Lecture Week 1

MULTIPLATFORM SOUND DESIGN

KMB252

Overview Contact Details

Unit coordinator: John Willsteed [email protected]

Contact for questions about enrolment, class allocations, etc.

Lecturers/Tutors:

David Williams [email protected]

Dion Clark [email protected]

Contact us for questions about assessment items, unit content, etc.

Overview What Youll Learn

1. Employ critical insight into the use of sound in a range of media

2. Use sound as a storytelling device in applicable formats

3. Develop data and time management systems

4. Apply a range of interactive systems and programs

5. Produce and integrate sound components in an interactive project.

Materials needed

HEADPHONES!! (ideally good ones)

Portable USB Storage (Hard Drive, Memory

Stick)

BACK UP YOUR DATA!!

Week to Week Outline

Week 1: Sound Design in a Nutshell

Week 2: Animation Sound Design

Week 3: Dialogue

Week 4: Sound Effects, Foley and Atmos

Week 5: -- Project Week No class --

Week 6: Plugins and Signal Flow

Week to Week Outline

Week 7: Game and Interactive Sound Design Concepts

Week 8: File Naming Conventions and Audio Pipeline

Week 9: -- Project Week No Class --

Week 10: Implementation of Audio Into Unity

Week 11: Video Game Guest Lecture (TBD)

Week 12: Sound to Picture Guest Lecture (TBD)

Assessment

Online Quiz Fundamentals of Sound Design Due: End of Week 4

Weighting: 20%

Online Quiz Sound Design for Multiplatform Applications

Due: End of Week 12

Weighting: 20%

Sound Design work to Multimedia, Interactive Sound Design work and Written Report

Due: Week 13

Weighting: 60%

What is Sound Design?

A very broad term with multiple definitions.

In the context of this subject, Sound Design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements.

Employed in a variety of disciplines, including Film, Television, Theatre, Animation, Advertising, Installation Pieces, Interactive Multimedia and Video Games.

Where did it originate?

The first person to be credited with the title

of Sound Designer was Walter Murch, for

his work on Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1972)

"an individual ultimately responsible for all

aspects of a film's audio track, from the

dialogue and sound effects recording to the

re-recording (mix) of the final track"

Films Notable for Sound Design

Apocalypse Now (Walter Murch, 1972)

The Conversation (Walter Murch, 1974)

Star Wars (Ben Burtt, 1977)

Das Boot (Karen M. Baker, 1981)

Jurassic Park (Gary Rydstrom, 1993)

Saving Private Ryan (Gary Rydstrom, 1998)

The Matrix (Dane A. Davis, 1999)

WALL-E (Ben Burtt, 2008)

What does Sound Design do?

Helps tell and reinforce the story

Immerses the audience within the piece

Works on multiple levels:

See a dog, hear a dog

Informs the audience of the world outside the

visual frame

Can heighten drama, suspense and tension all

subliminally

Main categories of Film Sound

Dialogue

ADR

Music

Foley

Atmospheres (Atmos)

Sound Effects

Dialogue and ADR

What is spoken by the characters onscreen

In live action, Dialogue is generally recorded

on set

In animation, Dialogue is recorded within a

controlled studio environment

ADR is Additional Dialogue Recording a

process of re-recording unusable lines to

synced footage

Music

Used to emphasize or contradict the

onscreen action

Can be diegetic (within the film world eg. A

radio) or non-diegetic (typical film score

only audible to the audience)

Covers a vast range of genres, from typical

orchestral scores to modern electronic pop

music

Foley

Reproduction of everyday sound effects

added to enhance audio quality

Generally limited to human movement and

interaction sounds

Often blurs into Sound Effects the role of a

Foley artist needs to be clearly defined in the

initial brief

Atmospheres (Atmos)

Used to inform the audience of the

environment in which the piece takes place

Often sound sources are offscreen

E.g. wind in trees, distant traffic, birds

chirping

Sound Effects

A sound recorded and presented to make a specific

storytelling or creative point without the use of dialogue

or music

Can be recorded, synthesized or manipulated from other

sources

Generally used for notable events, e.g. explosion, car

driving past, exploding car driving past

Can be diegetic and non-diegetic

Often blurs between Foley and Atmos categories

Implementation

For film sound, the only software used within

a professional environment is Pro Tools

It is possible to use other Digital Audio

Workstations (DAWs), but Pro Tools is the

industry standard

Creative Sound Design

What you see is very rarely what you hear

real world sounds often sound boring when

placed in a films soundtrack, e.g. punches,

explosions, etc.

How to Overcome This

Think creatively

Experiment with sounds from unexpected

sources

Think in terms of what you need the sound to

accomplish think Attack, Decay, Sustain,

Release

Edit sounds together to convey particular

qualities

Layering, layering, layering!

A reminder!

Sound, musical and otherwise, has value when it is part of a continuum, when it changes over

time, has dynamics, and resonates with other

sound and with other sensory experiences.

(Thom, 1999)

Creative Sound Design Ideas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsfbXGDw_aA

Creative Sound Design Ideas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cpoww6iKyA

Homework!

Watch a film from the list provided. Take

notes on the sound design elements of the

piece, and how they influenced the films

narrative.

That list again!

Apocalypse Now (Walter Murch, 1972)

The Conversation (Walter Murch, 1974)

Star Wars (Ben Burtt, 1977)

Das Boot (Karen M. Baker, 1981)

Jurassic Park (Gary Rydstrom, 1993)

Saving Private Ryan (Gary Rydstrom, 1998)

The Matrix (Dane A. Davis, 1999)

WALL-E (Ben Burtt, 2008)