Sound Design for Film

Tim Harrison

• Editore: The Crowood Press
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781785009150
• Argomento: Media & Performing Arts
• Categoria: Film Direction & Production

Sound Design for Film offers an in-depth study of one of cinema's most powerful storytelling tools, exploring the creative landscape and proposing a variety of contemporary approaches to audio design. Opening up a hidden world of narrative techniques, experienced designer Tim Harrison provides key insights into how sound works on audiences to guide them through stories. Topics covered include: the creative process from script to delivery; visualizing your design ideas; developing characters and settings, and using motif and metaphor. Also covered is recording foley and sound effects along with editing and manipulating audio and the final mix. Serving as a tool for creative reflection and development, this unique book offers invaluable approaches for enhancing your storytelling skills, wherever you are on your filmmaking journey.

1
LISTENING

SOUNDSCAPES, AUDIENCES AND STORIES

Still the noise in the mind: that is the first task – then everything else will follow in time.

(R. Murray Schafer)

As filmmakers, we work towards a command of sound in stories. But in order to create worlds that feel authentic, we must first learn to give up control, and develop the skill of listening. As with any other skill, this takes practice.

Birkle, A., The Acrobat Schulz V (1921). THE GEORGE ECONOMOU COLLECTION DACS 2021

Let us imagine for a moment that we are on a moving train; let us focus on the sounds around us. Perhaps we hear electronic chimes and stilted announcements overhead, or the clinking of a passing catering trolley. We would hear the sounds associated with the train itself too: the rhythmic clattering of wheels on tracks, the rush of air through tunnels, a sonorous blast of the horn.

When we begin to design our own scenes, listening explorations of this kind become our references. Like a cook who understands what each ingredient brings to a dish, and can vary the combinations to achieve different results, we will develop ‘recipes’ to recreate the sounds and experiences of our world. Working with layers of audio, we can mix and blend any number of ingredients, allowing us to shape, emphasize and focus the end result. Once we have learned to listen, each scene will demand its own adaptation of the formula, guided by mood, genre and our characters’ state of mind.

LISTENING TO THE WORLD

In Themes and Variations, composer John Cage suggests that ‘music is permanent, only listening is intermittent’, meaning that the world continuously produces a kind of natural music. We have only to decide to listen and an infinitely complex dance of sound waves comes into focus. You might be aware of his composition 4’33”, in which the musicians are instructed not to play their instruments for the duration of the performance. The sound of the piece is whatever is audible in the space during those four minutes and thirty-three seconds. It might be the shuffling of audience members, the working of an air-conditioning unit, the faint sounds of traffic bleeding in from outside. Each time the piece is performed, the acoustic environment tells a story that is unique to that particular moment – a sonic fingerprint that can also be described as a soundscape.

4’33” calls for a deeper exploration of the soundscapes around us. We can respond at any time by concentrating on the moment, clearing our minds of other thoughts. Shifting our attention between different audible elements, we can uncover layers of hidden detail, and by changing the context – time, place, in motion or stationary – we can draw comparisons within our own experiences. Pauline Oliveros describes this kind of meditation as deep listening – a reflective practice that works towards an intuitive and profound understanding of sound.

LISTENING ACTIVITY A

Immerse yourself in the soundscape of your present experience. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you, wherever you happen to be at the moment. Focus on one sound source at a time, trying to feel rather than think about it. Explore the shape, texture and rhythm of each layer before moving on to the next. Continue this cycle until you have taken in every sound within your field of hearing.

BREAKING DOWN THE SOUNDSCAPE

Intuitive knowledge is something we continually use in our work, but as designers we also need to develop analytical modes of thinking about sound.

Three categories of soundscape: earth (the ocean at Barrika), non-human life (snow monkeys at Jigokudani Park) and humanity (street crossing in Bilbao).

R. Murray Schafer’s The Tuning of the World gives us a useful approach, dividing the soundscape into three groups:

•Sounds of the Earth (for example, whistling wind, creaking glaciers, rumbling volcanoes).

•Sounds of non-human life (for example, chirping insects, warbling birdsong, howling wolves).

•Sounds of humanity (for example, clanging industry, babbling voices, beeping machines).

Soundscape example: Bilbao street at dusk.

This system gives us a neat way to break down our listening experiences, thinking about how each layer of sound relates to us.

To explore the schema, imagine what you might hear on a street at dusk:

Earth	Non-human life	Humanity
Wind in trees	Dog barks	Car engines
	Birdsong	Footsteps
	Insects	People speaking in local language(s)

In our designs, we can creatively control the balance of the three groups, using each to colour a scene in a particular way. A cityscape would usually be dominated by human sounds, giving a sense of people in control of their environment. Adding the cry of an urban fox suggests another world, hidden beneath the surface, while a thunderstorm could convey the feeling of greater powers at work, beyond the realm of human control.

LISTENING ACTIVITY B

Return to the soundscape of your current situation with a more thoughtful ear. Perhaps you can hear rain, wind or other planetary sounds. Are there animals or birds in earshot? How many layers of human sounds are present? Note down everything you can hear across the three soundscape categories.

LISTENING AND AUDIENCE

Understanding how sound affects us is key to controlling our stories, and by exploring the noise of our day-to-day lives we can chart the emotions it evokes. Picking up our urban soundscape, we can identify the feelings that might be associated with each element:

Sound	Emotion
Wind in trees	Relaxing
Birdsong	Cheerful
Car engines	Irritating

Emotion is partly triggered at the aesthetic level of the sounds themselves, but their underlying meanings can affect the listener just as much. For instance, the soothing effect of the sound of rain on a window may be partly caused by its sonic properties, but it may also be due to an idea that it reinforces a sense of protection from the outside world.

Other sounds we encounter are designed to give us clear information – the beep at the supermarket checkout says the item is scanned, the ping of the oven timer means the food is ready, the noises at the dinner table tell us how delicious it was, or otherwise. The world is full of these auditory signs, which we map out in internal dictionaries, linking sounds to what they represent.

But what of the sounds that do not catch our attention – are they still having an effect? We might assume that if we fail to notice a sound, it delivers no message, and has no impact on how we feel. In reality, whilst the unconscious selects only certain events to offer up, we are constantly processing sound, and being influenced by it. This background zone colours our experience in a profound way, and manipulating it is key to designing sound.

One common example is the rumble, a very low-pitched and continuous sound that is felt through vibration as much as it is heard. This device is a staple of horror sound, evoking unseen forces, or setting up the idea that things are about to take a turn for the worse. Rumbles can be reproduced on standard full-range loudspeakers, but cinemas usually also have subwoofers, designed to reproduce only the lowest sounds at high volume. Many film mix formats also contain a channel that is sent only to the subwoofer, known as the low-frequency effects (LFE ), or the rumble track. This low-end material can be mixed in gradually, to avoid signalling its arrival, and tends to produce feelings of unease – a sense of something being not quite right. Unaware of any information being delivered by the sound, the audience will respond on a purely visceral level, in a reaction that may be linked to an evolutionary past in which rumbling earth was a sign of impending danger. As the moment ends, the sound often stops suddenly, creating a dramatic cha...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• FOREWORD
• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 LISTENING: SOUNDSCAPES, AUDIENCES AND STORIES
• 2 CHARACTER: PSYCHOLOGY AND ACTING WITH SOUND
• 3 SETTING: AMBIENCE, IMMERSION AND SENSE OF PLACE
• 4 MOOD: EMOTION, TONE AND WORKING WITH MUSIC
• 5 SYMBOL: SOUND WORLDS AND METAPHORS
• 6 SHAPE: SOUND MAPS, CONTRAST AND MOTIF
• 7 VOICE (PRODUCTION): THE ART OF ON-SET RECORDING
• 8 VOICE (POST): DIALOGUE EDITING AND ADR
• 9 IMAGE: SPOTTING AND SOUND–IMAGE RELATIONSHIPS
• 10 TIME: TRANSITIONS, RHYTHM AND TIME PERCEPTION
• 11 SPACE: ACOUSTICS, SILENCE AND THE FREQUENCY SPECTRUM
• 12 AESTHETIC: EXPLORING THE OVERALL FEEL OF A SOUND TRACK
• 13 COLLABORATION: ROLES AND WORKFLOW WITHIN THE INDUSTRY
• 14 TRANSFORMATION: OTHERWORLDLY CAPTURE AND MANIPULATION
• 15 FINALE: MIXING AND DELIVERING A FILM
• APPENDIX I ONE LAST DANCE SCRIPT
• APPENDIX II MAN VS SAND SCRIPT
• APPENDIX III DYNAMIC QUALITIES OF SOUND
• GLOSSARY
• REFERENCES
• INDEX