There’s a fun trope in film and animation where a character experiences an anxiety-fueled dream montage. You know, the kind where the sleeping character’s face is anchored in the center and their stressful thoughts swirl and orbit around them as they toss and turn? So how do we approach designing one of these sequences? We asked sound effects editor, Jayson Niner to design one and discuss his process. Jayson noted two main sections of the design: the transition into the trippy dream and the body of the montage where sounds are synced to on-screen elements. Take a listen below!
Layer 1 - Clock Mechanism Acceleration
The clock build is made of of two different clock ticks. Originally I just had an old grandfather clock, but when sped up the clock ticks lost a lot of their definition so I layered alarm clock ticks in as well. To speed up the clock ticks I used the Waves Sound Shifter plugin, making sure the clock sped up exponentially instead of linearly to raise the intensity. To ramp up the acceleration I also added a small propeller.
Layer 2 - Bass Dives
The bass drop is a simple low synth drop using the Vari-fi plugin along with a big bass drum hit at the beginning. This sound helps inform the audience that we are moving away from reality and transitioning into a dream sequence.
Layer 3 - Toon
When cutting cartoon sound effects in this section I had in mind classic cartoons like Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. I started with a harp arpeggio but once again used Vari-fi to detune the harp down to create a trippy effect. The spinning sound effect is a mixture of a classic saw wobble and a marble rolling on metal. Finally, I added some cuckoo bird sounds from a cuckoo clock as a cherry on top.
Layer 4 - Whoosh/Swish
Lastly, the swishes are simple dowel rod swishes timed to the clock ticks to add more motion to the spinning. I also added some big airy whooshes.
Big thanks to Jayson for chatting with us about this design! Let us know what other design breakdowns we should cover.
how do you create the feeling of panic or stress in your sound design?
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