer up and one thing I like is capturing texture with sound. A raindrop falling on a plastic roof sounds very different from a raindrop falling on concrete. So in attempting to avoid capturing a wall of white noise I proceeded to closemiking the rain impact on different surfaces from underneath which captured the varied textures of the surfaces. So with the microphones placed underneath large rhubarb leaves I was able to capture the unique texture of rain on leaves. Because the leaves were large the sound was large too and I can imagine a surreal moment in a film with raindrops falling on leaves in slowmotion with large sounds were this would be perfect! Even in a normal forest rain these sounds blended with a more general rainfall will add detail and texture to an otherwise sterile track.

I then proceeded to placing the microphones under different surfaces which included a PVC canoe boat which provided very textured and loud drops, smaller leaves which provided a lighter texture of raindrops on leaves and other surfaces available in my relatives’ back garden!

I wanted to share the sounds on this post but as the computer I am using here has not got a Firewire connection I am unable to obtain the sounds from my recorder and will have to find a adequate computer to use! As soon as I do I will make sure to upload some samples of the sounds!!

Anyways, I have now moved on to Quebec City and it is now nice and sunny here. This weekend we will be going to a nice wooden log cabin in the deep forest and I will be bringing my recorder with me so will be able to get some nice nature sounds without any interruption from the always present sound of the city! I wil be sharing these sounds too!!

Hi guys,

  Those of you following the blog will have noticed that it has moved!  I finally signed up for a web server and got my first domain registered. So I decided to move the blog onto my own server and domain to keep everything in one place! I hope noone has found this a nuisance. I have tried to maintain the blog’s “look” as much as possible and though I had to do some basic training in HTML coding to replicate the blogspot template to work in wordpress (thank God for google and wikipedia!) it is now ready to go and live.  For those of you who might have put up a link to this blog on your own blogs, do update the link if you can be bothered

  Things have been pretty quiet on the blog over the last month as I have been intensively working on all my active projects and getting things finished before the summer!  I am taking a needed 6 weeks holiday in Canada in two weeks and though I don’t want to get anywhere near any kind of sound editing software or work, I will be taking my Sound Devices recorder and mic rig with me and am looking forward to capturing some great forest recordings and so on! So will try to put up some posts with pictures and sound clips from my exploration adventures!

   I will be back home mid July and though I have a few little shorts to do then I will keep things quiet until August when it all starts again as I get on board my next feature! More on that soon!

Sound effects libraries have long been around and we have all resorted to using them when editing sounds for our films. There are quite a few commercial companies out there dedicated to recording and selling sound effects but the reason I am writing this post is to point out the birth of a new and very fresh approach to sound effects libraries and their distribution. Award winning sound designer Tim Prebble has recently launched his sound effect label under the name Hiss and a Roar . His first two releases (Vegetable Violence and Swishes) have proved a success and I highly recommend you check them out!

The problem with many of the big name sound effects libraries is that they are not always aimed at the sound designer and that is seen in several key aspects of their libraries. In my opinion, the main issue with them is that many of the sounds on these libraries have already been heavily edited,processed and “designed” into a specific sound. So one could open their search engine and type for “dragon roar”, “human stab” or “vampire eating flesh” and find sounds readily tailored for these events. Obviously nobody has gone out and recorded a dragon roaring, a human being stabbed or a vampire eating flesh but instead they have recorded different raw elements and then edited and processed these into sounds that meet the requirements of the description. However, as a sound designer I don’t want someone designing my sounds but instead want to create my own unique sounds and not something that hundreds of people worldwide will have already used on other films. Also, I don’t want to have only a few repetitions of any one sound as that would do me no good. If I am working on a film which is heavy in sword fights or human fights full of punches to different parts of the body I want to have a large selection of the same kinds of sounds. What I mean is I need to have many repetitions as well as varied performances of each sword hit or punch to t tailor each and every singular sword clash and hit as a unique sonic moment in the film. Another thing is I want high resolution recordings which will allow me to process and manipulate the sounds to extreme extents in achieving the sounds I require. 24 bit/ 96 Khz sample rate or higher is a must to allow things like time stretching or pitch shifting to occur without any sign of artifacts. Finally, as in most things one purchases in life, price matters.

All of these issues are met and very well tackled in Tim’s new sound effects label. His philosophy and approach in recording and distributing his libraries are fresh, tailored to the sound designer’s needs and the next step in sound effects libraries!

All his libraries are made up of high resolution recordings (24bit/96Khz), include MANY repetitions and variations of each sound and are raw material intended to be used as source material to be manipulated and processed into any required sound. Finally his pricing schemes are very reasonable and flexible! You can get a free download pack at 16bit 44.1K with one repetition of each sound or then choose from a selection of LITE, MID or MAX  libaries each having more repetitions and higher resolutions with the MAX LIBRARY providing 24bit 96kHz samples and plenty of repetitions and variations for sound editors and designer who need the extended resolution and larger amount of variations.

I highly recommend you have a look at his website and find out for yourself!

www.hissandaroar.com

“But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies” – Pablo Neruda

About two months ago I mentioned a film I had taken on called Lost Bullets which was to be shot in Colombia (South America) in early March and is written and directed by Mono Ghose. Well everything went to plan and the film was shot during the first week of March and after going through a few temp mixes for test screenings/early festival deadlines we are now entering the final stages of post production and will be doing the final sound mix of the film next week!

After receiving a locked picture edit two weeks ago I have gone through all the dialogue editing, Foley recording/editing and sound FX recording/editing which have now been completed and are all being premixed.  At the same time the brilliant composer  George Khallis (www.cinematic-soundscapes.com)  has been scoring all the music for the film and has once again managed to deliver some superb pieces of musical beauty!

This Monday we will be going through the final mix of the film making sure all the demands and expectations of the director’s vision are met so we can walk away with a film we can all be proud of!

Lost Bullets tells the story of three street children growing up in a violent neighbourhood in rural Colombia who are hit by shrapnel from a lost bullet in a guerrilla skirmish.
One dies. One becomes a FARC trafficker. One becomes an elite police officer.
A twist of fate and a bloody encounter forces their worlds to powerfully collide 15 years later…

Group looping or group ADR is the process of recording or rerecording dialogue of a group of people. This could be a rioting crowd, a group of soldiers in a battle sequence or people talking in the background in a restaurant or bar. Usually when a film is being shot in a restaurant, for example, only the main characters will be talking and all the extras in the background would just be miming. Once in post production, the sounds of the background people will be recorded and edited into the scene.

One term that is used a lot regarding this procedure is Walla and the group of voice actors involved is often called the Walla group. The word walla had its birth in the early days when people first came up with the need to record the sound of a crowd in the background. They found if several people simply repeated “walla, walla, walla, walla” it sounded like people talking. The audience did not really hear the words but instead could just perceive a murmur/buzz in the background which most of the times is what was needed.

Nowadays though, the walla group use real words and real conversations. The voice actors have been informed of the period and location of the film and story and have researched the local jargon and accent so that the background dialogue will be authentic and will enhance the location and not stick out. The content of what is being spoken depends greatly on what is happening on screen and although much of the time it is improvised on the spot, there are times when a guideline or script is given to actors in a group loop session.

The film I am currently working on is based and was shot in Colombia (South America). In one of the scenes as we are focusing on three children talking together in the foreground a truck arrives in the background, guerrilla soldiers jump off and they start demanding payment from an old merchant. A heated discussion follows with the guerrilla soldiers cursing and shouting to the guy. The only issue is that this arguing and the rest was never shot/recorded. So it is part of my task to record/create the sounds of these soldiers shouting and arguing in the background. The content of that discussion is not relevant to the story but the fact they are there and are arguing is. So a few weeks ago I started talking to some friends as I wanted to get some people into the studio which would have or could perform the lines with the right type of slang and accent for the part.

So yesterday I finally had the session and was lucky to get two Colombian guys to come in and perform the lines. Because we only had two people, we had to double them up a bit and create various layers of recordings to make it sound like there were 3 or 4 as opposed to two. One very important aspect when conducting such sessions is directing the actors. In this case we needed their performance to sound raw and intense and had to build up in intensity as the seconds ticked. So as the recordist on the session and the sound designer on the project it was in my interest to get all I could out of them knowing exactly what I needed!

After going through quite a few takes they started sounding meaner and angrier which is what I was after and we finally got a few really good takes! All that is left now is editing it to the picture! I wrote a small “script” for the actors as a guidetrack so that their discussion had some kind of coherence as it will be heard and intelligible in the mix. So we recorded variations of that script which they adapted to Colombian Spanish with the right slang words and accents and then recorded a bunch of shouts, cursing and laungs. With a bit of careful editing and cutting up everything into a seamless background discussion with shouts and loose lines overlapping the main “script” lines we should hopefully have what sounds like three or four Colombian guerrilla soldiers arguing and threatening our old merchant and will give a nice and authentic feel to the moment!