Talking about Sound Design

No one really talks about sound design. Film critics, aficionados and academics tend to analyse films in terms of what they see, the performances and other aspects of the visuals; cinematography (inc., lighting, etc.), camera angles, picture edits and either completely ignore or mention sound only in passing. Directors also rarely talk about sound design, which is surprising considering the amount of time, effort and planning/thought they put into it. Maybe they think talking about sound design isn't interesting, doesn't help sales or that it's like a magic trick which doesn't work once the audience knows how it's done.

Alcove Audio is fond of quoting "sound is half the experience", which as far as I'm aware is not a quote of one single famous director but a quote, paraphrased quote or belief of pretty much all the famous directors! If sound is half the experience, why aren't half the threads on indietalk about sound design? In fact, of all the threads on indietalk practically zero are about sound design, not even the superficial basics, let alone any serious or detailed discussions! Maybe, as critics, directors rarely mention sound design it gives the impression that sound isn't much of a filmmaking consideration, except maybe in terms of a peripheral technical necessity? Maybe this is why, when sound is mentioned on IT, it's virtually always in terms of only achieving an acceptable technical quality for the production dialogue.

In an attempt to get the ball rolling a bit, here's an interesting situation which occurred a few months ago. First, an article in the Washington Post about Interstellar and some of the complaints it received due to the sound and then, an article in The Hollywood Reporter, based on Nolan's response to those complaints:

‘Interstellar’s’ sonic soup or: How auteurs diss their audiences

Christopher Nolan Breaks Silence on 'Interstellar' Sound

Maybe a good place to start would be what Nolan means by "impressionistic" sound design?

G
 
Maybe this is why, when sound is mentioned on IT, it's virtually always in terms of only achieving an acceptable technical quality for the production dialogue.

That's a valuable point worth making and thinking about. It is unfortunate. But it's also likely unavoidable for people working with micro or practically no budgets. Still, something to strive for or perhaps cause to reevaluate approaches.

Great links. I accept Nolan's explanations. I did have a little trouble in the movie house, I guess, in making out some dialogue, which I think did annoy me a little. But I forgave the filmmakers pretty much for the reasons given by Nolan to explain it. And I liked the the booming soundtrack, thumping sound effects, and bassy, woofer-throbby sound. I quickly forgave some difficult-to-hear dialogue because the overall effect was grand and mostly worked well. And maybe because they chose the road less traveled in scifi movies and TV, as I think I understand it, by not portraying sounds in exterior scenes in space. You have the spacecrafts shooting through spacescapes that dwarf them, explosions, violence, etc, but there isn't sound, which if I understand correctly is physically accurate. So what do you do? You use the score to add drama/sound. It worked, for my money.

I did not forgive Fincher, though, for the crap he pulled in Gone Girl. I won't give him a pass on that, not at the time I saw it, not now. Maybe someday I'll change my mind. But no thanks from me for what he did there. Part of that might simply be that Gone Girl is so much less of a movie, so I'm in a less forgiving disposition toward it. That was a case of sticking it to the audience, even if unintended. They were trying to be a little to slick for the movie's own good.

A more recent experience of having trouble catching the dialogue for me was in Mad Max: Fury Road. There was quite a bit of dialogue I couldn't make out. But I don't know if that was a sound issue, design, or simply because I had trouble with the accents. But it hardly mattered. It didn't spoil it for me because everything else was so good, and apparently you don't need to understand all the dialogue in that film to enjoy it. :P

I do try to appreciate sound design. And part of that nowadays is surely in part because of your influence, APE. I admit it's not always on my mind. I tend to be more conscious of it when a film has either poor sound or really good sound. I have a fairly decent home theater sound system, but alas, where I live now I can't actually enjoy/use it knowing it will annoy the neighbors. :( Nowadays, anyway, I watch most things on my PC with entry level headphones.

I appreciate the new Dolby Atmos in the theaters, but...and maybe I wouldn't say this if I had a side-by-side sound test, then I'd know how much superior Dolby Atmos is, but, so far I've been thinking that I miss DTS.
 
i had no problems with understanding the dialogue at home.
i did notice the sound track drew a lot of attention to itself.
 
No one really talks about sound design...

Alcove Audio is fond of quoting "sound is half the experience", which as far as I'm aware is not a quote of one single famous director but a quote, paraphrased quote or belief of pretty much all the famous directors! If sound is half the experience, why aren't half the threads on indietalk about sound design? In fact, of all the threads on indietalk practically zero are about sound design, not even the superficial basics, let alone any serious or detailed discussions!

It's not the importance of the subject, rather it's the way the audiophiles here try to discuss the subject matter. All too often, the discussions end up as arguments which is unhelpful.

If I want to have a genuine discussion and ideas-driven conversation around audio, I have to pay for it. I use a couple of sound pros for booming (very occasionally), foley (occasionally) and definitely to complete the sound mix depending on if my stuff is any good.
 
That's a valuable point worth making and thinking about. It is unfortunate. But it's also likely unavoidable for people working with micro or practically no budgets. Still, something to strive for or perhaps cause to reevaluate approaches.

To be honest, I don't really accept the nano/no budget argument. Sure, commercial quality sound design requires a decent budget but then the same could be said for virtually all the filmmaking arts. Nano/no budget filmmakers can't afford Alexas, elaborate lighting rigs, expensive sets/locations or professional cinematographers, focus puller, gaffers, etc., and yet there are still endless threads about cinematography and related equipment/techniques from those interested in doing it themselves and getting the best images with what they can afford. They don't simply ignore the visual half of filmmaking because they can't afford it. So in the end it appears to come down to what aspects filmmakers here are interested in, which appears generally to be almost exclusively the visual half of filmmaking.

I did have a little trouble in the movie house, I guess, in making out some dialogue, which I think did annoy me a little. But I forgave the filmmakers pretty much for the reasons given by Nolan to explain it.

I'm personally not quite so forgiving. IMHO, it's poor story telling/sound design to either not be able to understand the dialogue or for the audience not to realise that they're not supposed to be able to understand it. For example, there are some obvious visual cues/responses which could be employed to indicate that the dialogue can't/shouldn't be understood, the fact none of these cues/responses were employed implies that this "dialogue effect" was an after-thought rather than the film being designed for it. The fact that it annoyed you a little and annoyed enough people enough to complain, cause the Washington Post to publish an article about it and to require a response from Nolan indicates it's a filmmaking flaw/error which didn't work as an after-thought.

You have the spacecrafts shooting through spacescapes that dwarf them, explosions, violence, etc, but there isn't sound, which if I understand correctly is physically accurate. So what do you do?

Good question and one which raises a number of issues fundamental to sound design. For example, the difference between physically accurate sound (reality) and how we experience sound or expect to experience it. In the case of space scenes, we have a particular problem in the fact that without a medium (air, water, etc.) sound waves don't exist, so there is no sound beyond what is created in the astronauts' artificial atmosphere. So, there are 4 basic choices for wide shots in space: 1. No sound at all, 2. Ignore the laws of physics and have sound anyway, 3. Use incidental music instead or 4. Do it all from the POV of a specific character and just have sound of the astronaut's immediate vicinity (spacesuit or capsule). There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these solutions, although physical reality (or the experience of it) is maybe less of a concern than usual as pretty much no one in the audience will have any real experience of sound (or the lack of it) in space.

The question of the reality of sound, how humans experience/respond to it emotionally and our expectations of it, is definitely an area in which filmmakers need at least a reasonable understanding IMHO and hopefully an area we can explore more during the course of this thread.

I do try to appreciate sound design. And part of that nowadays is surely in part because of your influence, APE. I admit it's not always on my mind. I tend to be more conscious of it when a film has either poor sound or really good sound.

That's certainly a good start but IMHO it is just a start. Think of it the other way around, as a filmmaker do you only consciously notice the visuals when they are particularly good or bad or do you believe a better/deeper understanding of visuals than that is required?

It's not the importance of the subject, rather it's the way the audiophiles here try to discuss the subject matter. All too often, the discussions end up as arguments which is unhelpful.

There haven't been any discussions on sound design here recently and I don't recall any arguments on the rare occasion when there has been. There have been some arguments recently related to sound but they were caused by a non-audiophile arguing incorrect basic technical facts of how audio equipment works. There are disagreements/arguments on just about every subject occasionally, one has to accept this possibility on the internet and sometimes you can learn quite a bit as a bystander.

If I want to have a genuine discussion and ideas-driven conversation around audio, I have to pay for it. I use a couple of sound pros for booming (very occasionally), foley (occasionally) and definitely to complete the sound mix depending on if my stuff is any good.

Again, let's turn that around. Can you only have ideas-driven conversation about the visuals if you pay for it? Do you only have genuine discussions about the visuals with your focus puller, picture editor or grader or do you plan for the visuals in the script and during pre-production?

Your post essentially stated that you don't want a discussion about sound design and even if you did, it's not possible to have one here. Please, let's at least try to avoid derailing this thread before it even gets started!

G
 
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Interesting thread. I can't speak for everyone, as I don't know how universal my experience is, but I'll just give you guys my opinion based on my experiences.

I think that most filmmakers, including myself, approach filmmaking like artists, and not like technicians. And when you approach the visuals as an artist, the audience is forgiving. Sometimes a mistake looks like magic and you keep it in, although you never planned for it. And we all look brilliant.

If the same attitude is given to the audio, well... that's just not going to work. And you realize it the first time you hear the recorded audio when you sit down to edit. "ADR" is the other excuse that people give during the shoot, as if ADR is easy or cheap to do in post. It's probably cheaper to address issues during the shoot, if it is possible. I think "ADR" should be stripped from a director's vocabulary.

Also in visuals there are different tastes. Personally, I don't like shadows. So I like reflected ambient lighting, from ceilings, walls, wherever. But I don't really have an opinion on sound. I just assume that ideally things should sound like everything else I've heard. My ears aren't trained to recognize the difference that exists in everything else I've heard.

I think APE that because of all the discussions in visuals, you're thinking that filmmakers/directors don't pay attention to sound. I'd say it's because achieving a visual standard that is acceptable is much easier than achieving visual perfection. Achieving an audio standard that is acceptable is much more difficult, and we don't realize this until we're sitting at our edit desk. That's why we don't discuss it. Because we don't realize how much more difficult it is, until it's too late. You'll notice that every audio discussion is "how do I fix it?" not "how do I plan it?"

Also, I remember having an argument with you, where I was trying to tell you that achieving Roger Deakins caliber visuals were possible on lower budgets. Then I had a DP walk me through a Deakins shot, and explained every shadow in the shot. And I realized then (I'm sure not fully) how much actually went into that one shot. But when I think about my own films, I feel, "Well, I'm not Deakins, I don't have his budget, I don't care about Deakins, I don't care about visual perfection or whatever, I care about achievable visuals given my budget, so... let's shoot" But that attitude if given to sound recording, is surely going to be a death sentence for the same film.

Also, the DPs, and the Sound guys we work with at our level don't make it any easier either. We're at the bottom of the sea, where directors, writers, audio and video guys and gals are trying to rise higher. In the meantime we act like we're technically proficient, and we're not. But we tell each other feel good stories about our own technical prowesses, and we ruin our films. Join any film group discussion, whether on-line or at your local film meet. Everybody is giving you expert opinions. Nobody says "here are the things I don't know how to do." That's a basic problem with the low budget end where I reside, that you probably don't know much about.

Anyway, I've got lots of thoughts on the subject of filmmakers and filmmaking. But I think the reason we're not talking about sound more, is because talking about sound is difficult. Most of us don't know the first thing about it. Most of us don't know what can go wrong with sound, as we've never heard bad sound (that we know of). The only bad sound we've heard is the bad sound we recorded on our own shoots. But bad stories and bad writing and bad dialog and bad visuals we see in every movie that we don't like or appreciate. So that's why we discuss them.

I think this thread is a great idea, if it can get even one filmmaker to realize how important sound is, and understand the issues before making audio mistakes. But to tell you the truth, the same discussions didn't have a similar effect on me. Other people told me how important sound was, and in my brain, I gave it consideration. But not consideration enough. Because until you record your first audio in the middle of a shoot, and listen to it later against the visuals, your brain cannot make that connection. It's an impossible thing to understand the importance of good audio until you hear the bad. And even then, you don't know how to fix it because you've never sat down with someone and fixed it. It's too difficult to make someone afraid of audio. I'm at a point where I'm genuinely afraid of audio. Everything else, I can think myself out of, or plan out of. Audio, not so. Until I can find audio recorders and post people who're really good and affordable within my budget, I'll always be afraid.

Edit: sorry for the huge essay. I was rambling.
 
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I think it's important to understand clearly what sound design is. For me, it's strategic, it's conceptual - it's a separate thing to questions like how to record good location sound, what mics to use in what situations and so on. (Not that those aren't very important too).

To that end, I would say there's no reason a good director, even with zero technical knowledge of audio, can't have a very constructive input into the sound design of a film: I want it to sound like this, I want the audience to feel this, rather than: please use this mic here, add reverb here etc. It's about the emotional/visceral experience for the viewer, rather than technical audio geekery...

By the way, I'd recommend this exceptional book to anyone who's seriously interested in this topic:

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Audio_vision.html?id=BBs4Arfm98oC

It's very conceptual. There's barely a mention of microphones, compressors, field recorders etc. It's specifically about the way imagery and sound combine on film to create a single experience, rather than treating them as two separate functions. It's eye-opening (...ear-opening).
 
I think it's important to understand clearly what sound design is. For me, it's strategic, it's conceptual - it's a separate thing to questions like how to record good location sound, what mics to use in what situations and so on. (Not that those aren't very important too).

I agree.

But I think "sound design" is the easier part of film audio. It has to do with taste and thought and whether you like something or not. But one can only embark of the "sound design" aspects of filmmaking once the audio recording portion is up to snuff, right? Of course you can plan it beforehand, but you can't start implementing sound design until the edit phase.

For someone like myself, the problem starts in the recording portion of the audio. If the recording is good, then I can play with the sound design in post with foley packs (I know I'm pissing off all the professionals here), and discuss it with people, but if the recording itself is bad, then I'll never get to the sound design part. My movie is finished before it even began.

That's why I keep taking sound issues back to the first problem. The recording.
 
But I think "sound design" is the easier part of film audio. It has to do with taste and thought and whether you like something or not. But one can only embark of the "sound design" aspects of filmmaking once the audio recording portion is up to snuff, right? Of course you can plan it beforehand, but you can't start implementing sound design until the edit phase.

No, I agree with mikemcguill but I'd go a step further, in fact a couple of steps further!

You say that "you can plan it beforehand" but my question would be, plan what? Initially, sound design starts with the script. Where is the location for example? Is it two immobile people having an ordinary conversation in a sitting room with closed double-glazed windows, in a quiet suburb with nothing going on outside, no TV/sound system or other machines switched on, no one else in the house? If so, then there's not going to be much sound design! If however the house in question is near a train station/line, airport, bus depot, factory, workshop and/or there's some construction work going on nearby, someone is mowing their lawn, having a party, playing music in another room, etc., now we've got some storytelling opportunities! Furthermore, if our character/s move or fidget with something and better still, if they live on this planet and respond not only to what they see and to dialogue but to other sounds, we've got another bunch of storytelling opportunities. Now we're designing sound and just as, if not more importantly, we're designing a film to have sound! We could just throw in some background train passing SFX (for example) but unless there is some visual support, say a brief shot through the window of a train line or an exterior shot immediately before the cut to our interior, then it's never going to be entirely convincing. Once we've (visually) established trains are running, when we cut to our interior and can't see them, we can have a train rumble past wherever we want in the scene but for this to happen we obviously need a listing on the shot list, which is part of pre-production planning, not purely a post-production process. Now, this may sound like a lot of effort for just an occasional background sound which the audience are barely going to consciously notice and indeed, if that's all it was, then it would be a lot of work for little benefit! However, we aren't just making an innocuous background sound, trains make all kinds of sounds; horns, screeches/squeals and rumbles to name a few and if we have visually established the possibility of trains being present we can use any of these sounds in the background whenever we want to punctuate the dialogue, add tension, pace and/or drama to the scene or we can do the opposite and remove the distant trains going past and the sudden lack of train noise will powerfully highlight say a CU where an important/dramatic line is delivered or to emphasise a character's response or expression. There are infact almost endless options/possibilities. We could even have a character interact with the train noise, for example show a flicker of annoyance, disgust or even tut at it, which could tell the audience more about that character in less than a second than several lines of dialogue could. This interaction and element of character definition/development would probably need to be part of the script, so now sound design is even earlier in the filmmaking process than pre-production! Most no/nano budget filmmakers appear to think in terms of visuals and dialogue, if instead you allow your characters to inhabit and interact with an audio/visual world then not only can your films feel more real/believable but you can use elements in this aural world to subconsciously heighten the drama and manipulate and engage your audience several steps beyond just feeling more real/believable.

Sound design is (or should!) therefore be a screenwriting, pre-production, production and post-production process. I take your point about directors not paying enough attention to actors/acting/casting but at least they have actors! It's entirely common for no/nano budget filmmakers to simply not have any sound design in their films or just have the occasional scary bang but that's just an odd scary bang, not a sound designed film IMHO. Admittedly, sound design takes a lot of effort and time but crucially for the no/nano budget filmmaker, it doesn't have to take more money!

I understand what you're saying about implementing sound in prod and post and no, without a budget significant enough to hire a bunch of audio pros, it's never going to sound perfect or even close to perfect. So what's the solution? Simply not having any sound design in one's films seems like a very common but bizarre solution. If one applied that same solution to the other film crafts, then no one would ever make any no/nano budget films. IMO, improving one's ability to make half-films is, baring a miracle, a road to no where!

I also take your point about many no/nano filmmakers not knowing anything about sound, not talking about sound and not even knowing the difference between good and bad sound. To be honest, it wasn't until I joined indietalk that I'd had any experience of this. I've worked with well over a hundred (professional) directors, some were better than others of course but all of them had a good understanding of sound. I can only think of one or two who had much in the way of any technical understanding of audio but how to use sound as a storytelling tool ... All of them, and some were exceptional! As narrative film is an audio/visual storytelling medium, someone who doesn't know anything about how to use sound and/or has no interest in it is not, IMO, by definition a filmmaker!

G
 
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First of all, I just wanted to apologize for ruining this thread with my ridiculous, opinionated, idiotic and stupid ramblings. APE started this thread lamenting the fact that indie filmmakers at most talk about location audio, and never about sound design, and I came back with "yes, let's talk some more about location audio." My problem is that my brain can't get out of it's little box of "the location audio nightmares." Sorry ;)

I was trying to think just now about when I've ever thought about sound design, and I've only thought about it on one film (and I didn't even know at the time that what I was thinking about was sound design, but I did, and I liked it). Every other film, I'm thinking about the music complementing the action (whether I can get the music or not, thinking about the music gives me a feel for the mood of the scene). I haven't shot much that required the intensity that proper sound design brings to a scene. And in the one movie that I did think about the sound when planning my edit, I found that my plan was too intense, and I had to take some of the sound away because it was almost becoming repetitive.

But other than that, my problems with audio has been location. And so far I haven't really met any professional sound designers. The only ones I've met are also boom operators that are sound designers, or sound designers that are boom operators, I'm not sure which. So I'm not a 100% on what I'm being sold. So for the little dreary dramas that I shoot, I'd almost rather avoid collaborating with a sound designer, as I don't know what the upside of all the time spent will be, given that I'm not even sure that I need trains in the background. I almost think that some beginning sound designers have a penchant for packing too much foley into everything, to the point that the sound sometimes seems too deliberate.

Look at me being all opinionated again. About everything and everybody. I'm incorrigible. heh, heh.

Anyway. I'm trying to figure out, through this thread why it is that I don't seek out sound design advice, and how I should go about changing my approach within my budget. I don't think I know how to. I'm planning to shoot a short, in which I'll definitely need sound design, as there will be an alien zapping people with zapping beams, but I thought, I'd just buy Andrew Kramer's latest sound design pack and I'll be set. Even for this, I'm thinking of avoiding interaction with a sound designer. I don't know how to change my own mind. It feels too burdensome and costly.

As narrative film is an audio/visual storytelling medium, someone who doesn't know anything about how to use sound and/or has no interest in it is not, IMO, by definition a filmmaker!

G

Yes. I agree with this sentiment. I'm trying to change. But the logistics right now seem so costly, that I'd rather think about what little sound design I need myself, at this point. Maybe it's not so costly. Maybe it's only in my head.

It would be interesting to find out what the experiences of sound designers on this board has been, when working on no/nano budget filmmakers, and how it was awesome and why, or how it was awful and what should have happened.
 
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First of all, I just wanted to apologize for ruining this thread with my ridiculous, opinionated, idiotic and stupid ramblings.

To be honest, I was hoping for a discussion more about the advanced specifics and aesthetics of sound design rather than about what sound design is and whether one should do it. However, your posts appear to me to be quite representative of the vast majority of no/nano budget filmmakers, so maybe some discussion of these absolute basics is a good thing/useful?

so far I haven't really met any professional sound designers. The only ones I've met are also boom operators that are sound designers, or sound designers that are boom operators, I'm not sure which. So I'm not a 100% on what I'm being sold.

This raises an important point. At the no/nano budget level there are extremely few, if any, actual sound designers, although there are many who advertise themselves as sound designers. These people usually don't even know what sound design is, let alone how to do it. So I don't believe most of them are being deliberately deceptive, they simply don't realise that they are being deceptive! The vast majority have come from a music production background and even those few with an education specifically in film sound tend only to have been taught the practicalities and technicalities of film audio. At this budget level, they have almost certainly never read a script or interacted with a Director and DoP with a view of advising how to design the film for sound. Their experience is limited to being handed an essentially already finished film, fixing the production dialogue, adding a bit of Foley and atmos, maybe designing a SFX or two and then levelling it all together. It seems to be a vicious circle, directors at this budget level don't ask for this kind of advice/service, so those offering audio services never learn to do it.

It's worth mentioning that most TV dramas are made the same way, they don't have an actual sound designer as such. However, the big difference in my experience between commercial TV dramas and the vast majority of no/nano budget filmmaking is that the professional screenwriter/s and directors write and design their TV films/dramas with sound as a storytelling player in the first place! As I said though, I never really thought about any of this until I came here. Being on the audio side I thought in terms of audio/visual storytelling and so did all the directors I worked with, so I just took it for granted that's what filmmaking was and never knew anyone approached it differently or thought to question how the directors I worked with arrived at this approach. Maybe they just naturally thought about filmmaking in these terms, maybe they consciously studied it by watching/listening to films, maybe they picked it up as they worked their way through assistant and other roles before they became professional directors or more likely it's some combination. Thinking about it now, this approach is maybe the reason, or at least one of the reasons, how/why they managed to beat out the competition and become and maintain a career as professional directors! It should also be noted that even in the theatrical film world, having a sound designer collaborating in the earliest stages of the filmmaking process is a relatively new thing, the first sound design credit was in Apocalypse Now. However, thoroughly sound designed films were already well established long before then, starting with the likes of Hitchcock and Welles in the early '40s and advanced by the likes of Leone, Kubrick and others through the '50s, 60s and 70s. In other words, all these famous directors were effectively also sound designers!

In conclusion: At this stage, even if you can find a someone (calling themselves a sound designer) within your virtually non-existent sound budget, it will most likely be a case of the blind leading the blind. Even with a good sound designer though, the aesthetics of sound design and designing your films for sound is something you're going to have to ultimately become very good at yourself, if you wish to progress beyond an amateur director.

Every other film, I'm thinking about the music complementing the action (whether I can get the music or not, thinking about the music gives me a feel for the mood of the scene).

Incidental music is a most powerful weapon in the filmmaker's arsenal for eliciting feel/mood from an audience. However, it also has an unfortunate side effect, it reminds the audience that they're watching a film, it detracts from the realism/believability because in addition to the feel/mood of the music itself, it also creates a surreal feeling. This is why incidental music is usually employed together with sound, which lessens (but doesn't eliminate) this tendency.

I haven't shot much that required the intensity that proper sound design brings to a scene.

To be honest I find this impossible to believe. Are you saying that you've shot a dramatic/narrative film or short which didn't have any drama? No dramatic climaxes, lulls in the drama or any shape at all?

And in the one movie that I did think about the sound when planning my edit, I found that my plan was too intense, and I had to take some of the sound away because it was almost becoming repetitive.

That's not uncommon. Not usually because it's repetitive though but because it's simply too much going on and confusing or distracting. However: 1. Just because it didn't work as you intended doesn't mean you should just give up on the concept of sound design. I'm sure you've also experienced some shots which didn't work out visually how you intended. Did you throw your camera away or give up on the idea of ever having any cinematography in your films? 2. It's exponentially more preferable to have the visual support for too much sound than for too little. Using the train example again, we don't have to have trains running constantly throughout our scene, it may be only occasionally or even just once almost imperceptibly, if it doesn't work in the final mix how we expected/wanted. The alternative is a scene which drags and/or doesn't have the desired dramatic impact and no visual support for any sound design which could have cured this boring scene. IMHO (and experience of audience reactions and directors' instructions), boredom is the biggest audience killer of them all and must be avoided at all costs!

I'd almost rather avoid collaborating with a sound designer, as I don't know what the upside of all the time spent will be, given that I'm not even sure that I need trains in the background.

I'm sure you realise the trains I've mentioned is just an example, there are countless other background things you can use instead; car mechanic/carpenter workshops, construction or home DIY, gardening (leaf-blowers, lawn mowers, strimmers), factories/mills, farm equipment/machinery, office machinery, other traffic types (bus depots, airports, highway/road/junction), schools, hospitals, cafes/bars/clubs and many others. Each of these provide a palette of sounds and sonic colours which can simply add some realism and interest to a scene or can additionally go far further and give shape, pace and drama to aid scene, aid character or story definition/development, create mood/feel and various other emotions, etc. Personally, I would ask your question the other way around: What would be the upside of spending all your time and money to make half a film, a film deficient in; realism, shape, pace, mood, feel, character development/definition and audience engagement and interest?

I almost think that some beginning sound designers have a penchant for packing too much foley into everything, to the point that the sound sometimes seems too deliberate.

That could just be ignorance and poor judgement on their part, it could be that they know the scene is dragging and needs help and you haven't given them any visual support for anything other than some Foley or most likely, some combination of the two. Again, at the no/nano budget level none of the personnel are going to be highly experienced experts and none of film crafts are going to be executed perfectly, you do the best you can with
what you've got and if you as the director feel there's too much Foley, then direct the Re-recording mixer/audio post person to use less or make them quieter and next time give them a picture edit which provides them with more/better options.

I'm trying to change. But the logistics right now seem so costly, that I'd rather think about what little sound design I need myself, at this point. Maybe it's not so costly. Maybe it's only in my head.

Costly in terms of time; designing your script and planning your shot list for sound, filming the establishing shots and camera angles, editing those shots (while thinking about sound) and then doing all the audio post, yes, it is costly. In terms of budget/cash though, not necessarily any more costly at all.

I'm planning to shoot a short, in which I'll definitely need sound design, as there will be an alien zapping people with zapping beams ...

Again, that's not specifically sound design, it's just one aspect or element of sound design, sound FX design.

My problem is that my brain can't get out of it's little box of "the location audio nightmares."

Ah but here's one of several very useful fringe benefits of designing your film for sound. In addition to all the aesthetics mentioned above, it can often be used to hide or disguise some of the usual problems/weaknesses with the production sound. In a virtually silent room, in an empty house in a quite suburb, the production dialogue needs to be pretty much pristine because there's nowhere to hide except for room tone. Sound design does not of course give us free reign to record crappy production sound because during filming you usually can't be absolutely certain exactly how it will all pan out in the final mix but sound design does commonly present this and other types of correctional "opportunities".

G
 
To be honest, I was hoping for a discussion more about the advanced specifics and aesthetics of sound design rather than about what sound design is and whether one should do it.
Okay so let's discuss it. I remember in one of your posts, you provided an example and ran through the sound design in that scene. Can we do some more of that? go through a scene to figure out what is going on in terms of sound design, not just foley, in terms of the scene and the context of the overall story. And I personally would very much appreciate an example of a non-horror, non-crime, non-action scene, to put the power of sound design in real perspective.

This raises an important point. At the no/nano budget level there are extremely few, if any, actual sound designers, although there are many who advertise themselves as sound designers. These people usually don't even know what sound design is, let alone how to do it.

That's the problem that some directors like myself have. We almost feel like the time would be better spent learning about it and thinking about the sound design ourselves, just like we learn to edit and write scripts. I don't enjoy editing. I do it, because it's cheaper. So I do think about the sound, and what sound should be there during a scene, but I just don't discuss it with a sound designer because I think it's cheaper not to.

Here is an example of my favorite bit of sound design on my own film (and you don't have to watch the whole thing. I'm not trying to make you watch it. I'm giving you an example of my own thought processes on sound).

http://falsestudios.com/clips/flow/bl.html

So I thought about the sound when writing the script. I knew I had to have some sort of music during the text sequence at the beginning. I knew I had to have some sort of music when we first see the prisoner around the 3:00 minute mark... and then I kept that music on for too long during the whole torture scene, so during the edit I got rid of the music. But I didn't know how to get rid of it without it being noticeable, that suddenly the music was gone. So I took it out during the intensity of the punch scene at 4:50 mark. And then I added eerie music again near the end text scene at the 8:50 mark. (But now when I was watching it, I think I could have added some sort of music during the torture scene. During the edit, the music I was using seemed too much and I took it out. But I should have replaced it with something else, in retrospect)

Now, this is a short where I was thinking about what kind of music I wanted while I was writing, and I kept going through music files until I settled on the music, long before the shoot ever took place. But this is a scene where I thought I needed the music to heighten the intensity of the story I was trying to tell. But normally I shoot scenes where people are talking to each other. And other than mood music, I don't really think much about the cars driving outside when I'm writing, because I suppose I'm not experienced enough to know how those sounds or the clinks of cups or sound of taps on the table or someone talking in the next table adds to the story or the realism of the story of... two people talking,... about work/life stress for instance.

The reason I gave you the above example is to show you that I do think about sound. I just don't think about it for every kind of scene, just where I think I absolutely need to think about it because it really adds to the scene. So what I would love are examples of how ordinary scenes are significantly or even marginally enhanced through sound design.

To be honest I find this impossible to believe. Are you saying that you've shot a dramatic/narrative film or short which didn't have any drama? No dramatic climaxes, lulls in the drama or any shape at all?

Well... I shoot scenes all the time that don't "feel" or "look" dramatic, to me at least. Maybe if I had added sounds and music, things would have sounded and looked much different, looked and felt like drama. But I suppose I wasn't thinking about it because I don't realize how sound design techniques are generally employed in scenes where things don't look so climactic.

I'm sure you realise the trains I've mentioned is just an example
I know. I was using it in the same vein :)

I would ask your question the other way around: What would be the upside of spending all your time and money to make half a film, a film deficient in; realism, shape, pace, mood, feel, character development/definition and audience engagement and interest?

I'm with you. So let's go through some sound design examples already. :)
Cheers,
Aveek
 
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The problem, TrueIndie, is that one scene does not stand alone as far as sound design is concerned. The sound design of the whole film must be considered first so you can understand the sound editing decisions of an individual scene. For example, in the original "Star Wars" Lucas and Ben Burtt decided during preproduction that most of the sounds would be "organic." For instance, Burtt could have easily used synthesizers to create many of the sounds, such as the light sabers and the laser guns. However, he used real world sounds and manipulated them into the iconic sounds we know today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WJ-8B6aUM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWiuKNPqkko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ogCVi0WqrQ
 
Great videos indeed. Now I know who the sound world hero is :)

But this seems more like foley planning. What if I'm interested in sound design for something like "Still Alice," a movie where most of what happens is a family doing stuff. What's the sound design approach for something like that?
 
Great videos indeed. Now I know who the sound world hero is :)

If you want "The List" here are a few more (among many others) that have had a major influence in the "modern" era:

Gary Rydstrom
Tom Myers
Walter Murch
Randy Thom
Chris Odom
Richard King


But this seems more like foley planning. What if I'm interested in sound design for something like "Still Alice," a movie where most of what happens is a family doing stuff. What's the sound design approach for something like that?

First its' Foley with a capital "F". It is so named after Jack Foley, who codified the process and built the first dedicated Foley facility.

And the Star Wars light saber and blaster sounds are two of the most iconic sound effects in history, and you're blowing them off as "Foley planning?" What do you think sound design is? Burtt created the basics for the light saber effect before the film was shot! And what he did to bring the sound to life was revolutionary for it's time; it was fookin' brilliant!

The "Sound Design" decisions are made in conjunction with the director. This is very dependent upon the script, of course, but also upon the shooting style. Not having seen "Still Alice" I can't comment upon the sound design. But a straight drama still requires a great deal of sonic planning. Is everything going to be small and close? Big and open? What about the notional location (i.e. you shoot in North Carolina but it's subbing for Viet Nam)? How does that impact the story? Are there any visual themes/cues that need special aural attention? And a thousand other questions.

The whole point is that the visual and sound should be interactive during preproduction. The sound designer/supervising sound editor, after the initial meetings and having read the script a few times, can make some visual suggestions to support the sound design, or have a sonic way to alter a troublesome scene, or..... If required the sound team will start to create a sound library while the film is shooting, and quite often attend special effects/stunts sessions to capture what they can there. By the time the first roughs arrive there will be a sound library of hundreds, if not thousands of sound clips. And then the sound team starts building the directors sonic world.
 
Okay so let's discuss it. ... Here is an example of my favorite bit of sound design on my own film.

Okay. Your short's not bad, I watched it all the way through to the end, which believe me is a compliment as I usually can't get past the first minute or two of the vast majority of amateur/nano budget shorts and features, so well done! On the other hand, it could have been better, a lot better. There are quite a few smaller individual weaknesses but there's a particularly big one, which I'll mainly concentrate on:

Your film starts with cards, then there's a sort of intro section (where they're talking in the corridor) and then we're into the main section of your film, the interrogation and then there's an outro, back in the corridor again. Now that's a good basic "shape" for a short but within these different sections there's almost no shape at all. No shape = ineffective storytelling, little/no dramatic impact, loss of interest, loss of engagement, kiss of death! In other words, your interrogation sequence starts at a level of intensity and then stays there, with little variation until it's over, it's shape is mostly just flat. The story however is not flat, if I've understood it correctly, there's a turning point. The water-boarding effectively breaks the prisoner and he then acquiesces and says whatever the interrogators want to hear, to make the torture end. This part of the story couldn't be more dramatic, not only do we have someone (our prisoner character) being physically/psychologically broken but it's also a/the pivotal point of the entire story. So now we've identified the climax of the film and that it needs to be an intense/powerful one, how do we design and create it? There are numerous potential ways and the ones which I would come up with and suggest will depend on who you're asking me as! Are you asking me as a collaborative sound designer (during pre-production) or as a re-active sound editor (during post)? As the sound designer, I could suggest (for example) that during the hooded sequence we have a change of POV. For the whole film the audience are spectators, experiencing the drama unfold from the POV of a dispassionate, invisible "fly on the wall" but maybe for the hooded sequence we can experience the drama more personally/intensely, from the POV of the prisoner? So for example at around 6:08 when the interrogator starts putting the hood on the prisoner we could cut to a prisoner POV camera angle and then pull the hood over the camera lens. On this cut we would also change the aural POV, so that we are hearing through the ears/brain of the prisoner. We would hear/feel the hood being pulled over our head, our breathing (and then water pouring and chocking) would literally be "in your face", maybe we would be aware of our heart thumping, the interrogators' voices and other Foley would have a little more echo/distance and we could have a SFX element (I'll come back to this). We could run the whole sequence like this, in total or near total darkness until the prisoner is lifted up at 7:07 (or the hood is removed at around 7:18) or, we could cut the picture back to the "fly on the wall" POV almost immediately after the hood is put on (say 6:13) but maintain the aural POV (of the prisoner) until the hood is removed. Now, if you're asking me as the sound editor, it might still be possible to use this technique of changing the audience's aural POV but without the support of at least a brief establishing change in the visual POV, a change in just the aural POV is going to be much less effective/believable and may not work at all, so I'm much more likely to suggest a different sonic approach to this climax.

Let's go back to the SFX element, which could also tie in with another of the individual weaknesses I mentioned: Your sound throughout is very 2 dimensional, it has little depth/perspective. The dialogue and Foley are all quite "present" (medium CU, to use a visual term), which is fine a lot of the time but there's little difference/change in perspective and no background (depth of field). As far as background is concerned, you've made the typical indie error of painting yourself into a sonic corner! Instead of a secret, silent CIA building in Poland, can't our building be within a military base somewhere? A military base gives us a rich palette of background sounds to work with (even in a fairly well sound proofed room/building), rather than no palette at all: Big air transports, helicopters, tanks and/or armoured vehicles for example. A helicopter jet turbine engine could gradually fade in nicely with you drone type music during the last couple of opening cards. It could become obvious when the False Studio credit comes up, carry us across the edit to the corridor and if there were a swing door closing after the CIA agent enters, the helicopter SFX could become more muffled and distant, as the Foley footsteps get louder/more present (as the agent approaches the camera). By the time the dialogue starts the helicopter could have departed, although we could bring back in some occasional and very distant rotor blade thwacks to punctuate/highlight parts of the conversation, if we wanted. We now have the option of some depth of field in the interrogation room as well, although any helicopter or passing armoured vehicle rumble would be more muted than in the corridor. This brings us back to the SFX element; maybe somewhere around or just after 5:50 we can just make out a jet engine starting (very muffled and distant). The whine of the turbine can build (still muffled and distant) and take us across our POV cut, where it continues to build and become more present, unrealistically so, although still behind our Foley, breathing, dialogue, etc.! The engine can start to howl (as it takes the strain of driving the rotors) and maybe we can subtly fade in a blended, long human scream/howl. You might be thinking that this would be rather unreal or surreal and therefore drag the audience out of the scene but remember, this isn't supposed to be a dispassionate spectator's reality, it's supposed to be the perception of reality from our prisoner's POV, the perception of a mind being tortured and broken! Maybe somewhere around 7:00 we can fade out the scream/howl, the helicopter can also slowly fade out, lift off and depart and by the time we cut back to our "fly on the wall" POV, it's just a very distant, nearly inaudible background SFX again.

In addition to the big climax, we need a number of other smaller ones. In storytelling, either you're constantly going somewhere or you're going nowhere! Now you've got some climaxes and lulls to a limited extent already, from the delivery of your dialogue. There's some quietly delivered dialogue and some shouting (which I'm sure you're aware is often unacceptably overloaded) but it's not supported well by the Foley or music and of course we've got no background/ambience SFX to help either. Additionally, some of the shouted bits and Foley hits are louder and more intense than the big climax, turning it almost into an anti-climax! I'm also not keen on your incidental music, it's percussive in nature and clashes with the percussive nature of the Foley. The evolving drone used over the cards at the beginning would create more tension and depth and leave more room for the Foley and dialogue to "breathe", IMHO.

How much of my suggestions above is specialist sound designer knowledge and how much should a director know? Obviously this is just my opinion but a director should know pretty much all of it! Not how to physically operate recording equipment and a DAW, create depth and perspective with EQ and echoes/reverbs or blend, layer and crossfade a human scream with jet engines but the basic concepts, design and sonic opportunities. Much of what I've said isn't specifically sound design, it's first and foremost storytelling using the language of film and that's very much the director's job. Knowing where a push is needed, where the bigger climaxes and main climax are, knowing how and where POV (visual and aural) can be used to make the story more personal/engaging/compelling and how/when other audio, visual or audio/visual techniques can be employed to create shape (climaxes and lulls) and pace.

So I do think about the sound, and what sound should be there during a scene ...

That's a good start and certainly a step in the right direction but it's still only a step. In a way, it's a bit of a backwards or limited approach, IMHO. Instead of thinking of the scene and what sound should be there, think about your story, it's shape and pace and what you want your audience to experience/feel and then think about how you can use sound (and picture) to achieve this, to make your story telling the most compelling and engaging it can be. As Nolan stated in his response, "Clarity of story, clarity of emotions — I try to achieve that in a very layered way using all the different things at my disposal — picture and sound.”. Using this approach means that the sound is not defined by what should be in a scene but that both the sound and the scene itself is defined by the storytelling!

G
 
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Wow!! Thanks for that APE.

Let's go forth with the discussion.

As I was reading your bit about the prisoner POV, I was going "meh" and shrugging, as artistically I didn't care for that POV then, or now. But then I read about the sound effects during that POV scene, and you completely changed my mind. Completely. That POV with those sounds would be super, super effective. That was a great instructive moment for me. Thanks.


RE: the film background.

Yes, I agree with you. And I had originally envisioned floodlit military runways, and military personnel and vehicles moving around in a night-time scene during the intro. But this was back in the summer of 2009. This was my final student film. I didn't know how to accomplish it within a limited budget. I had only just heard of After Effects. So I dropped the idea. Even the corridor is the corridor outside the university studio/sound-stage. This was shot in one day because of compromises I had to make. The University owned 180 degrees of track. I wanted 360 for the look and feel I wanted, and I rented the other 180 degrees of track. It was expensive, but I didn't want to compromise there (Edit: so one of the natural compromises was that I had 1 day to shoot the whole thing). All the other things I didn't really care about as much, at the time.

(And just think about the situation. Everyone got other students as crew members. Somebody wanted to be dp, someone wanted to do audio, someone wanted to do this or that, but nobody said "Hey, I want to be sound designer." It wasn't even discussed. )


Let's go back to the SFX element, which could also tie in with another of the individual weaknesses I mentioned: Your sound throughout is very 2 dimensional, it has little depth/perspective. The dialogue and Foley are all quite "present" (medium CU, to use a visual term), which is fine a lot of the time but there's little difference/change in perspective and no background (depth of field). As far as background is concerned, you've made the typical indie error of painting yourself into a sonic corner! Instead of a secret, silent CIA building in Poland, can't our building be within a military base somewhere? A military base gives us a rich palette of background sounds to work with (even in a fairly well sound proofed room/building), rather than no palette at all: Big air transports, helicopters, tanks and/or armoured vehicles for example. A helicopter jet turbine engine could gradually fade in nicely with you drone type music during the last couple of opening cards. It could become obvious when the False Studio credit comes up, carry us across the edit to the corridor and if there were a swing door closing after the CIA agent enters, the helicopter SFX could become more muffled and distant, as the Foley footsteps get louder/more present (as the agent approaches the camera). By the time the dialogue starts the helicopter could have departed, although we could bring back in some occasional and very distant rotor blade thwacks to punctuate/highlight parts of the conversation, if we wanted. We now have the option of some depth of field in the interrogation room as well, although any helicopter or passing armoured vehicle rumble would be more muted than in the corridor. This brings us back to the SFX element; maybe somewhere around or just after 5:50 we can just make out a jet engine starting (very muffled and distant). The whine of the turbine can build (still muffled and distant) and take us across our POV cut, where it continues to build and become more present, unrealistically so, although still behind our Foley, breathing, dialogue, etc.! The engine can start to howl (as it takes the strain of driving the rotors) and maybe we can subtly fade in a blended, long human scream/howl. You might be thinking that this would be rather unreal or surreal and therefore drag the audience out of the scene but remember, this isn't supposed to be a dispassionate spectator's reality, it's supposed to be the perception of reality from our prisoner's POV, the perception of a mind being tortured and broken! Maybe somewhere around 7:00 we can fade out the scream/howl, the helicopter can also slowly fade out, lift off and depart and by the time we cut back to our "fly on the wall" POV, it's just a very distant, nearly inaudible background SFX again.

This stuff, the details above of the helicopter and engine and turbine noises or the the howls muffled with other sounds, hadn't even crossed my mind. Just awesome. Brilliant!

In addition to the big climax, we need a number of other smaller ones. In storytelling, either you're constantly going somewhere or you're going nowhere! Now you've got some climaxes and lulls to a limited extent already, from the delivery of your dialogue. There's some quietly delivered dialogue and some shouting (which I'm sure you're aware is often unacceptably overloaded) but it's not supported well by the Foley or music and of course we've got no background/ambience SFX to help either. Additionally, some of the shouted bits and Foley hits are louder and more intense than the big climax, turning it almost into an anti-climax! I'm also not keen on your incidental music, it's percussive in nature and clashes with the percussive nature of the Foley. The evolving drone used over the cards at the beginning would create more tension and depth and leave more room for the Foley and dialogue to "breathe", IMHO.

Yes, I accept. Regarding overloading of the shouts or the slaps. I didn't know anything about decibel levels and such at the time. I didn't even know "loudness" was a thing before 2014/15. Regarding the incidental music, when I was wrting, the music was percussive, as in my mind I wanted to give the feel of "something is about to happen, something is about to happen." But now when I think of that scene with the droning music, it almost seems more intense. So I don't know. You're probably right.

How much of my suggestions above is specialist sound designer knowledge and how much should a director know? Obviously this is just my opinion but a director should know pretty much all of it!
Yes. I agree with you. I think a director should be aware of all of it.

But now let's get back to a restaurant or cafe scene. Can we get a run through of audio during such a scene. Maybe I'll upload a scene and you can tell me what should happen there, in terms of sound?

Thanks again Ape :)
Aveek
 
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First its' Foley with a capital "F". It is so named after Jack Foley, who codified the process and built the first dedicated Foley facility.

I keep forgetting about the captital F. It's not intentional.

And the Star Wars light saber and blaster sounds are two of the most iconic sound effects in history, and you're blowing them off as "Foley planning?"

Honestly, after watching those videos, with no disrespect to anything, anybody or any profession, the best sound design elements about Star Wars seems to be "Sound Serendipity", not "Sound Design" and all the waving around seems like Foley creation, still not sound design.
 
Wow!! Thanks for that APE.

You're welcome.

Yes, I agree with you. And I had originally envisioned floodlit military runways, and military personnel and vehicles moving around in a night-time scene during the intro.

Yes, visually establishing a military base, helicopters, etc., after the opening cards would have been good but at the no/nano budget level it's most likely too expensive and/or logistically difficult a shot to obtain. Hence why I suggested establishing it purely aurally during the cards, while we've still got a blank canvas visually.

...your bit about the prisoner POV, I was going "meh" and shrugging, as artistically I didn't care for that POV then, or now. But then I read about the sound effects during that POV scene, and you completely changed my mind. Completely. That POV with those sounds would be super, super effective.

This raises several points:

1. Not to labour the point too much but again, indie filmmakers tend to think in terms of the visual rather than the audio/visual. A POV shot, executed as purely a visual technique, is rarely (if ever) convincing/successful. Although "Point Of View" includes the word "view" and therefore implies what is seen, in practice this term means; what is experienced/perceived and that means "heard" at least as much as "seen"! Importantly, this same logic applies not just to a jump to a character's POV/perspective but to any change in POV, be it a close-up, wide shot or any type of camera angle. It's the interaction of sound and visuals which give a shot/angle meaning, creates the experience for audience. So often with no/nano budget productions there are few/no changes in camera angle/perspective and even when there are, they appear to just be a visual gimmick because the audio perspective "fights" the visual perspective. The result is audience disengagement rather than the exact opposite! Again, Nolan alludes to this in his response: "I love sound cuts that play with point of view ...".

2. The reason that this POV suggestion could be so effective is because of how we are bending reality. The mistake often made by filmmakers even if they are thinking about sound, is that they effectively break reality, thereby pulling the audience out of the scene rather than intensifying their experience of the story. One often sees shorts and features (particularly in, but not restricted to the horror genre) where some sound design element is used to signify fear, terror or some form of madness in the mind of the protagonist. Most commonly the composer would be asked to create this "effect", with the predictable result that it's usually not really a sound design element at all but more of a musical element (even though it doesn't sound like a conventional music composition). Invariably, this "effect" sounds surreal, breaks rather than bends reality and disassociates the audience rather than achieving the exact opposite of dragging them deeper into the story. In this scenario, our inexperienced director is happy because the scene looks/sounds "artistic" and less bland than it did before this music/effect was added and our composer now feels justified in calling themselves a sound designer! Our director's film could well be good enough for a bunch of "likes" on YouTube, a gong at a film festival and even some few who would pay to download and watch it but because our director is oblivious to the fact that this scene/film should have been far better (from an audience experience/engagement point of view), they are never going to understand why commercial distribution eludes them. In my suggestion, our "effect" does not start life as an effect, it starts life as a wholly unremarkable and logically justified part of our "real" background/ambience. It gradually evolves and morphs but never into the completely surreal, only (hopefully) as far as a believable altered perception of reality. This brings up the question of what is perception and reality and goes to the heart of the question I asked in the OP about what Nolan meant by "impressionistic" sound design.

3. For a director, learning this audio/visual "language" of film takes years, decades even. I don't expect new directors or even those with a few projects under their belts to be particularly proficient at envisioning and planning for the completed sound design during pre-production. Neither do I expect them to try and hire a good, experienced sound designer but I do expect anyone who is serious about progressing as a director to study the sound design of good films and practise as they do the other film crafts and at the very least, learn to provide sound design options and opportunities. We've used a helicopter above as part of the sound palette provided by a military base. Similar sound palettes and sound design opportunities are available from construction sites, workshops, factories/mills, train stations/lines, etc, etc.

One last point to bare in mind; there obviously wasn't time or space to go through the sound design of your whole short, so I just gave you general recommendations and limited my specific suggestions for the opening and what I interpreted to be the climax of the piece. Obviously though, you would need to go over an entire short at this level of detail, thinking about the shape and fine detail of each shot/edit as well as the wider view of the overall shape of the whole piece.

But now let's get back to a restaurant or cafe scene. Can we get a run through of audio during such a scene. Maybe I'll upload a scene and you can tell me what should happen there, in terms of sound?

We can give that a go if you like.

G
 
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