Recycle with care! - how using new and original recordings elevates a soundtrack (Copy)
Every sound designer I know has epic sound libraries. The good ones have large sections of original material, often localised to their habitat. Wellington designers have terabytes of winds, since citizens of such a windy city are just too tempted by the enormous palette of different wind sounds available to us at all hours. Residents of big cities have oodles of files of ambient traffic recorded through the ages. Coastal dwellers have endless sea recordings. The voice of the ocean is ever-changing; and like snowflakes, no two waves will ever sound quite the same. Forests abundant with birdlife, playgrounds resounding to the screams of delight of children and pets, mountains, plains, deserts… all of these locations have their sound, and feature in the vast libraries of editors, waiting quietly to be called into service on a film.
One of POW’s sound editors is currently in her homeland, Mongolia, intending to get some well-earned rest and do some catching up with family and friends. But as she left the office, I noticed her sneaking her recorder and mics out the door with her, unable to resist the urge to capture various sonic delicacies while she was supposed to be on holiday.
Because even in this day of thousands of libraries online, hyper-promptable AI sound generators, large networks of colleagues willing and eager to exchange some of their private collections; there is nothing quite like having your own unique vault of auditory wonders to draw from.
The best designers I know spend a large amount of upfront time recording their own sounds. They then spend endless hours and late nights editing, refining, cleaning, combining, manipulating these recordings, building up palettes and arrays of completely new sonic material. If this is done outside the normal working hours of the job, these sounds become property of the designer then to be licensed to the project (while anything recorded on the Production’s dime can only morally and legally be used for that project, and becomes Production property).
Why do this?
Why spend all that time, money, effort and attention on doing something the long way? Why not just use “city traffic 001” for every background? Isn’t “red-tailed kite”, yes that ‘classic’ distant eagle screech, good enough for any old Western movie scene? “Cold wind swirling” has always worked in the past, for every film / ad / trailer / movie / tv show / music vid / game it has played in. I heard it in a film from the 70s(?) playing as proudly and as stridently as it does in films today (and it’s always the same bit, that little double modulation gust!).
I can’t speak for everyone, but I suspect the reason we constantly record new stuff is because we love to do it. No, really. We love the sound of something completely original. Something that has never EVER played in a film, or any piece of media, before. It is the telling of the story that makes it interesting. All those big war movies tell the same story of the rag-tag bunch of tribes who have to unite and defeat the evil overlord who has come into possession of a devastating weapon. Star Wars, LOTR, Journey to the West. Yet audience continue to flock to them. It is the way the story is told that makes them special. Likewise, a soundtrack is about how the information is conveyed.
Oh, so it’s windy? Well, is it a cold or warm wind? Is it dry and gritty, humid and thick, piercing, roaring, or swirly? Does it make the character (and listener) feel secure, exhausted, apprehensive, nostalgic, invigorated or lonely? No matter how much wind I record, I never seem to have exactly the right one for my scene; or to put it another way, I always relish the chance to go out and grab another.
In this way, the soundtrack of a film is a like unique painting. The more respectable the production budget, the more we’re able to give the film something no other film has, or will ever have. Like how painting doesn’t invent a whole new colour for every canvas, it’s often true that not every single sample of sound was recorded especially for that film. Only the most highly-resourced films could hope to achieve that glorious status. But like painting, the blending of multitudes of sounds in unique ways creates an endless collage of colours, tones, shades highlights and detail.
We soundies often wince at hearing an overused sound effect, plonked in hoping no one will notice; or worse, not even noticed by the plonker (…er, I mean the sound editor). Perhaps, deep down, we wonder why we should be made to listen to that sound YET AGAIN, when a world of wondrous new delights exist just in front of our microphone… siren-like, calling to us… hear me… heeaaar meeee……
Speaking of which…
